Former talk radio host Larry Elder says he plans to sue the Republican National Committee after he was not included as a participant in the first Presidential debate.
During an interview with AM 970 The Answer’s Joe Piscopo, Elder said “I’m going to do everything I can to get up there”, including a potential temporary injunction to stop the debate from happening.
According to the list of requirements for debate participants, the RNC mandated that a candidate must have at least 40,000 individual donors, with 200 in 20 different states. Additionally, to meet the qualifications, candidates had to be polling at at least 1% in three major polls. However, the RNC told Elder’s campaign that his polling numbers in the Rasmussen poll were invalidated due to its relationship with former President Donald Trump.
Larry Elder has since claimed that if the RNC does not reverse its decision to not include him by 3:00 PM ET today, he will file a complaint with the Federal Elections Committee “for a violation of debate rules and illegal campaign contributions”.
“FEC rules governing debates are clear that rules must be clearly stated to all candidates in advance and equally applied,” Elder wrote in a post to X, formerly Twitter. “The FEC could deem the RNC’s and FOX News’ free national TV airtime and free promotional activities to SELECT candidates as ‘ILLEGAL CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION TO CANDIDATES’ — with the premise being that, free national TV airtime comes with an extraordinary real-dollar value to candidates who are arbitrarily allowed onto the stage under a certain set of rules — while other candidates are arbitrarily kept off the stage through a different set of rules. Fines for this violation could total hundreds of millions of dollars.”
