Kamala Harris appears on Saturday Night Live

Vice-President Kamala Harris has made a surprise appearance alongside comedian and actor Maya Rudolph on the live comedy sketch show Saturday Night Live (SNL).

Cheers from the audience drowned out the first lines spoken by the Democrats' US presidential candidate.

The pair performed a scripted exchange featuring puns on Harris's first name, Kamala, including "keep calm-ala" and "carry on-ala".

Jason Miller, a senior adviser to Republican candidate Donald Trump, expressed surprise that Harris would appear on SNL given what he said was her unflattering portrayal on the show.

Asked if Trump had been invited to appear on the programme, Miller said “I don’t know, probably not”, according to the BBC’s US partner CBS News.

During the sketch, which lasted about two minutes, Ms Rudolph performed a mirror-image double of Harris.

"It is nice to see you, Kamala," Harris told Ms Rudolph. "And I'm just here to remind you, you got this."

Speaking in sync, the duo said they share each other's "belief in the promise of America" and announced together "live from New York; it's Saturday night".

Harris also mocked a recent stunt by her election opponent Trump, in which he appeared to struggle to open the door to a garbage truck.

"You can do something your opponent cannot do," Harris told Rudolph. "You can open doors."

Trump's garbage truck stunt was in response to comments by President Biden in which he appeared to call Trump supporters "garbage", although the White House has denied that was Biden's intention.

Several other presidential candidates, including Trump, have featured on the programme during previous election campaigns.

Trump's appearance came in 2015, when he hosted the show.

However, going on the programme so close to election day is unusual.

Brendan Carr, a Republican member of the Federal Communications Commission media regulatory agency's five-person board, slammed the move as "a clear and blatant effort to evade" its equal time rule.

The federal policy requires US broadcasters to treat political candidates equally in terms of air time, and Mr Carr wrote on X that its purpose is "to avoid exactly this type of biased and partisan conduct - a licensed broadcaster using the public airwaves to exert its influence for one candidate on the eve of an election".

Asked about the surprise appearance on Fox News, Trump's son Eric said mainstream media has been against his father "from day one".

"I mean, just no one, no one trusts most of those mainstream channels," he said. "I'm not sure if the Saturday Night Live stuff is going to ultimately matter. I think it's my father's work ethic [is] going to matter."

Harris briefly stepped away from her campaign in the battleground states to make Saturday's surprise trip to New York for the broadcast.

She arrived on Air Force Two, at LaGuardia Airport, following early evening campaigning in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Harris was scheduled to head to Detroit but aides said she'd be making an unscheduled stop once she was in the air.

Her appearance wasn't announced beforehand and was only confirmed by an official moments before it began.

Polls show the two presidential candidates are locked in a tight race in seven key swing states.

Both Harris and Trump are preparing a blitz of these battleground states in the final days of the campaign.