 The DNC announced the top 10 candidates that have qualified for the September debate and that includes Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, Beto O'Rourke, Corey Booker, Amy Klobuchar, Andrew Yang, and Julianne Castro. Now absent from this list is billionaire Tom Steyer and I say good riddance. You never should have been able to run for president because he basically poured millions of dollars into his own campaign with his own money to advertise and get his name out there which is why he was able to amass 130,000 individual donations. And I just don't think that that's fair. Just because you have more money that shouldn't give you the edge over other candidates who have been knocking on doors and building up, you know, their name with presidents by talking to people. So it just, it's unfair to allow a billionaire to buy his way into the debate. So I'm glad that Tom Steyer's left out another individual that is not qualified. That includes John Delaney who poured 24 million of his own money into his campaign that just went nowhere. What's there to like about John Delaney? He has campaign events where 11 people show up if he's lucky. So he's going nowhere. It's good that he's excluded because all he's doing is spreading more misinformation about Medicare for all. And we know it's because he has investments in the health industry. So it's good that these bad faith actors will be excluded so that way the more serious candidates can actually have an honest discussion about policy issues that affect the American people. But you know, the fact that some people will be excluded who I don't believe should be excluded from that third debate, it really is disappointing. So even if we got some good news that Tom Steyer and John Delaney are left out, well we also got some bad news because also excluded of course is Marianne Williamson and also Tulsi Gabbard. And Tulsi Gabbard is the one who I absolutely feel the worst for because she received 165,000 individual donations. There is real grassroots support and online support for her, but she's still left out. So when it comes to the debate criteria, there's two things, two requirements that a candidate needs to meet in order to qualify. The first is they need 130,000 individual donations. Tulsi blew that out of the water. But the second requirement that they need to meet is they need to pull out a minimum of 2% in four DNC qualifying polls. Now when it comes to DNC qualifying polls, Tulsi Gabbard has unfortunately only reached 2% in two of them. Now when it comes to polls not qualified by the DNC, Tulsi Gabbard has reached 2% or higher in 24 of them, 24 of them. So this is a situation that is identical to the Mike Ravel situation. He reached that 65,000 individual donor threshold. He met the polling threshold, but he was still excluded and individuals like Steve Bullock and John Delaney ended up taking his place. And now even if it's the case that in 24 polls Tulsi Gabbard met the polling requirement, well unfortunately the DNC doesn't consider these polls qualifying polls, therefore she will be excluded. She only met one of the two requirements according to the DNC. Now what organizations have conducted these polls that the DNC considers nonqualifying? Well, these aren't from fringe organizations. They're fairly reputable. In fact, I'd say that they're very reputable if you take what 538 has to say with regard to their analysis of these polls. This includes Harvard Harris, Emerson, The Economist, and YouGov, Harris X, Change Research, Gravis Marketing, Suffolk University, and the Boston Globe. So it's not like these are fringe polling organizations and 538 gives them as high of grades if not higher than some DNC qualifying polls. So for example, CNN's poll is considered qualifying according to the DNC, but they have a B+, as does Emerson and Suffolk, but those aren't DNC qualifying polls. Now maybe it's because CNN conducted a poll in conjunction with SSRS, which has an A-, but the point is we're not sure why the DNC considers some polling organizations qualifying and why some are not qualifying. The criteria seems completely arbitrary and random. So what Tulsi Gabbard has done is, I think, very reasonably called on the DNC to be transparent. If some polls are DNC qualifying and some polls are not, then please release the criteria that you use to evaluate these polls because it doesn't make any sense. It seems like since you're lacking transparency here, you can just pick and choose the polls in order to include or exclude candidates that you do or don't want there. And that's not acceptable. So Tulsi's campaign released a statement, and here's a couple of paragraphs from that statement. The presidential campaign of U.S. Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard is calling on the Democratic National Committee to revise their list of debate qualifying polls to ensure transparency and fairness in light of numerous irregularities in the selection and timing of those polls. The Gabbard campaign is calling on the DNC to hold true to their promise and make adjustments to the process now to ensure transparency and fairness, crucial decisions on debate qualifications that impact the right of the American people to have the opportunity to participate fully in the Democratic process should not be made in secret by party bosses. For the sake of democracy, those decisions must be made openly with clear and consistent standards and a sufficient window of opportunity for candidates to demonstrate genuine grassroots momentum and enthusiasm. And I think that that is perfectly reasonable. So what happened to Tulsi Gabbard here is exactly what happened to Mike Ravel, except I would argue that Tulsi Gabbard even has a stronger case to be included than Mike Ravel, because she blew that first requirement out of the park. And there's enough polls where she reached at least 2% to where it feels it feels wrong to exclude her. But yet here we are. Now, Tulsi is not my number one candidate. Bernie Sanders is my number one candidate. Bernie Sanders is my first, second, third, fourth. So on and so forth choice. But Tulsi Gabbard is a good candidate. I have my criticisms of her, but I think that her being on that debate stage, it does to an extent push the Overton window to the left, at least with regard to foreign policy if she gets the chance to speak enough. So to not have her there is frustrating just from a policy standpoint. But in terms of the optics, after that debacle that happened in 2016, the DNC should be going out of their way to be fair to candidates and extra transparent. But we're not getting that here. And I'm not just going to care about fairness and transparency when it affects my candidate. The standards should be universal and they should be applied equally to each and every single candidate. There's been countless times when the Democratic Party establishment will use their institutional advantages to marginalize grassroots candidates. And I think that that is totally unacceptable. I think that making grassroots fundraising one of the requirements to qualify for the debates in the first place was a great idea. But at the same time, if you're not going to be transparent, then I mean, you're not going to garner trust. You're not going to win back the people you lost after what you did in 2016. We have to have a consistent standard and the DNC should be held to a consistent standard and we're not getting that here. The fact that we don't know why some polls qualify and some don't qualify when they are reputable based on 538s analysis and I have issues with dates, silver, I think everyone does. But I mean, just in evaluating and gritting these polls, they're legitimate. They're reputable. So I just, I don't understand why the DNC would choose some polls over others. It's almost like they have an agenda and they're trying to shut out candidates who they don't like. And we all know Tulsi Gabbard is hated and loathed by the establishment because she bucked party orthodoxy when she resigned from the DNC in 2016 in order to endorse Bernie Sanders. And at that last debate, she single-handedly killed Kamala's campaign. Kamala is hanging on by a thread. So they don't want Tulsi Gabbard to get in there and throw that death blow to Kamala Harris. At the end of the day, I feel really bad for Tulsi Gabbard supporters here. And I feel bad for Tulsi Gabbard because she's been working her butt off to qualify and then this happens arbitrarily so. But I mean, look, this isn't surprising. It happened to Mike Gravel and we're seeing this happen again. So this is why you have to be hyper vigilant and always keep an eye on the DNC because they have an agenda. They don't want grassroots funded candidates to be included in the conversation because they know that anyone who poses a threat to the status quo or speaks out against the status quo is someone who would hurt their bottom line ultimately. And with candidates like Bernie Sanders, he has so much support that they can't possibly find a way to exclude him yet based on this arbitrary criteria. But for anyone else like Marianne Williamson or Mike Gravel or Tulsi Gabbard, they will find some reason to exclude them now. It's not as clear why Marianne Williamson was excluded based on what she said on Twitter just seems like she didn't reach 2% in enough polls. But with Tulsi Gabbard, having reached 2% or higher in 24 polls, it's just dirty for them to exclude her. So they're already on thin ice. They voted down a climate change debate, presumably because the members who voted against it wanted to protect Joe Biden who has one of the worst records on the environment in that race who would only have another chance to make gaffes and word salad on a national stage and hurt his numbers more. So the DNC, they're never ever going to win back the trust of their voters or anyone who would be inclined to vote for the Democratic Party by doing things like this, by going out of their way brazenly to shield other establishment friendly candidates. It's grotesque and we absolutely have to call it out and speak out against what they're doing here because this is arbitrary and it's wrong.