The campaign of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission on Tuesday, claiming that the scheduling of CNN’s June 27 presidential debate broke federal campaign regulations, as did the campaigns of President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump, and themselves.
CNN “colluded” with the Biden and Trump camps, according to the complaint, to schedule the debate and establish the qualifications for it. The Kennedy team says that this amounted to “prohibited corporate contributions” to both campaigns.
The Democratic National Committee was contacted by the Biden campaign for comment, but they chose not to respond.
A request for comment was not immediately answered by the Trump campaign.
The FEC is being asked to prevent the campaigns and CNN from hosting the debate unless they resolve the alleged violations of federal law, as requested by the Kennedy campaign.
Kennedy has been pushing to join Biden and Trump on the debate stage, and this complaint is the latest move in that effort. Since the debate’s announcement earlier this month, he has regularly maintained that he was unjustly left out of the schedule.
Candidates need to qualify on enough state ballots to be eligible for 270 electoral votes to take part in CNN’s debate. Also, candidates need to receive at least 15% of the vote in four nationwide surveys that adhere to CNN’s polling guidelines. Candidates have until March 13th to get qualifying polls; the deadline expires seven days before the debate.
Kennedy is entitled to receive 89 Electoral College votes because he is eligible to vote in six states. Three qualifying surveys have yielded at least 15% of the vote for him.
The Kennedy campaign contends that the qualifications are not impartial and asserts that since their parties’ conventions would take place after the debate, neither Biden nor Trump would be eligible to run for office in any state.
“By demanding our campaign meet different criteria to participate in the debate than Presidents Biden and Trump, CNN’s debate violates FEC law and is a large prohibited corporate contribution to both the Biden and Trump campaigns,” Kennedy said in a statement announcing the filing.
As their parties’ presumed nominees, Biden and Trump will both satisfy the requirements for ballot access, according to a CNN representative.
“The law in virtually every state provides that the nominee of a state-recognized political party will be allowed ballot access without petitioning. As the presumptive nominees of their parties both Biden and Trump will satisfy this requirement. As an independent candidate, under applicable laws RFK Jr. does not. The mere application for ballot access does not guarantee that he will appear on the ballot in any state. In addition, RFK, Jr. does not currently meet our polling criteria, which, like the other objective criteria, were set before issuing invitations to the debate,” the spokesperson said.
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