Libertarian vice presidential nominee Bill Weld says the Commission on Presidential Debates could endanger its tax-exempt status by keeping the Libertarian ticket out of the debates.

“They can play favorites. They would lose their tax-exempt status if they did that,” Weld, a former Massachusetts governor, told Politico on Friday.

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“And saying, ‘We’re only going to have an ‘R’ and a ‘D,’ we’re not going to have the third-party Libertarians, even if everyone wants them,’ I think their tax-exempt status would be in jeopardy and I think they know that.”

Weld and Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson Gary Earl JohnsonWhat the numbers say about Trump's chances at reelection Presidential race tightens in Minnesota as Trump plows resources into state The Hill's Campaign Report: Biden condemns violence, blames Trump for fomenting it l Bitter Mass. primaries reach the end l Super PAC spending set to explode MORE have repeatedly called for inclusion in the debates.

The Commission on Presidential Debates requires third-party presidential tickets to reach 15 percent in an average of five polls it has selected.

The Libertarian ticket has polled around 9 percent in recent surveys.

“You know when the commission was set up, something like 30 percent of the voters were independents and now that’s climbing toward 50 percent,” Weld said.

“So the rational for having only an ‘R’ and only a ‘D’ is dissipating and the commission might say, ‘Well, the Republican Party and the Democratic Party pay our bills.' That’s right because they have a duty to be non-partisan rather than bipartisan.”

The first presidential debate is Sept. 24 at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y.

A Morning Consult survey released Thursday found 52 percent of voters want Johnson included in the first debate.