RFK Jr. complains that debate exclusion "undermines democracy"

Independent Presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took to X to complain about his exclusion from a set of debates between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, which the candidates agreed to on Wednesday.

“Presidents Trump and Biden are colluding to lock America into a head-to-head match-up that 70% say they do not want,” he wrote on X. “They are trying to exclude me from their debate because they are afraid I would win. Keeping viable candidates off the debate stage undermines democracy.”

CNN, the host of the debates, hasn’t ruled out Kennedy’s participation, but its rules specify that a candidate must be on the ballot in enough states to win the electoral college by June 20. Kennedy, who had a part of his brain eaten by a worm per a report last week, blamed Biden and Trump — not CNN — for the snub, calling the pair “the two most unpopular candidates in living memory.”

Though the Democratic and Republican nominees turned away from the traditional Commission on Presidential Debates for the June event, it's worth noting that its qualifications, that a candidate needs to earn 15% of the national popular vote in five major polls, would still likely disqualify Kennedy, who has reached 15% in only around three national polls this year, per Five Thirty Eight data.

The June 27 debate, and a later yet to be scheduled match-up, will feature mechanisms to ensure that neither candidate can break rules like speaking over their time, and notably no live audience.

Kennedy, who dropped his Democratic primary bid against incumbent Biden before any contests began, has received sharp criticism from the Trump campaign — and the candidate himself — in recent weeks, after a slate of polls showed him siphoning similar chunks of support from each major party’s candidate.