Rand Paul thinks 'arbitrary' criteria kept him out of the last debate because the media is 'becoming God'

Rand on his debate absence — (Image credit: Darren McCollester/Getty Images)

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) isn't thrilled that he missed out on the last presidential debate. Mind you, he could have debated with the undercard candidates, but he chose to skip out entirely. He hasn't said if he plans to skip the undercard again, should his polling numbers fail to qualify him for the main stage for Thursday's Fox News debate in Iowa.

Paul told Fox Business on Monday that he feels confident he'll fare better this time around "if Fox counts the polls appropriately."

"It's arbitrary — look, you guys just decide out of the blue which polls you're going to use, you don't announce which polls you're going to use, and then you don't understand what margin of error is — look at the recent poll — it's plus or minus 5," Paul said. "So someone who's at 5 percent is no different than someone who's at 10 percent if the margin of error's 5. So you're using polls in an unscientific way."

Article continues below

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

The senator then took his argument one step further, saying the media's debate criteria doesn't just hurt candidates, "it's also a disservice to the voters because you are becoming God."

Watch Paul's full interview here.

Explore More

Julie Kliegman is a freelance writer based in New York. Her work has appeared in BuzzFeed, Vox, Mental Floss, Paste, the Tampa Bay Times and PolitiFact. Her cats can do somersaults.