RFK Jr. Goes on Authoritarian Rant Over Not Qualifying for Debate
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. didn’t qualify for CNN’s upcoming presidential debate, and he is not taking it well.
The debate, which will take place on June 27, is set to be a showdown between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, the presumptive nominees from each major party. Unfortunately for Kennedy, CNN said he does not qualify to join them onstage.
“Presidents Biden and Trump do not want me on the debate stage and CNN illegally agreed to their demand,” insisted Kennedy, in a statement released Thursday by his campaign. “My exclusion by Presidents Biden and Trump from the debate is undemocratic, un-American, and cowardly.”
CNN gave Kennedy’s campaign until 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday, June 19, to demonstrate that the independent candidate is on enough statewide ballots to potentially earn the 270 electoral votes needed to actually win the election. Kennedy fell woefully short: His name is confirmed on the ballot in just five states, tallying up to only 42 electoral votes, according to The Washington Post.
CNN generously also counted California and Hawaii, where Kennedy is the presumptive nominee of minor parties but the states have not either confirmed him on the ballot or received ballot paperwork yet. But even including those states, that would only bring him to 100 electoral votes. The anti-vaxxer’s name was reportedly not on the ballot in some of the 13 states where he’d previously claimed to have successfully petitioned.
Meanwhile, as the presumptive nominees, both Biden and Trump should be allowed onto the ballot in every state without having to petition once they are formally nominated. The fact that this hasn’t actually happened yet seems to be what’s infuriating Kennedy.
In the statement, Kennedy’s team went on to accuse CNN of using a double standard against the widely unpopular candidate.
“CNN’s published debate criteria require that ‘a candidate’s name must appear on a sufficient number of state ballots to reach the 270 electoral vote threshold.’ CNN is holding Kennedy to this requirement but is not requiring Presidents Biden and Trump to meet this requirement by claiming they are each the ‘presumptive nominee’ of a political party,” the statement said.
The statement also threatened legal action against CNN for supposedly violating Federal Election Commission guidelines.
“This means CNN, and every member of CNN who is participating in planning, executing, and holding this debate, is at risk of prosecution, as happened to Michael Cohen, for violating campaign finance laws. This risk is now acute given that any further violation would be knowing and willful, and thus could carry with it serious jail time,” the statement said.
The brain worm–haver has continued to delusionally insist that CNN, Biden, and Trump are locking him out of the debate because they are “afraid” he will win.
Kennedy’s statement included a quote from former Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee, who ran a long-shot presidential campaign in 2020 as a libertarian candidate.
“If the American people could hear what all three candidates had to say about the critical issues facing our country, the choice between these three men would be clear,” Chafee is quoted as saying in the statement. “Kennedy would become the 47th President of the United States.”
The reality that Chafee describes looks less and less likely every day.