Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) criticized the Democratic National Committee&#8217;s (DNC) primary debate forum on Tuesday, putting forth that is a money-making operation that lacks substance.
&#8220;People are getting really turned off by it. They have alternatives and they&#8217;re not getting anything of value from the conversation that&#8217;s happening in these debates that are really like political reality TV,&#8221; Gabbard told host Joe Rogan during an appearance on his podcast. &#8220;They are completely set up for conflict and confrontation to drive up ratings so that they can make more money — the corporate media can make more money.&#8221;
&#8220;You&#8217;ve got 60 to 75 seconds to get your point across,&#8221; she added. &#8220;To talk about, hey here&#8217;s my position, here&#8217;s what I would do with North Korea, here&#8217;s what I would deal with immigration reform in 60 seconds or less.&#8221;
The Hawaii congresswoman noted that the steep decline in the number of Americans who were tuning in to watch the debates is evidence of a lack of interest on behalf of the American electorate. Accordingly, the first DNC primary debate in June was the most watched to-date, averaging more than 18 million viewers over the course of the two days. November&#8217;s debate, however, which was the most recent, was the least watched of the election cycle, with fewer than seven million viewers tuning in.
&#8220;You know, rather than it being this money-driven, ratings-driven venture — which the media is doing across the board, both in these debates and kind of what issues they&#8217;re choosing to cover — we should go back to the League of Women Voters who used to actually host presidential forums that would have real questions about real issues that people care about in a way that is not broken up by commercial breaks and advertisements so that the people can make money,&#8221; Gabbard said to Rogan.
Gabbard has been an outspoken critic of the DNC&#8217;s lack of transparency and arbitrary determination of which polls are deemed eligible for qualification purposes. Her campaign urged the DNC in September to reconsider their criteria after she failed to qualify and further slammed the organization for hindering conversations &#8220;between future leaders of this country.&#8221;
While the DNC declined to reconsider their benchmarks, Gabbard ultimately received an invitation for the following debates. However, she has still not met the threshold to qualify for December&#8217;s debate.
In order to nab a podium on the upcoming Los Angeles debate stage, presidential hopefuls must raise campaign donations from no fewer than 200,000 individual donors. In addition, they must also receive at least 4% of the vote in four general DNC-approved polls or 6% in two early state polls — such as those in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, or South Carolina.
Gabbard needs either one more qualifying nationwide poll or one more qualifying early state poll to meet the polling threshold, and she also needs fewer than 1,000 new donors, according to her <a href="https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/1199053032933093377?s=20">social media</a> account.
As of publication, Gabbard sits at just under 2% cumulative support among Democratic primary voters, according to the <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/2020_democratic_presidential_nomination-6730.html">RealClear Politics</a> national polling average.

Presidential Candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard Attends Los Angeles Veterans Day Service

Tulsi Gabbard Slams DNC Primary Debates As &#8216;Political Reality TV&#8217;

2020 Election

Democratic National Committee

Tulsi Gabbard

The Republican National Committee (RNC) raked in more than $25 million during the month of October, nearly tripling what the Democratic National Committee (DNC) raised, according the Federal Election Commission filings.
The RNC <a href="https://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/forms/C00003418/1364416">raised $25.3 million</a> last month, bringing the party’s total fundraising haul to $194.0 million for the election cycle with $61.4 million cash on hand. Comparatively, the DNC <a href="https://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/forms/C00010603/1364371">raised $9.0 million</a> over the same period, totaling $75.5 to-date with $8.7 million cash on hand.
The RNC also reported no debt, while the DNC&#8217;s debt lingers around the $7 million mark.
&#8220;While Democrats are focused on their sham impeachment charade, Republicans had another record-breaking fundraising month in October — the best off-cycle October in our party&#8217;s history,&#8221; said RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel. &#8220;When you look beyond the beltway, it&#8217;s clear that the American people are sick and tired of the Democrats&#8217; baseless investigations.&#8221;
&#8220;In 2020, voters will choose results over the Democrats&#8217; polarizing political rhetoric and the RNC is in the strongest position possible to re-elect President [Donald] Trump and Republicans up-and-down the ballot,&#8221; she added.
While the DNC announced that October&#8217;s fundraising haul was the best monthly fundraising haul of the year so far, the RNC continues to surpass its previous fundraising records. The massive influx of cash is the largest off-cycle October haul in RNC history — it is nearly triple what was raised in the same month in 2017, the most recent non-election October. RNC has also generated the most cash on hand since 2012.
&#8220;Fueled by record-breaking fundraising, the RNC continues to target vulnerable Democrats with ads in their districts, including a recent five-figure newspaper ad buy centered around the first day of the public impeachment hearings,&#8221; Steve Guest, the RNC&#8217;s rapid response director, told The Daily Wire. &#8220;As frustration over the Democrats&#8217; impeachment charade grows, our &#8216;Stop the Madness&#8217; campaign has brought in over 75,000 new volunteers to the Party who are ready to re-elect President Trump and secure Republican victories in 2020.&#8221;
Accordingly, the RNC launched the &#8220;Stop the Madness&#8221; campaign in September after Democratic leadership announced that the House of Representatives would be moving forward with impeachment proceedings against the president. The campaign targets those Democrats in Congress for their &#8220;extreme actions.&#8221;
&#8220;Democrats promised to reach across the aisle and work with President Trump and Republicans to serve the American people, but instead are now pushing their hyper-partisan impeachment agenda,&#8221; McDaniel told Fox News in September. &#8220;Enough is enough; Americans are sick and tired of these witch hunts.&#8221;
Interestingly, the DNC chose to release its lagging financial report in the middle of the fifth Democratic presidential primary debate.
Sean Spicer, the former White House press secretary, called the DNC&#8217;s latest numbers &#8220;embarrassing&#8221; and further stated that &#8220;the DNC is effectively bankrupt[,] which is huge problem for the eventual nominee.&#8221;
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Embarrassing. The DNC is effectively bankrupt which is huge problem for the eventual nominee <a href="https://t.co/O5R1dp3p39">https://t.co/O5R1dp3p39</a>
&mdash; Sean Spicer (@seanspicer) <a href="https://twitter.com/seanspicer/status/1197348998308253697?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 21, 2019</a></blockquote>
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The Trump campaign, in partnership with the RNC, have together raised over $300 million thus far in 2019. Last month, the organizations reported having more than $156 million in the bank.
The two organizations are actively engaged in expanding the 2020 electoral map and have signaled confidence in winning a state like New Mexico, where Trump lost by eight points in 2016.

President Trump Attends Roundtable Discussion On Economy And Tax Reform At Trucking Equipment Company In Minnesota

RNC Massively Out-Raises DNC As DNC Reports Best Fundraising Month This Year

Money In Politics

Republican National Committee (RNC)

Ronna Romney McDaniel

On Friday, Politico’s Natasha Bertrand and Andrew Desiderio <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2019/11/08/ukraine-interfere-elections-testimony-068095">reported</a> that Trump officials testified that they had not seen evidence that the Ukraine government acted to stop President Donald Trump from winning the 2016 election.
The authors call it a “conspiracy theory” to suggest otherwise. From Politico:
<blockquote>According to [Trump attorney Rudy] Giuliani, Ukrainian officials conspired with the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee to help boost the Democratic nominee’s campaign and damage Trump’s candidacy. No evidence has emerged to support that idea.</blockquote>
The “no evidence” line is the one the media likes to use a lot in the Trump era. It lets them dismiss evidence that goes against the Left’s narrative. The line could have been used in the Obama era as well, but the media dutifully reported whatever that administration told them as if it was fact.
In January 2017, two other Politico reporters – Kenneth Vogel and David Stern – <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/ukraine-sabotage-trump-backfire-233446">reported</a> that there was evidence of what Giuliani had claimed:
<blockquote>Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton’s allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found.</blockquote>
That seems to vindicate everything Giuliani has claimed.
Journalist Tim Pool, who first noticed the disconnect between the outlet’s reporting, suggested the wording from the most recent Politico story could give them leeway in their claims.
“The way Natasha characterizes what the conspiracy is gives them plausible deniability. ‘oh no we KNOW Ukraine did this, but we meant that they thought it was DIRECTLY with Clinton&#8217;s campaign,’” Pool <a href="https://twitter.com/Timcast/status/1193884100597338113">tweeted</a>.
As Politico reported nearly three years ago, a Ukrainian-American consultant for the DNC, Alexandra Chalupa, shared information she received from her Ukraine sources with the DNC in an effort to undermine Trump’s candidacy. She told the outlet she also shared the information she found on Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort’s Ukraine dealings with the country’s ambassador to the U.S., Valeriy Chaly, and one of his top aides. The aide, Oksana Shulyar, claimed that she and Chalupa didn’t work with Clinton’s campaign to dig up dirt on Trump. More from Politico:
<blockquote>But Andrii Telizhenko, who worked as a political officer in the Ukrainian Embassy under Shulyar, said she instructed him to help Chalupa research connections between Trump, Manafort and Russia. “Oksana said that if I had any information, or knew other people who did, then I should contact Chalupa,” recalled Telizhenko, who is now a political consultant in Kiev. “They were coordinating an investigation with the Hillary team on Paul Manafort with Alexandra Chalupa,” he said, adding “Oksana was keeping it all quiet,” but “the embassy worked very closely with” Chalupa.</blockquote>
The idea that there is “no evidence” that Ukraine officials helped Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the DNC to undermine Trump is the height of media bias. One can object to phrasing, but the evidence we have suggests that there was some level of coordination between the DNC and campaign and Ukraine officials.

Hillary Clinton

Politico Claims ‘No Evidence Exists’ That Ukraine Colluded With Clinton Campaign, DNC In 2016, Dismissing Earlier Reporting

Media Bias

Politico

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) has officially met the Democratic National Committee&#8217;s (DNC) threshold to qualify for the upcoming Democratic presidential primary debate in November.
&#8220;We wanted you to be the first to hear the news,&#8221; Gabbard&#8217;s campaign wrote in <a href="https://www.tulsi2020.com/updates/2019-11-07-breaking-tulsi-qualifies-november-debate?utm_source=website&amp;utm_medium=breaking&amp;utm_campaign=breaking">a statement</a>. &#8220;Today’s Quinnipiac poll out of Iowa means Tulsi will be invited back on the debate stage in Atlanta in just two weeks &#8212; continuing to speak truth to power, holding the DNC and corporate media accountable to the people and representing all of us in our fight for a more perfect union.&#8221;
&#8220;Polls should never supplant the democratic process embodied in our primary and caucus system, but they can show trends over time and our 100% grassroots momentum is growing stronger every day &#8212; especially in the critical early states where Tulsi is on the ground, speaking directly to voters,&#8221; the statement continued. &#8220;We just closed on our strongest fundraising month to date, and as of right now we&#8217;re only 8,897 donations away from hitting the unique donor threshold required to qualify for the December debate.&#8221;
A certified poll conducted by <a href="https://poll.qu.edu/images/polling/ia/ia11062019_ipgt76.pdf/">Quinnipiac University</a> shows that the Hawaii lawmaker received 3% support in the the early primary state of Iowa. The poll, released on Wednesday, marked the final benchmark that she needed to overcome in order to receive an invitation onto the stage.
Gabbard is now the tenth Democratic presidential hopeful to meet the qualifying threshold and subsequently accept an invitation onto the debate stage: Former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), billionaire financier Tom Steyer, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and entrepreneur Andrew Yang will also be participating.
In order to nab a podium on the next debate stage, presidential candidates must raise campaign donations from no fewer than 165,000 individual donors. In addition, they must also receive at least 3% of the vote in four national DNC-approved polls and 5% in two early state polls &#8212; such as those in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, or South Carolina.
Candidates still have until November 13 to reach the required thresholds, however, Gabbard seems likely to be the final presidential hopeful to qualify. To date, former Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Julián Castro is the only other Democratic contender to have met any of the benchmarks &#8212; while he has hit the fundraising threshold, he has not received enough support in any qualifying polls.
Gabbard&#8217;s campaign enjoyed a surge of attention and fundraising in the wake of a heated exchange with twice-failed Democratic presidential candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Accordingly, Clinton seemed to suggest that Gabbard is a &#8220;Russian asset&#8221; who is being &#8220;groom[ed]&#8221; to run as a third-party candidate in the 2020 election. The remarks provoked a fiery response from the Hawaii congresswoman who went after Clinton as the &#8220;queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party.&#8221; The fierce rebuke provided renewed attention to her previously lagging presidential campaign.
Gabbard announced in late October that she was going all-in on her bid for the presidency and would therefore not be seeking re-election to her congressional seat. She was first elected to serve as the representative to Hawaii&#8217;s 2nd Congressional District in 2012 after winning more than 80% of the vote. She was the first Samoan-American and first Hindu member of Congress, and has since held the seat for three more terms.
As of publication, Gabbard sits at just under 2% support among Democratic primary voters, according to the <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/2020_democratic_presidential_nomination-6730.html">Real Clear Politics</a> national polling average.
November&#8217;s debate will be presented jointly by MSNBC and The Washington Post on November 20. MSNBC revealed earlier in the week that the debate moderators will consist of an all-female panel: Rachel Maddow from MSNBC, Ashley Parker from The Washington Post, and both Andrea Mitchell and Kristen Welker from NBC News.

Democratic Presidential Candidate and Hawaii Congresswoman

Tulsi Gabbard Qualifies For Upcoming Democratic Primary Debate

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) went after the Democratic National Committee (DNC) on Sunday  for conducting a Democratic presidential primary process that is not working in the interest of the American voters.
&#8220;What I plan to do as the Democratic nominee and as president is to rebuild a new Democratic Party &#8212; one that truly represents the interests of the people of this country, that is fighting for them, fighting for their wellbeing, fighting for the wellbeing of our country and protecting our natural resources on this planet,&#8221; Gabbard told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo during an appearance on &#8220;Sunday Morning Futures.&#8221;
&#8220;I think it&#8217;s unfortunate that we have seen, especially throughout this Democratic primary, how the DNC has kind of been implementing their own pre-primary election before voters even get a chance to vote,&#8221; she continued. &#8220;I&#8217;m here in New Hampshire right now and voters here take very seriously the responsibility that they have as one of the very first in the nation to cast their votes about who they would like to see being our Democratic nominee &#8212; that is not something that the DNC or anyone should be taking away from them.&#8221;
This is not the first time that the presidential hopeful has butted heads with the Democrats&#8217; governing body, rather, she has been an outspoken critic of the DNC&#8217;s lack of transparency and arbitrary determination of which polls are deemed eligible in order to qualify for the presidential debates. In August, her campaign urged the DNC to reconsider their criteria and further slammed the organization for hindering conversations &#8220;between future leaders of this country.&#8221;
While the Hawaii congresswoman has previously ruled out launching a bid as an independent candidate if she fails to win the Democratic Party&#8217;s presidential nomination, speculation was reignited that she may after former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suggested that Gabbard is a &#8220;Russian asset&#8221; who is being &#8220;groom[ed]&#8221; to run on a third-party ticket.
Although the former first lady and twice failed presidential candidate refrained from naming the &#8220;Democratic primary&#8221; candidate to whom she was initially referring, Clinton&#8217;s spokesman Nick Merrill later confirmed that it was, in fact, Gabbard.
&#8220;If the nesting doll fits,&#8221; Merrill replied when asked directly about the congresswoman.
The remarks provoked a fierce rebuke from Gabbard who subsequently went after Clinton as the &#8220;queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party.&#8221; The heated exchange provided renewed attention to her previously lagging presidential campaign.
Bartiromo addressed the rumors and questioned if Gabbard was mulling over a third-party bid amid the speculation.
&#8220;I am not,&#8221; Gabbard replied. &#8220;I have said numerous times that I would not run as a third-party candidate.&#8221;
&#8220;The perpetuation of that rumor has come from political opponents who really are just trying to create some kind of strange suspicion that I might do something else to try to undermine the support that we are getting from Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Libertarians, who are saying hey look, we want to come and vote for you in the Democratic primary because of the unifying message and leadership that I will bring to this country,&#8221; she added.

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard Calls On U.S. Government To Release 9/11 Documents Implicating Saudi Arabia In Attacks

Tulsi Gabbard Takes A Shot At The DNC, Says She Will &#8216;Rebuild A New Democratic Party&#8217;

Democratic Party

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) revealed on Thursday morning that she has officially qualified to participate in the Democratic National Committee&#8217;s (DNC) fifth presidential primary debate in Georgia.
&#8220;We just qualified for the November Democratic debate! Thanks to everyone for working so hard, making a small donation, and helping us grow our momentum,&#8221; Klobuchar said on Twitter. &#8220;We&#8217;ve made so much progress, but we need to keep going. Donate to our campaign today!&#8221;
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We just qualified for the November Democratic debate! Thanks to everyone for working so hard, making a small donation, and helping us grow our momentum. We’ve made so much progress, but we need to keep going. Donate to our campaign today! <a href="https://t.co/iVg91M9DTq">https://t.co/iVg91M9DTq</a>
&mdash; Amy Klobuchar (@amyklobuchar) <a href="https://twitter.com/amyklobuchar/status/1187374005906542592?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 24, 2019</a></blockquote>
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A certified poll conducted by <a href="https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=3646">Quinnipiac University</a> shows that the Minnesota lawmaker received 3% support in the nationwide contest. The poll, released on Tuesday, marks the final benchmark that she needed to overcome on order to receive an invitation onto the stage.
Klobuchar enjoyed a surge of attention and fundraising in the wake of her performance in last week&#8217;s debate in Ohio. The three-term senator has positioned herself as one of the more moderate Democrats seeking the party&#8217;s nomination.
While appearing on the debate stage, Klobuchar clashed with her progressive rivals and publicly criticized their signature policy proposal, Medicare for All. She notably attacked Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) for not being forthcoming with the American people and failing to admit that she would likely have to raise taxes in order to help fund the estimated $34 trillion plan.
In the 24 hours following the debate, Klobuchar&#8217;s campaign announced that it had generated $1.1 million in donations, making it the best day of online fundraising yet. The money is a significant haul for Klobuchar, who reported $4.8 million in third quarter donations and $3.9 million in second quarter donations.
Klobuchar is now the ninth presidential hopeful to meet the qualifying threshold and subsequently accept an invitation onto the debate stage: Former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), financier Tom Steyer, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and entrepreneur Andrew Yang will also be participating.
In order to nab a podium on the upcoming Georgia debate stage, presidential hopefuls must raise campaign donations from no fewer than 165,000 individual donors. In addition, they must also receive at least 3% of the vote in four general DNC-approved polls and 5% in two early-state polls – such as those in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, or South Carolina.
Former Rep. Beto O&#8217;Rourke (D-TX), Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), and former House and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Julián Castro all participated in October&#8217;s debate, but have not yet qualified for any future debates. While all three Democratic contenders have met the donor benchmark, they are still short of meeting the polling threshold.
To date, O&#8217;Rourke, Gabbard, and Castro have received 3% support in two, one, and zero DNC-approved polls, respectively. None of these candidates have hit 5% in an early voting state poll. Candidates still have until November 13 to reach the required threshold and qualify.
November&#8217;s debate will be presented jointly by MSNBC and The Washington Post on November 20. MSNBC revealed earlier in the week that the debate moderators will consist of an all-female panel: Rachel Maddow from MSNBC, Ashley Parker from The Washington Post, and both Andrea Mitchell and Kristen Welker from NBC News.

Democratic Presidential Candidates Participate In Fourth Debate In Ohio

Amy Klobuchar Qualifies For Next DNC Debate

Amy Klobuchar

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) announced on Monday that she will be participating in the upcoming Democratic National Committee (DNC) presidential primary debate after publicly considering boycotting the event.
&#8220;I will be attending the debate,&#8221; Gabbard told her supporters on Twitter. She refrained from providing any further information regarding her decision.
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I will be attending the debate.
&mdash; Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) <a href="https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/1183716774476312576?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 14, 2019</a></blockquote>
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The announcement comes nearly a week after the Hawaii congresswoman revealed that she was mulling over launching her own boycott against the DNC&#8217;s &#8220;rigged&#8221; primary election process and therefore decline to participate in the October 15th debate as a form of protest.
&#8220;There are so many of you that I&#8217;ve had the opportunity to meet in Iowa and New Hampshire who have expressed to me how frustrated you are that the DNC and the corporate media are essentially trying to usurp your role as voters in choosing who our Democratic nominee will be,&#8221; Gabbard said at the time. &#8220;I share your concerns.&#8221;
&#8220;They are attempting to replace the roles of voters in the early states using polling and other arbitrary methods, which are not transparent or democratic, and they&#8217;re holding so-called debates, which are really not debates at all but rather commercialized reality television meant to entertain rather than inform or enlighten,&#8221; she continued. &#8220;The DNC and the corporate media are trying to hijack the entire election process, so in order to bring attention to this serious threat to our democracy and to ensure that your voice is heard, I&#8217;m seriously considering boycotting the next debate.&#8221;
Gabbard met the DNC&#8217;s threshold to qualify for the upcoming debate after failing to qualify for the previous debate in September.
In order to nab a podium on the next debate state in Westerville, Ohio, presidential candidates must have raised campaign donations from no fewer than 130,000 individual donors and receive at least 2% of the vote in four or more polls that have been pre-approved by the DNC.
Gabbard was the twelfth and final presidential hopeful to meet the qualifying benchmark and subsequently accept an invitation onto the debate stage: Former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), financier Tom Steyer, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and entrepreneur Andrew Yang will also be participating.
Gabbard, however, has been an outspoken critic of the DNC&#8217;s lack of transparency and arbitrary determination of which polls are deemed eligible for qualification purposes. Her campaign urged the DNC in September to reconsider their criteria and further slammed the organization for hindering conversations &#8220;between future leaders of this country.&#8221;
&#8220;Rep. Gabbard has exceeded the 2% support in 26 national and early state polls, but only two of them are on the DNC&#8217;s &#8216;certified&#8217; list,” Gabbard&#8217;s campaign wrote to the DNC. &#8220;Many of the uncertified polls, including those conducted by highly reputable organizations such as The Economist and The Boston Globe are ranked by Real Clear Politics and FiveThirtyEight as more accurate than some &#8216;certified&#8217; polls.&#8221;
While the DNC declined to reconsider their benchmarks, Gabbard ultimately received an invitation for October&#8217;s debate after a certified poll conducted by <a href="https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/monmouthpoll_NH_092419/">Monmouth University</a> shows that the Hawaii congresswoman received 2% support in the early voting state of New Hampshire.

Democratic Presidential Candidates Attend Iowa Democratic Party Hall Of Fame Celebration

After Blasting &#8216;Rigged&#8217; Primary, Tulsi Gabbard Decides Against Debate Boycott

The Blaze has released an audio recording that they recently obtained that appears to show Artem Sytnyk, Director of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, admitting that he tried to boost the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton by sabotaging then-candidate Donald Trump&#8217;s campaign.
The connection between the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Ukrainian government was veteran Democratic operative Alexandra Chalupa, &#8220;who had worked in the White House Office of Public Liaison during the Clinton administration&#8221; and then &#8220;went on to work as a staffer, then as a consultant, for Democratic National Committee,&#8221; <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/ukraine-sabotage-trump-backfire-233446">Politico</a> reported.
Chalupa was working directly with the Ukrainian embassy in the United States to raise concerns about Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and, according to Politico, she indicated that the Embassy was working &#8220;directly with reporters researching Trump, Manafort and Russia to point them in the right directions.&#8221;
The Ukrainian embassy political officer who worked at the embassy at the time, Andrii Telizhenko, stated that the Ukrainians &#8220;were coordinating an investigation with the Hillary team on Paul Manafort with Alexandra Chalupa&#8221; and that “the embassy worked very closely with” Chalupa.
The Blaze highlighted an email from WikiLeaks from Chalupa to Louise Miranda at the DNC:
<blockquote>Hey, a lot coming down the pipe. I spoke to a delegation of 68 investigative journalists from Ukraine last night at the Library of Congress, the Open World Society forum. They put me on the program to speak specifically about Paul Manafort. I invited Michael Isikoff, who I&#8217;ve been working with for the past few weeks, and connected him to the Ukrainians. More offline tomorrow, since there was a big Trump component you and Lauren need to be aware of that will hit in the next few weeks. Something I&#8217;m working on that you should be aware of.</blockquote>
<a href="https://www.theblaze.com/glenn-radio/dnc-ukraine-collusion-sytnyk">The Blaze</a> then reported that Sytnyk, who eventually &#8220;was tried and convicted in Ukraine for <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/ukrainian-officials-meddled-in-2016-election-by-leaking-secret-manafort-ledger-court-says">interfering</a> in the U.S. presidential election in 2016,&#8221; released a &#8220;black ledger&#8221; on Manafort during the 2016 presidential election that eventually led to Manafort&#8217;s downfall.
&#8220;So here he is. He is admitting to tampering with our elections. Admitted working with the Hillary Clinton campaign,&#8221; Glenn Beck said during a <a href="https://youtu.be/kuvfYE7ZdL0">2-hour special presentation</a> by The Blaze on Ukraine&#8217;s interference in the U.S. election. &#8220;He is actually convicted in the highest court in the land in Ukraine. This is all front page news in Ukraine, while we are saying, &#8216;Was there anyone tampering with the election?'&#8221;
In audio exclusively obtained by The Blaze, Sytnyk appeared to admit that he worked to boost Clinton by harming Trump&#8217;s campaign by releasing the &#8220;black ledger.&#8221; Sytnyk also essentially admitted that Trump was better for America than Clinton was because Clinton belonged to the establishment while Trump&#8217;s focus was solely on promoting America.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
&#8220;I don&#8217;t know how, but the Americans got an audio recording of Mr. Sytnik&#8217;s conversation: He is resting with his family &amp; friends &amp; discussing how he would like to help Hillary.&#8221;<a href="https://twitter.com/glennbeck?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@glennbeck</a> reveals the Ukraine transcript the media isn&#8217;t talking about.<a href="https://t.co/fZHzqMCZbV">https://t.co/fZHzqMCZbV</a> <a href="https://t.co/9jyMLVwdEB">pic.twitter.com/9jyMLVwdEB</a>
— BlazeTV (@BlazeTV) <a href="https://twitter.com/BlazeTV/status/1180309130164109312?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 5, 2019</a></blockquote>
Transcript of the translated Ukrainian tape:
<blockquote>Kolya: Did they, those Russians, help Trump? Your people?
Sytnyk: I think they did. Yeah. I helped him, too. Not him, but Hillary. I helped her.
Kolya: Yeah. Right. Then her position tottered, right?
Sytnyk: Well, this is how they write about it, right.
Ivan: Hillary&#8217;s humanitarian aid &#8230; [indiscernible.]
Kolya: Well, I&#8217;m about &#8230; the commentaries. At the time, we were not [indiscernible.]
Sytnyk: Trump &#8230; his purely inner problem &#8230; issue &#8230; they dominate over the external matters. While Hillary, she is – how shall I put it? She belongs to the cohort of politicians who comprise the hegemony in the U.S. Both in the U.S. and the entire world, right? For us, it&#8217;s &#8230; sort of &#8230; better. For Americans &#8230; what Trump is doing is better for them.
Kolya: Well, we have lots of those American experts here now &#8230; [indiscernible.]
Sytnyk: Well, there, you see why Hillary lost the elections? I was in charge of the investigation of their &#8220;black accounting&#8221; records. We made the Manafort&#8217;s data available to general public.
Kolya: So what?
Sytnyk: He was imprisoned. Manafort then was the head of the Supreme Headquarter of Trump, right? Then he was dismissed, too, including due to the &#8220;black accounting.&#8221; After that, he was sentenced to 80 years of imprisonment term. How about Trump? Did he not give a s***. They have their system working there and it works smoothly.
Kolya: Everybody worked smoothly there.
Sytnyk: And when they carried out the elections, a week before the elections, the FBI reopened the investigation in respect of Hillary. So her rating dropped for 7 percent and that&#8217;s why Trump managed to win the elections at a pinch. I&#8217;m still unable to understand why he&#8217;s fighting with the FBI. They try to catch him on the hand. If it were not the FBI, he would not have won the elections. They torpedoed Hillary&#8217;s ratings for 7 percent.</blockquote>

BOMBSHELL: Audio, Email Evidence Shows DNC Colluded With Ukraine To Boost Hillary By Harming Trump, Report Says

Donald Trump

Glenn Beck

Paul Manafort

Ukraine

Trump

GOP Senators Say Hillary, DNC Colluded With Ukraine To Undermine Trump Campaign, Press DOJ To Probe

2016

Hillary Clinton 2016

Senate Judiciary Letter To DOJ: Ukraine Helped Clinton Campaign, DNC

Charles Grassley

U.S. Senate

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) has officially met the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) threshold to qualify for the upcoming Democratic presidential primary debate in October.
In order to nab a podium on the next debate state in Westerville, Ohio, presidential candidates must raise campaign donations from no fewer than 130,000 individual donors and receive at least 2% of the vote in four or more polls that have been pre-approved by the DNC.
A certified poll conducted by <a href="https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/monmouthpoll_NH_092419/">Monmouth University</a> shows that the Hawaii congresswoman received 2% support in the early voting state of New Hampshire. The poll, released on Tuesday, marks the final benchmark that she needed to overcome on order to receive an invitation onto the stage.
Gabbard is now the twelfth presidential hopeful to meet the qualifying threshold and subsequently accept an invitation onto the debate stage: Former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), financier Tom Steyer, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and entrepreneur Andrew Yang will also be participating.
Notably, both Steyer and Gabbard failed to meet the criteria to appear in September&#8217;s debate in Houston, Texas.
Gabbard, however, has been an outspoken critic of the DNC&#8217;s lack of transparency and arbitrary determination of which polls are deemed eligible for qualification purposes. Her campaign urged the DNC to reconsider their criteria and further slammed the organization for hindering conversations &#8220;between future leaders of this country.&#8221;
&#8220;The DNC set a threshold that candidates must meet at least 2% in four DNC-certified polls in order to qualify for the third and fourth Democratic primary debates,&#8221; the campaign wrote in a statement in August. &#8220;However, the DNC has not released their criteria for selecting the 16 polling organizations they deem &#8216;certifiable.'&#8221;
&#8220;Rep. Gabbard has exceeded the 2% support in 26 national and early state polls, but only two of them are on the DNC&#8217;s &#8216;certified&#8217; list,&#8221; the statement continued at the time. &#8220;Many of the uncertified polls, including those conducted by highly reputable organizations such as The Economist and The Boston Globe are ranked by Real Clear Politics and FiveThirtyEight as more accurate than some &#8216;certified&#8217; polls.&#8221;
Gabbard is likely to be the final presidential contender to receive an invitation onto the fourth debate stage. Qualifications for participating in the event end on October 1 and author Marianne Williamson is the only remaining candidate to have passed the donor threshold. Williamson, however, is still three DNC-approved polls short of hitting the benchmark.
The DNC announced on Monday that it will be raising the criteria for the fifth debate in an attempt to further narrow down the crowded Democratic primary field.
In order to receive an invitation onto November&#8217;s debate stage, presidential candidates must raise campaign donations from no fewer than 165,000 individual donors. In addition, they must also receive at least 3% of the vote in four general DNC-approved polls and 5% in two early-state polls — such as those in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, or South Carolina.

tulsigabbard.jpg

Tulsi Gabbard Qualifies For Upcoming Presidential Debate

The Republican National Committee (RNC) raked in more than $23 million during the month of August, nearly tripling what the Democratic National Committee (DNC) raised, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings.
The RNC <a href="https://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/forms/C00003418/1353552/">raised $23.5 million</a> last month, bringing the party&#8217;s total fundraising haul to $141.4 million for the election cycle. Comparatively, the DNC <a href="https://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/forms/C00010603/1353586/">raised $7.9 million</a> over the same period, totaling $59.5 million to date.
&#8220;Thanks to the boycotts from Hollywood liberals and the Castro brothers doxxing private citizens who support President [Donald] Trump, the RNC&#8217;s fundraising hit record levels in August,&#8221; said RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel. &#8220;The more Democrats demonize President Trump and his supporters, the more boots we can put on the ground to re-elect him.&#8221;
&#8220;Between the president&#8217;s accomplishments and our grassroots infrastructure, Republicans are going to be unstoppable in 2020,&#8221; she added.
For the third month in a row, the RNC&#8217;s fundraising haul surpassed its previous record for the most raised during a non-election year. In addition, the RNC posted the biggest off-cycle August in history for either national party committees. Accordingly, the RNC currently has 6.5 times more cash on hand than its Democratic counterpart.
&#8220;The momentum is on our side heading into President Trump&#8217;s re-election year,&#8221; Steve Guest, the RNC&#8217;s Rapid Response Director told The Daily Wire. &#8220;And while we are focused on building out the necessary infrastructure to win in November 2020, it&#8217;s clear that the DNC will be nothing more than a millstone around the neck of their eventual nominee.&#8221;
Guest also pointed out the DNC&#8217;s high burn rate. According to FEC filings, the party spent more than $750,000 above what they brought in during the month of August and further increased its debt by $1.7 million since July.
&#8220;What are we doing with our massive fundraising advantage? We&#8217;re building the largest field program and most expansive data operation in party history,&#8221; Guest explained. He also noted that the RNC is continuing to &#8220;invest in our unparalleled data-driven ground game to help re-elect President Trump and Republicans up and down the ballot.&#8221;
The Trump campaign, in partnership with the RNC, is actively engaged in expanding the 2020 electoral map. The two organizations have signaled confidence in winning a state like New Mexico, where Trump lost by 8 points in 2016.
In addition to holding his first rally in the Land of Enchantment in September, the RNC-Trump Campaign coalition launched a <a href="https://twitter.com/kayleighmcenany/status/1173634899456094221?s=20">New Mexico Victory Leadership team</a>, which included hiring a regional political director and a state director to help turn New Mexico red.
The RNC also touted the partnership&#8217;s new &#8220;Make Campus Great Again&#8221; program that seeks to provide students the support they need to stand up and speak up on their college campuses.
&#8220;Freedom of thought is being suppressed in college classrooms across America,&#8221; McDaniel said at the time. &#8220;Conservative students, in particular, are being bullied by liberal professors and peers to either submit to the socialist, Leftist ideology or sit quietly.&#8221;
The program kicked off only a week ago and has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/51951/trump-victory-launches-make-campus-great-again-ashe-schow">already exceeded attendance</a> expectations.

Donald Trump Thumbs Up

RNC Reports Another Record Breaking Fundraising Month, DNC Struggles To Catch Up

A new report states that the Democratic Party, supported by the Bill Clinton White House, launched an effort prior to the 1996 election to inundate radio talk shows with thousands of callers who posed as ordinary listeners but in reality were operatives who pushed the Democrats’ talking points.
The Washington Free Beacon’s Yuichrio Kakutani, in a <a href="https://freebeacon.com/politics/dems-secretly-fielded-thousands-of-activists-to-manipulate-media-clinton-library-docs-show/">comprehensive report</a>, notes that evidence of the Democrats’ secret plan, titled the Talk Radio Initiative (TRI), was gleaned from documents from the Clinton Presidential Library. The plan was triggered by the overwhelming victory the GOP won in the 1994 congressional elections, gaining control of the House of Representatives for the first time since 1954. An internal report by the Democratic National Committee stated of the plans for TRI, &#8220;Democrats have largely ignored talk radio, and only since the last election, have we paid attention to how we can win back the airwaves and the discussion. We have now put our frustration into action.&#8221;
Michigan Democrats created a TRI guide which stated, &#8220;Volunteers must be able to keep the project confidential so as not to create the image of a &#8216;Democratic conspiracy&#8217; to infiltrate Detroit area talk radio shows. Democratic performance in the 1996 elections will no doubt be affected by the success or failure of this initiative … If you are afraid that producers are beginning to recognize your name and are weary of allowing you on the air, use an alias. For example, be Carol today, Sue tomorrow, and Debbie on Friday!&#8221;
More instructions for TRI operatives included, &#8220;Sound dumb. Even though you may have indicated a difference of opinion with the host, appear to present an opportunity for him to demolish you with his &#8216;superior&#8217; intelligence.&#8221;
Radio host Lars Larson recalled to the Beacon, &#8220;You would get calls, an hour apart, from different people with different voices and different names, but they would talk the same lines. So close that you knew that this was not a coincidence. It was the same language on the same subject and the same arguments … They seemed to come in waves. You would start getting seminar calls on Monday and Tuesday and you say ‘we are going to start getting these all week long,&#8217; as though someone has just put out the word that this is a point that needs to be pushed.&#8221;
Kakutani notes, &#8220;The materials revealed that Democrats systematically trained more than 4,000 operatives in at least 23 states to lie about their identities, deflect difficult questions from hosts, and plant pro-Democrat messages on the radio waves.&#8221;
Evidence of the Clinton White House’s involvement: TRI Director Jon-Christopher Bua allegedly wrote a memo to White House Deputy Chief of Staff Harold Ickes in April 1996 which stated, &#8220;My office is now coordinating closely with talk radio shops in the White House, Federal Departments and Agencies, the House, the Senate, and [the] ones I have helped set up in the State Parties.&#8221; Ickes reportedly sent the memo to President Bill Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, and Chief of Staff Leon Panetta, among others.
Rush Limbaugh, who was the giant of radio show hosts and the arch-foe of the Clintons, <a href="https://news.iheart.com/featured/rush-limbaugh/content/2019-09-10-pn-rush-limbaugh-bill-clinton-couldnt-abide-criticism-by-one-radio-show-trump-has-entire-media-against-him/">commented on Tuesday</a> about the evidence of the initiative the Democrats had launched. He recalled:
<blockquote>The point is this. Back in &#8217;92, &#8217;93, this show was it, folks. CNN was out there, but they were all on Clinton&#8217;s side. There wasn&#8217;t Fox News. There wasn&#8217;t the blogosphere yet. And Bill Clinton went nuts with one radio show, a three-hour radio show, that&#8217;s all the opposition he had, he went nuts about it.
He called KMOX in St. Louis from Air Force One to complain about this program and how there was no Truth Detector after it. There was nobody to set the record straight. Here&#8217;s the note. &#8220;My name is blah, blah. I&#8217;m a reporter for the blah, blah. We&#8217;re working on a story regarding a confidential document that we uncovered from the Clinton library detailing White House involvement with the effort to train callers to call into conservative talk shows around the country. I know this is something Rush has always suspected, that he used to be identify these trained callers –&#8221; That&#8217;s right. They were seminars callers.
Here&#8217;s my point. Bill Clinton went crazy &#8212; well, that may be a bit of a &#8212; Bill Clinton was totally bamboozled by one three-hour radio show. Blaming me for the Oklahoma City bombing, anything he could talk about. One radio show. And then, of course, there became more as Clinton&#8217;s term began.</blockquote>

The Clintons At Inauguration 1997

Report: Democrats, Supported By Clinton White House, Trained Thousands Of Operatives To Infiltrate Radio Talk Shows

Bill Clinton

Rush Limbaugh

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) sent a letter to qualifying campaigns ahead of its third presidential primary debate, warning the Democratic presidential candidates not to use vulgar language while on the debate stage.
&#8220;We wanted to take this opportunity to remind you that, as the debate will air on the ABC broadcast network, we are governed by Federal Communication Commission indecency rules,&#8221; the DNC wrote in a letter obtained by Axios. &#8220;We will not be broadcasting on any delay, so there will be no opportunity to edit out foul language. Candidates should therefore avoid cursing or expletives in accordance with federal law and FCC guidelines.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Source sent me this email from DNC on behalf of ABC to the campaigns ahead of the Houston debate.
Paging <a href="https://twitter.com/BetoORourke?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@BetoORourke</a> lol <a href="https://t.co/6pjXFvOGOL">pic.twitter.com/6pjXFvOGOL</a>
— Alexi McCammond (@alexi) <a href="https://twitter.com/alexi/status/1171456785976156164?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 10, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
The letter comes as former Rep. Beto O&#8217;Rourke (D-TX) has been receiving attention for the uptick in curse words that he has been espousing while on the campaign trail.
The failed Texas U.S. Senate candidate first made headlines with his vulgar language while conceding the statewide race to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) as part of the 2018 midterm election cycle.
&#8220;All of you showing the country how you do this — I am so f***ing proud of you guys,&#8221; O&#8217;Rourke told the crowd in November. While he received wild cheers at the time, he later swore that he would no longer curse after announcing his bid for the presidency.
The pledge, however, did not last long.
In the aftermath of a deadly shooting in El Paso, Texas, O&#8217;Rourke was asked by reporters if it was possible for President Donald Trump to do anything &#8220;to make this better.&#8221;
&#8220;Um, what do you think? You know the s**t he&#8217;s been saying,&#8221; O&#8217;Rourke replied. &#8220;He&#8217;s been calling Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals. I don&#8217;t know. Like, members of the press — what the f***? It&#8217;s these questions that you know the answers to, I mean, connect the dots.&#8221;
The aggressive response was considered by many to be a testament to his authenticity. <a href="https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Beto-come-home-Texas-needs-you-Editorial-14294396.php?utm_source=&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=24082">The Houston Chronicle</a> praised the vulgarity, arguing that it is a human moment &#8220;more telling than a season of advertisements.&#8221;
&#8220;Is that language presidential? Not normally. It certainly isn&#8217;t the normal fare for an editorial page in the Sunday paper, either, with or without the asterisks,&#8221; the Chronicle wrote.&#8221;But it struck us as so unscripted, so unexpected, that its offense was somehow washed away.&#8221;
O&#8217;Rourke&#8217;s campaign seemingly noticed the attention-grabbing language and, by September, the Democratic presidential hopeful was selling &#8220;This is f***ed up&#8221; t-shirts as a nod to his own response after another deadly shooting outside of Odessa, Texas.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">New in the store&#8230;
100% of the proceeds will benefit <a href="https://twitter.com/MomsDemand?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@MomsDemand</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/AMarch4OurLives?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AMarch4OurLives</a>.
This is fucked up. We can change it. <a href="https://t.co/PFRWFCypAl">https://t.co/PFRWFCypAl</a> <a href="https://t.co/Us1V4mz1cf">pic.twitter.com/Us1V4mz1cf</a>
— Team Beto (@TeamBeto) <a href="https://twitter.com/TeamBeto/status/1168238254593925120?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 1, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
The DNC is preparing for its third presidential primary debate, which will be held on September 12 in Houston, Texas. Because of the relatively high threshold to qualify, only 10 of the candidates in the crowded Democratic primary field were able to qualify.
Accordingly, the organization faced blowback for the high barrier to entry to appear on the debate stage — especially from many of the candidates who fell short of receiving an invitation.
&#8220;The DNC is stifling debate at a time when we need it the most,&#8221; Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) said during the DNC&#8217;s annual summer meeting. &#8220;We&#8217;re rewarding celebrity candidates with millions of Twitter followers, billionaires who buy their way onto the debate stage, and candidates who have been running for president for years.&#8221;
Bennet&#8217;s remarks came the same day that Rep. Tulsi Gabbard&#8217;s (D-HI) campaign criticized the DNC for abdicating its responsibility to &#8220;facilitate more conversations.&#8221;

Beto O&#8217;Rourke

DNC Warns Candidates Not To Swear During The Debate, As O’Rourke Racks Up The F-Bombs

Beto O'Rourke

On Wednesday, 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) appeared on Fox News&#8217; &#8220;Tucker Carlson Tonight&#8221; to discuss not having made the cut for the next debate, which is scheduled for September 12.
<blockquote>CARLSON: Tell me if I&#8217;m misstating this. The Democratic Party is refusing to – the DNC is refusing to recognize as valid polls that puts you, that would qualify you for the next debate.
GABBARD: Oh, here&#8217;s the situation. There&#8217;s a whole bunch of different polls that have come out. The DNC has only recognized some of them as being qualifying polls for the debate. The whole thing gets a little bit confusing, and you&#8217;ve got to jump way down into the weeds of the numbers and the statistics. But I think the bigger problem is that the whole process really lacks transparency.
CARLSON: Right.
GABBARD: People deserve having that transparency, because ultimately, it&#8217;s the people who will decide who our Democratic nominee will be and ultimately who our next president, commander-in-chief will be. And when you see that lack of transparency, it creates, you know, a lack of faith and trust in the process.
And I think this also points to a bigger issue and challenge that goes beyond the DNC and party politics – [which] is the government itself, you know.
CARLSON: Right.
GABBARD: There [are] people who are increasingly losing that faith and trust in the government because they see a lack of transparency there; they see that we don&#8217;t have a government that is of, by, and for the people. And, really, what they see is a small group of really powerful political elites, the establishment, making decisions that serve their interests, and maintaining that power, while the rest of us are left outside. The American people are left behind.
So, these are the deeper-seated issues that I think it&#8217;s important that we recognize, and that for me as president, that I would seek to change. That we’d actually fulfill that vision that our Founders had for our country of having a government that is truly of, by, and for the people, and making it so that people can trust that our leaders are listening to them and making decisions not based on partisanship, but based on serving their interests.
GABBARD: Again, I&#8217;ve got some concerns about the process. And I think a lot of them go to that lack of transparency. &#8230; Because when you have transparency, then people are able to say, &#8220;Okay, well, here’s the process. Here&#8217;s what&#8217;s going on.&#8221; That&#8217;s not really what we&#8217;re seeing right now, especially around all these polls, and the qualifiers and the non-qualifiers for the debate.
For me, I can just say that whether I&#8217;m on that debate stage or not, I&#8217;m going to continue focusing on speaking directly to voters across this country, connecting with them and recognizing that no matter what the powers that be in Washington say, the power lies in the hands of the people of this country.</blockquote>
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/217_UhhtyTw?start=36" width="720" height="385" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></div>
According to the <a href="https://democrats.org/news/third-debate/">rule set</a> issued by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in May, in order to qualify for the September debate, a candidate must have &#8220;received donations from a minimum of 130,000 unique donors &#8230; and 400 unique donors per state in at least 20 U.S. states.&#8221;
Additionally, a candidate must &#8220;receive 2% or more support in at least four [qualifying] polls&#8221; between the dates of June 28 &#8211; August 28. The polling organizations approved by the DNC are:
<blockquote>[The] Associated Press, ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Des Moines Register, Fox News, Monmouth University, NBC News, New York Times, National Public Radio (NPR), Quinnipiac University, University of New Hampshire, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Washington Post, and Winthrop University.</blockquote>
As of the DNC deadline, Rep. Gabbard passed the donations threshold, but fell two polls shy of qualification.
FiveThirtyEight’s Geoffrey Skelley <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-if-the-third-debate-were-based-on-different-polls/">noted</a> on Friday that if the DNC opened up its criteria to allow all polling firms with a B- grade or higher to count toward winning a spot on the debate stage in September, Gabbard would have landed with five qualifying polls.
According to the <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/2020_democratic_presidential_nomination-6730.html">RealClearPolitics</a> average of polls, Rep. Gabbard sits in ninth place with 1.4% support, ahead of both Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and former HUD Secretary Julian Castro, both of whom not only have lower average polling numbers than Gabbard (0.9% and 1.1%, respectively), but will be on the debate stage on September 12.
As indicated by Rep. Gabbard during her interview with Carlson, this isn&#8217;t the end. While her absence in the September debate could damage her standing in the race, the representative can still make the stage for the next Democratic debate in October.
According to the <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/reidepstein/status/1167833634793017344">DNC</a>, candidates will have until October 1 to hit the required benchmarks in order to participate in the debate on October 15.

WATCH: Rep. Tulsi Gabbard Shreds ‘Lack Of Transparency’ From DNC That Shut Her Out Of The Next Debate

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) revealed on Thursday that she will not run for president on a third party ticket if she fails to win the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.
“I will not, no,” Gabbard replied to CNN news anchor Jim Sciutto when asked if she would run as an independent candidate. “I’ve ruled that out.”
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></div>
“I’m going to continue to focus on moving our campaign forward,” she continued. “Continuing this grassroots campaign, continuing to deliver our message to the American people and ask for their support.”
Gabbard’s remarks come only days after the Hawaii congresswoman failed to qualify for the third Democratic primary debate in Houston, Texas. In order to make it onto the debate stage, candidates must have raised donations from at least 130,000 unique donors and receive more than 2% support in four or more polls that have been pre-approved by the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
While Gabbard was able to quickly meet the fundraising threshold, she was ultimately two polls short of receiving an invitation to the debate stage.
During the final two weeks to qualify, Gabbard took a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/50532/tulsi-gabbard-pausing-her-presidential-campaign-molly-prince">leave of absence</a> from her presidential campaign in order to report for active duty with the Hawaiian Army National Guard. While abroad in Indonesia for her service, she was unable to monitor or check in with her campaign, and solely relied on her staff to continue campaign operations.
Accordingly, Gabbard’s campaign team <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/50974/tulsis-2020-campaign-urges-dnc-adjust-debate-molly-prince">issued a statement</a> on Friday urging the DNC to reconsider the polling criteria required to qualify for the debates.
“Rep. Gabbard has exceeded 2% support in 26 national and early state polls, but only two of them are on the DNC’s ‘certified’ list,” the campaign wrote. “Many of the uncertified polls, including those conducted by highly reputable organizations such as The Economist and the Boston Globe, are ranked by Real Clear Politics and FiveThirtyEight as more accurate than some DNC ‘certified’ polls.”
In the press release, the campaign also pointed to a Real Clear Politics article aptly titled “Gabbard Victimized by DNC’s Dubious Debate Criteria,” where journalist Michael Tracey argues that the Hawaiian lawmaker is on “on the verge of being excluded from the next Democratic presidential debate on the basis of criteria that appear increasingly absurd.”
“The Democratic National Committee has the responsibility to facilitate more conversations between the future leaders of this country, not less,” the statement said. “Notably, there have been only four qualifying polls released after the second Democratic primary debate compared with the fourteen qualifying polls released in the month after the first Democratic primary debate.”
The DNC subsequently refused to adjust their polling benchmarks and allow Gabbard to participate.
Gabbard made waves during the second debate after she challenged Sen. Kamala Harris’ (D-CA) record on criminal prosecutions. The exchange was largely considered the to be one of the night’s most critical moments and fruitful lines of attack. In the aftermath, Harris took a significant hit in the polls.

WATCH: Tulsi Gabbard Rules Out Third Party Run

Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, has released a statement on <a href="https://twitter.com/PollsterPatrick?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor">Twitter</a> saying that a <a href="https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/monmouthpoll_us_082619/">Monmouth poll</a> distributed earlier this week that made a lot of headlines, as it showed a three-way tie between former Vice President Biden and Sens. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), is &#8220;an outlier.&#8221;
Murray maintains that despite using &#8220;nearly identical samples to our prior polls&#8221; and following the &#8220;same methods&#8221; as six prior 2020 Democratic primary national polls, the anomalous results were &#8220;a product of the uncertainty inherent to the polling process.&#8221;
&#8220;I understood when we released our poll that the picture it painted diverged from others,&#8221; writes Murray. &#8220;We could have adjusted the weighting to comport with other polls or we could have simply sat on the numbers, but neither of those actions meet our standards for transparency and disclosure.&#8221;
The poll, which was released on Monday, showed Warren and Sanders polling at 20% and Biden polling at 19%.
Shortly after the poll was released, an official for the Biden campaign told the <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/biden-campaign-dismisses-poll-showing-13-point-drop-in-support">Washington Examiner</a> that the poll shouldn&#8217;t be taken seriously because it was &#8220;an outlier.&#8221; John Anzalone, a pollster for the Biden campaign, told <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/2020-daily-trail-markers-bidens-team-disputes-poll-showing-him-behind/">CBS News</a> that &#8220;if you&#8217;ve been a pollster for a long time, you can smell funky data.&#8221;
The Biden campaign has seen its initial response to the polls justified by two more polls released on Wednesday. One poll, conducted by <a href="https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=3638">Quinnipiac University,</a> shows Biden registering at 32% among Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters. Another poll, conducted by <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2019/08/28/2020-biden-leads-democrats-voters-dread-election/2120726001/">USA Today and Suffolk University</a>, reaffirmed Biden’s 32% front-running status.
An <a href="https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/b17i8aeg5p/econTabReport.pdf">Economist-YouGov</a> poll also released Wednesday shows Biden leading the Democratic primary field with 24% support among people who say they will vote in a 2020 Democratic primary or caucus. Also notable, all three polls released on Wednesday show Warren leading Sanders.
The latest round of polls come as Wednesday&#8217;s midnight-deadline to qualify for the third Democratic primary debate looms. Currently, ten candidates have qualified, meaning the debate will be limited to a single night, according to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/democratic-debate-appears-set-10-candidates-after-tom-steyer-fails-n1047131">CBS News</a>.
Candidate Tom Steyer, who has been a mega-donor for the Democratic Party in the past, barely failed to qualify, reports the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/28/us/politics/democratic-polls-quinnipiac-suffolk.html">New York Times</a>. Steyer entered the primary in July <a href="http://nypost.com/2019/08/28/billionaire-tom-steyer-could-split-the-next-democratic-debate-into-two-nights/">after</a> the first Democratic debate had already taken place.
The next Democratic primary debate will be held on September 12 in Houston, Texas.

Joe Biden

Pollster: Don’t Pay Too Much Attention To Our Big Democratic Primary Poll

Poll

Presidential candidate Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) scolded the Democratic National Committee (DNC) on Friday for impeding the primary process in a way that prevents a party-wide conversation on issues.
“I am proud to be a Democrat and I stand here grateful for the work that you do, day in and day out, to strengthen our party,” Bennet told a crowd at the DNC’s annual summer meeting. “I’m ready to lead our party and our country to victory next November.&#8221;
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">I&#8217;m spending my time focused on what matters most: talking to voters &amp; beating Donald Trump. <a href="https://t.co/Fz7ziw9gj7">pic.twitter.com/Fz7ziw9gj7</a>
— Michael Bennet (@MichaelBennet) <a href="https://twitter.com/MichaelBennet/status/1164987263417298946?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 23, 2019</a></blockquote>
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“But I’ve got to be honest — and I say it with love – the DNC process is stifling debate at a time when we need it the most,” he continued. “We’re rewarding celebrity candidates with millions of Twitter followers, billionaires who buy their way onto the debate stage, and candidates who have been running for president for years.&#8221;
Bennet argued that the DNC’s determined method of choosing a presidential nominee is skewed in favor of popularity over substance.
“It forces campaigns to fork over millions of dollars to Facebook,” Bennet said, “the same platform that let the Russians interfere in 2016, instead of harnessing the resources to talk to voters.”
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“[Washington Governor] Jay Inslee dropped out of this race, not just because he didn’t qualify for the third debate, but because he didn’t qualify for the climate change town hall,” he continued. “Think about that for a moment — the climate change candidate didn’t qualify for the climate change town hall.”
Accordingly, Inslee announced on Wednesday that he was officially ending his presidential campaign after struggling to meet the threshold for a series of upcoming debates. The DNC has been facing backlash for imposing such a high barrier to entry to appear on the stage.
In order to qualify for the Democratic primary debate stage, presidential candidates must raise campaign donations from no less than 130,000 individual donors and receive at least 2% of the vote in 4 or more polls that have been pre-approved by the DNC.
Bennet’s remarks come the same day that Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s (D-HI) campaign <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/50974/tulsis-2020-campaign-urges-dnc-adjust-debate-molly-prince">slammed the DNC</a> for instituting criteria that are unfairly harmful to her presidential run and abdicating its responsibility to “facilitate more conversations.” The campaign further urged the party 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,” the Gabbard campaign wrote in a press release. “For the same of democracy, these 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.”
“If we wanted to be the party that excluded people, we would be Republicans,” Bennet said. “These rules have created exactly the wrong outcomes, and they will not help us beat [President] Donald Trump.”
“I’m not going to be on the debate stage next month, but I am going to be out in Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina and Nevada building a constituency for change this country needs,” he added.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez Interview

WATCH: 2020 Democrat Hits DNC For ‘Stifling Debate’ And ‘Rewarding Celebrity Candidates’

The presidential campaign for Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) urged the Democratic National Committee (DNC) on Friday to reconsider the criteria to qualify for the upcoming 2020 Democratic primary debates.
In order to nab a podium on the next debate stage, presidential candidates must raise campaign donations from no less than 130,000 individual donors and receive at least 2% of the vote in four or more polls that have been pre-approved by the DNC.
While Gabbard has already met the fundraising threshold, she still needs two more qualifying polls before she will receive an invitation onto the debate stage. Gabbard&#8217;s campaign, however, took issue with which polls the DNC deemed certifiable and called on the organization to revise the list of which polls would be considered.
&#8220;The DNC set a threshold that candidates must meet at 2% in four DNC-certified polls in order to qualify for the third and fourth Democratic primary debates,&#8221; the campaign <a href="https://www.tulsi2020.com/press/2019-08-23-tulsi-gabbards-campaign-calls-dnc-ensure-transparency-debate-requirements#gs.ycrbqi">wrote in a statement</a>. &#8220;However, the DNC has not released their criteria for selecting the 16 polling organizations they deem &#8216;certifiable.'&#8221;
&#8220;Rep. Gabbard has exceeded 2% support in 26 national and early state polls, but only two of them are on the DNC&#8217;s &#8216;certified&#8217; list,&#8221; the campaign continued. &#8220;Many of the uncertified polls, including those conducted by highly reputable organizations such as The Economist and the Boston Globe, are ranked by Real Clear Politics and FiveThirtyEight as more accurate than some DNC &#8216;certified&#8217; polls.&#8221;
The campaign further pointed to a RealClearPolitics article titled &#8220;<a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/08/21/gabbard_victimized_by_dncs_dubious_debate_criteria_141055.html">Gabbard Victimized by DNC’s Dubious Debate Criteria</a>.&#8221; In it, author Michael Tracey contends that the Hawaii congresswoman is &#8220;on the verge of being excluded from the next Democratic presidential debate on the basis of criteria that appear increasingly absurd.&#8221;
&#8220;The Democratic National Committee has the responsibility to facilitate more conversations between the future leaders of this country, not less,&#8221; the campaign said. &#8220;Notably, there have been only four qualifying polls released after the second Democratic primary debate compared with fourteen qualifying polls released in the month after the first Democratic primary debate.&#8221;
Gabbard is currently on the tail end of a two-week leave of absence from her presidential campaign, while she <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/50532/tulsi-gabbard-pausing-her-presidential-campaign-molly-prince">reports for active duty</a> in Indonesia with the Hawaiian Army National Guard. She will be returning to the campaign trail on August 25, just three days before the deadline to qualify for the next Democratic primary debate.
&#8220;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,&#8221; the campaign said. &#8220;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.&#8221;
&#8220;For the sake of democracy, those decisions must be made openly, with clear and consistent standards and a sufficient window of opportunity for the candidates to demonstrate genuine grassroots momentum and enthusiasm,&#8221; the campaign added.

Tulsi’s 2020 Campaign Urges DNC To Adjust Debate Criteria As She Sits Just Shy Of Qualifying

The Republican National Committee (RNC) raked in more than $20 million during the month of July, nearly tripling what the Democratic National Committee (DNC) raised, according the Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings.
The RNC <a href="https://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/forms/C00003418/1349156/">raised $20.8 million </a>last month, bringing the party’s total fundraising haul to $177.9 million for the election cycle. Comparatively, the DNC <a href="https://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/forms/C00010603/1349173/">raised $7.7 million</a> over the same period, totaling $51.6 to date.
“Last month’s fundraising haul again smashed records, and we continue to directly invest this money into growing our top-notch data-driven infrastructure, recruiting and training thousands of new volunteers, and registering voters across the country,” said RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel. “Our fundraising success is further evidence that the American people like the pro-growth agenda and economic record that the Trump Administration and Republicans will continue to deliver, and this puts us in a strong position to secure more Republican victories in 2020.”
For the second month in a row, the RNC’s fundraising haul surpassed its previous record for the most raised during a non-election year. The previous record for an off-year fundraising was achieved in July 2017, when the RNC raised $10.6 million, nearly half of the amount raised last month.
“We also had our largest online fundraising ever,” Steve Guest, the RNC’s Rapid Response Director told The Daily Wire. He further noted that online fundraising was 1,100% more than in July 2016 and 1,900% more than July 2015.
Guest also pointed to DNC Chairman Tom Perez’s scheduled fundraising trips to Mexico as sign of the party’s “struggle to fundraise.”
“The DNC’s financial situation is in such a mess, they’re now relying on Hillary Clinton and Mexico to hold their fundraisers,” Guest continued.
Accordingly, Perez will be traveling to Mexico City in September where he will be hosting a series of large donor events for the American expatriate community, according to a <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-20/dnc-chief-plans-to-raise-money-from-americans-in-mexico-city">Bloomberg News</a> report published Tuesday.
Attendees will be required to present proof of United States citizenship or permanent residency, and will range from a DNC-sponsored happy hour with tickets starting at $25 to a dinner hitting as much as $15,000 per ticket.
The same day that a DNC spokesperson confirmed Perez’s plans to travel across the border, news surfaced that former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton would be hosting a dinner to fundraising for the party, with tickets costing as much as $50,000 per person.
“With our fundraising advantage, we’re able to continue to invest in our permanent data-driven ground game,” Guest said. “So far, we have staff in 16 key target states across the country, including regional political directors, regional data directors, and state directors.”
“We’re also able to recruit and train thousands of volunteers through regular ‘National Weeks of Training’ as well as target vulnerable Democrats in key districts with massive ad buys,” he continued. “These are necessary investments in election winning tools that the broke DNC could only dream of making.”
A spokeswoman for the DNC did not return The Daily Wire’s request for comment.

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