Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said he will meet the qualifications that CNN established for its June 27 presidential debate, but he has questioned the legality of those guidelines. The independent presidential candidate filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission on May 28, claiming that CNN collaborated with the campaigns of President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump to keep him out of the forum.
Earlier this month, President Biden and President Trump announced that they would meet on June 27 in the earliest presidential debate in televised history on CNN.
According to multiple reports, President Biden’s campaign proposed excluding third-party candidates from the debates, and President Trump’s campaign received assurances from CNN that Mr. Kennedy would not be allowed to participate.
Later, President Trump said his independent opponent should be included if he meets the guidelines.
According to debate qualification rules listed by CNN, by the June 20 debate eligibility deadline, a candidate’s name must appear on a sufficient number of state ballots to reach the 270 electoral vote threshold to win the presidency. To date, the Kennedy campaign has met signature requirements for ballot access in 17 states, representing 229 electoral votes.
The Kennedy-Nicole Shanahan ticket is officially on the ballot in seven states: California, Delaware, Hawaii, Michigan, Oklahoma, Texas, and Utah.
According to Mr. Kennedy’s campaign, it has collected enough signatures for ballot access in nine other states: Idaho, Iowa, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, and Ohio.
Last week in Florida, the Reform Party nominated Mr. Kennedy as its 2024 presidential candidate.
Candidates must also get “at least 15 percent in four separate national polls of registered or likely voters that meet CNN’s standards for reporting.” The window to determine eligibility for the June 27 debate opened on March 13 and will close on June 20, according to CNN.
CNN, ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, Marquette University Law School, Monmouth University, NBC News, The New York Times/Siena College, NPR/PBS News Hour/Marist College, Quinnipiac University, the Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post are the surveys that CNN says meet their editorial standards and will be considered for debate eligibility.
According to his campaign, Mr. Kennedy has met the requirements for three of those polls. Last week, he gained 17 percent support in a Marquette Law School survey. In April, he gained 16 percent backing in CNN and Quinnipiac polls.
Mr. Kennedy has said multiple times that he will satisfy CNN’s requirements, but the FEC complaint alleges that the broadcast outlet is “illegally demanding” that he meet different participation criteria than President Biden and President Trump and that the debate is “a large prohibited campaign contribution” to the current president and former president.
CNN “colluded” with “the Biden Committee and the Trump committee” to schedule a debate with criteria “designed to result in the selection of certain pre-chosen candidates, namely Biden and Trump,” the complaint alleges.
That is “a clear breach of federal campaign finance law,” Mr. Kennedy’s complaint states.
It asks that the FEC prevent the June 27 debate from happening “until the parties have come into compliance with the Federal Election Campaign Act.”
Mr. Kennedy entered the 2024 presidential race in April 2023, when he declared his intent to challenge President Biden for the Democratic Party nomination.
Claiming that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) was “rigging the primary” and not allowing candidates to oppose President Biden, Mr. Kennedy chose to run as an independent in October 2023.
Since making that announcement, Mr. Kennedy has focused on gaining ballot access in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, a feat he told The Epoch Times he expects to achieve in July.
The DNC and pro-Biden groups have directed significant resources at thwarting Mr. Kennedy’s bid to get on the ballot in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
In recent weeks, President Trump and his campaign have ramped up verbal attacks on Mr. Kennedy, calling him the “most radical, left candidate” in the race.
Mr. Kennedy has claimed that some of the polls are misleading because respondents are asked only if they support President Biden or President Trump, and his name is included only when respondents speak up.
After initially learning about CNN’s debate requirements earlier this month, Mr. Kennedy wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter: “Presidents Trump and Biden are colluding to lock America into a head-to-head match-up that 70 percent say they do not want. They are trying to exclude me from their debate because they are afraid I would win.”
Mr. Kennedy has said he is the only candidate who will officially meet CNN’s debate requirements because President Trump and President Biden will not be nominated until July and August respectively.
A CNN spokesperson disagreed and said that the current president and former president would satisfy ballot access criteria because they are the presumptive nominees of their parties, while Mr. Kennedy, as an independent candidate, is not guaranteed to appear on the ballot in every state.
