Bill Weld and Gary Johnson, both former Republican governors, are hoping to make the presidential debate stage with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump this fall. | Getty Libertarian VP nominee: Debate commission could lose tax exempt status by excluding us

The Libertarian nominee for vice president of the United States is warning that the Commission on Presidential Debates could lose its tax-exempt status if the Libertarian ticket is excluded from the debate stage.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson's running mate, argued in an interview with POLITICO that the commission knows it could lose its tax-exempt status by excluding his ticket from the debates.


"They can play favorites," Weld said, referring to the Republican and Democratic parties. "They would lose their tax exempt status if they did that. 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."

"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 added. "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.'"

Weld's comments, made in an interview Thursday evening, come as the Libertarian ticket faces increasingly steep odds to getting into the presidential debates. Both Johnson and Weld have said they are far more likely to be competitive if they can make it into the debates. But a POLITICO analysis found the Johnson-Weld ticket is currently polling at 9.2 percent, below the 15 percent threshold required to qualify for the debates,

Johnson and Weld only have 24 days before the first presidential debate at Hofstra University on Sept. 26.

Weld added that the commission knows it's role is to not take any partisan side.

"That's right because they have a duty to be non-partisan rather than bipartisan," Weld said.