Robert F Kennedy Jr poses a major threat to both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, a political and media expert said, hence the reason Biden opted to exclude him from upcoming presidential debates.
Earlier in the week, Biden announced a set of conditions for the highly anticipated debates between him and the businessman, who are likely to face off in the November election, just as they did in 2020.
The debates, of which two have been scheduled, will feature no live audience as moderators also have the ability to shut off both candidates' microphones should they speak too long. They also bar RFK Jr from participating as a third-party candidate, which Dr Todd Belt, professor and director of political management at George Washington University in Washington, DC, told the mirror is due to Biden and Trump's concerns over his candidacy.
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"Both Donald Trump and Joe Biden are worried about the candidacy of RFK Jr," Dr Belt said. He called the condition that bars him from participating in the debates "a wash", meaning that it's of benefit to both parties.
"Both Trump and Biden are threatened by RFK Jr. He's a wild card. They don't know which candidate he would draw from most, and you just don't want to give space to a third-party candidate in order to give them any sort of momentum," Dr Belt explained.
In layman's terms, allowing RFK Jr to debate with Trump and Biden allows voters to see what he stands for, which could then draw votes away from either Trump or Biden.
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Dr Belt said it's "unclear", however, which candidate would stand to lose votes to the independent. He said, "Some studies have been actually contradictory as to which candidate would be losing votes to RFK Jr."
He likened the situation to one that played out in 1992, when Ross Perot, a third-party candidate, was allowed to debate former presidents George HW Bush and Bill Clinton as they went head to head that year.
According to Dr Belt, Perot was able to "build momentum" after the first debate that year, and ever since then, both Republicans and Democrats have fought to exclude third-party candidates like him "because they just don't want to give a third option".
"They want to make sure that they can say that, 'It's me or the other guy, and the other guy is terrible'," he said. But with all the stipulations and conditions that are "advantages" to Biden, how and why did Trump agree to the debates?
It boiled down to his desperation to debate Biden, who he called the "WORST debater" he's ever encountered, who he wants to make look like a fool.
"He wants to be able to debate. This is what he wants. He thinks he’s going to be able to make Joe Biden look weak in a one-on-one debate. In his mind, he thinks this advantages him," Dr Belt said of Trump's possible reasoning.
He also said both parties are straying away from the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) and its rules, adding: "The reason that the Biden Administration was able to extract these sessions is because the Republicans had already said they did not want to be part of the debate structure that was offered by the presidential debates commission."
"They knew that they didn’t want to be part of that, and they knew that Donald Trump really wanted to debate, and so they were able to extract these concessions that certainly benefit Joe Biden," he concluded of the Biden Administration.
But the absence of a studio audience and the ability for moderators to cut each candidate's microphone will ultimately hinder Trump, Dr Belt said, providing the final 2020 presidential debate as an example.
"In the 2020 debates, in the very last one, Donald Trump and Joe Biden had their mics shut down while the other was talking until the very last segment of the debate, and that really helped Joe Biden because Donald Trump likes to bully the other person on the stage. He likes to talk over them. He likes to cut them off and interrupt them. He likes to knock them off their game," Dr Belt said.
"Trump will not be able to bully him, to talk over him like Trump likes to do. Trump wants to knock Biden off his game, to make him look weak, to make him look old. But with the mic being cut, he won’t be able to do that," he concluded.
With RFK Jr no longer a factor and Trump essentially censored, Biden may win the debates this season, with the rules favouring him significantly. The first debate will be hosted by CNN on June 27, while the second will be on September 10, hosted by ABC News.