Groups Claim Laws Will Be Broken if CNN Excludes RFK Jr. From Debate

Three advocacy groups have sent a letter to CNN claiming that the news network will be violating campaign finance laws if it fails to include Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in its June 27 presidential debate.

The letter, dated Monday from the Center for Competitive Democracy with the support of the More Voter Choice Fund and American Values 2024, argues that a debate-staging organization such as a broadcaster “must use preestablished objective criteria to determine which candidates may participate in a debate.”

The problem, as the authors of the letter see it, is that one of the criteria laid out by CNN is that only candidates who are on enough ballots by June 20 to reach 270 electoral votes are invited—and under that guideline Kennedy should not only qualify, he would also be the only person in the country to do so.

This is because, according to the letter, neither President Joe Biden nor Donald Trump will appear on any state ballot as of June 20, since Biden won’t win his party’s nomination until the Democratic National Convention scheduled for August 19-22 and Trump won’t win his party’s nomination until the Republican National Convention that is set for July 15-18. The date for the CNN debate is four to five months earlier than is typical for a presidential election.

“We’ll have enough signatures to get to 343 electoral votes,” Kennedy told Newsweek. “The ironic thing is that President Biden and President Trump won’t be on ballots anywhere, so CNN is in a jam now because they made a public offer.”

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at a campaign rally at Brazos Hall on May 13, 2024, in Austin, Texas. Three advocacy groups have written to CNN claiming that it will be violating campaign…

Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images

A CNN spokesperson responded Tuesday afternoon that Biden and Trump do meet the requirements set for the debate.

“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,” the spokesperson told Newsweek.

“As an independent candidate, under applicable laws RFK, Jr. does not,” the spokesperson continued. “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 Trump and Biden camps were also copied on the letter. Newsweek reached out to all of the intended recipients of the letter and will update this story should any of them respond.

The three entities also claim that CNN may have put itself in legal jeopardy because its own journalists have reported that the network’s guidelines “might help weed out third-party candidates that could cause problems for both Trump and Biden.”

This, according to the letter, violates a prohibition against using “nomination by a particular political party as the sole objective criterion to determine whether to include a candidate in a debate.”

Also problematic, according to the letter, is that both Biden and Trump have asked CNN to exclude Kennedy from the debates and, so far, the network appears to be complying, though CNN did not respond to Newsweek’s request for comment on that point.

“CNN gave assurances to the Biden and Trump campaigns that no other candidates would participate in its debate,” says the letter, noting that such a “scheme” would result in millions of dollars in unlawful contributions and expenditures to Trump and Biden.

The letter notes that on May 15 a CNN producer reportedly promised a Trump campaign official that “RFK will not be on the stage,” and on that same day, the Washington Post reported that “Biden advisers said that they had told CNN the president would only participate in debates that were one-on-one with Trump.”

In a statement to the press, Center for Competitive Democracy founder Oliver Hall called CNN’s criteria “a mere sham perpetrated upon the public at the behest of Mr. Biden’s and Mr. Trump’s campaigns.”

The letter also notes that CNN has adopted the same 15 percent polling threshold that the Commission of Presidential Debates typically employs, which the authors say is too high.

“As a news organization and broadcaster with a duty to inform the public and protect voters’ interest in hearing from a range of candidates representing a diversity of views, CNN should adopt a more reasonable and inclusive polling requirement, such as the 5 percent threshold,” reads the letter.

“Across five national polls released in March and April—from Quinnipiac University, Fox News, Marquette Law School, NBC News and Marist College—Kennedy received an average of 13 percent support,” CNN reported on April 22, adding that Green Party candidate Jill Stein and independent candidate Cornel West were each at three percent.

According to the results of a Harvard CAPS/Harris poll released this week, 71 percent of American voters said that third-party and independent candidates that clear a threshold should be invited to participate in the two debates, and the pollsters specifically named Kennedy as their only example.

Update, 5/21/2024 at 3:59 p.m. ET: The article was updated to add a response from CNN.