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(NewsNation) — Current President Joe Biden and former President Trump are set to go head to head at the first presidential debate of the 2024 election set for next Thursday.
Biden, a Democrat, is heading for Camp David in Maryland soon, where he’s expected to do a lot of his debate preparation with his closest advisers. Meanwhile, Trump’s campaign has said he’s not doing any debate prep — but behind the scenes, they are doing some meetings and going over policy to get him ready.
Over the past several weeks, Trump has also been meeting with some of the people said to be on his short list for vice president, including GOP Senators J.D. Vance of Ohio, and Florida’s Marco Rubio.
RFK Jr. fails to qualify for debate
As Biden and Trump prepare to take the debate stage, another presidential hopeful, independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr., won’t be there.
CNN, which is hosting the debate, required that all participants had to appear on a sufficient number of state ballots to get the 270 electoral votes needed to win the election, and receive at least 15% in four separate national polls of registered or likely voters meeting the news outlets’ “standards for reporting.”
NewsNation partner The Hill and Decision Desk HQ reported that as of Wednesday, Kennedy will officially appear on the presidential ballot in five states, meaning he could potentially get 40 electoral votes. Only three polls approved by CNN had Kennedy at 15%.
Kennedy’s campaign filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission.
“We will not stop advocating for America’s desire to have him on the debate stage,” Kennedy’s communications director, Del Bigtree, said in a statement. “We will make that point all the way until the very end. And hope that all entities, the Trump campaign and Biden campaign, and CNN will recognize this is an FEC violation.”
Campaign workers for Kennedy claim they’ve collected enough signatures for ballot access in 18 other states. Those signatures still need to be verified, though, and a CNN spokesperson noted that “the mere application for ballot access does not guarantee that (Kennedy) 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.
