RFK worms way in
Prez hopeful says he meets qualifications for debates
Presidential candidate and brainworm survivor Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “plans to take part in the presidential debates” this year and “meets every threshold to warrant his participation,” his campaign spokeswoman told The Post.
“This week, Mr. Kennedy posted an open letter on X challenging [Donald Trump] to a debate while they are both at the Libertarian Convention later this month,” added campaign press secretary Stephanie Spear.
The Commission on Presidential Debates, which has overseen the process since 1988, mandates that any eligible candidate can participate in the process if they are polling at 15% nationally and have won entry to enough state presidential ballots to have “a mathematical chance of winning a majority vote in the Electoral College.”
Three are scheduled
All three presidential debates have been scheduled by the commission. The first is set for Sept. 16 at Texas State University in San Marcos, followed by Virginia State University in Petersburg on Oct. 1 and the University of Utah in Salt Lake City on Oct. 9.
Team Kennedy says it will meet the criteria.
“We will have ballot access in every state by the end of July,” Kennedy boasted during a recent rally in Des Moines, Iowa. Kennedy is currently on the ballot in Iowa, Utah, Michigan, California and Delaware, and the campaign has collected enough signatures for ballot access in New Hampshire, Nevada, Hawaii, North Carolina, Idaho, Nebraska and Ohio, a campaign rep said.
On the polling front, a CNN survey at the end of April showed Kennedy at 16%.
A recent Quinnipiac poll also gave him with 16%.
“I offer to eat five more brain worms and still beat President Trump and President Biden in a debate. I feel confident of the result even with a six-worm handicap,” Kennedy joked on X Wednesday, in an allusion to recent news that doctors once discovered that a parasitic worm had eaten a portion of his brain.
A third-party or independent candidate has not made it to a presidential debate since Ross Perot in 1992.
But whether the debates take place at all seems to be, well, open to debate.
Team Biden reluctant
While Trump has been raring to go, Biden’s campaign has spent months demurring on if the president — now in his ninth decade — would be willing to take on his 2020 rival in a public forum.
Biden finally agreed to a debate with Trump in principle during an interview with Howard Stern.
But his campaign repeatedly refused to confirm the president’s statement or offer any details.
A top Democratic insider said his team was “scared” of a highstakes contest. “I have seen his staff hold him back in ways that holds back the party and forces unpleasant questions to be asked about the White House and its leader,” the insider said.