🪟 The window for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to qualify for the first presidential debate on June 27 is closing rapidly, Axios' Erin Doherty writes.

• CNN, host of the first debate, reported Saturday that "though not impossible," it's unlikely any candidate other than President Biden and former President Trump will qualify.
• That's what the Biden and Trump campaigns want: a 1-on-1 showdown.

🗳️ CNN said Kennedy is officially on the ballot in states that account for just 89 electoral votes, well short of the debate's requirement that participants be on the ballot in enough states to give them a chance of winning the 270 electoral votes needed to be elected president.

• 📈 The network also is requiring candidates to have at least 15% support in four national polls. It said Kennedy has hit that mark in three polls, so is one short.

The debate, moderated by CNN's Jake Tapper and Dana Bash in Atlanta, will be the first in more than three decades that won't be managed by the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates.

• On Saturday, CNN unveiled rules that aim to rein in the interruptions that made that 2020 Biden-Trump debate a chaotic mess.
• 📺 The 90-minute clash will have two commercial breaks. Campaign staffers won't be allowed to interact with their candidate during the breaks, CNN said.
• 🎤 A candidate's microphone will be muted when it's not his turn to speak.
• That could hinder Trump, who tries to rattle opponents with interruptions — though Biden's most memorable line from their 2020 debate was when he responded to Trump by saying, "Will you shut up, man?"
• 🪙 The candidates' podium positions on stage will be determined by a coin flip.
• Moderators "will use all tools at their disposal to enforce timing and ensure a civilized discussion," CNN said.

Kennedy's campaign is scrambling to get on states' ballots. He has railed against Biden and Trump for "colluding" to keep him out.

• 📆 The deadlines for independent candidates to collect verified signatures and meet other requirements to get on ballots vary from state to state. Most are between now and the first week of September.

✍️ As of Friday, Kennedy's campaign claimed to have enough signatures for ballot access in states totaling 292 electoral votes.

• But in several states the campaign's signatures📢 haven't been verified — and it's unclear when they might be.

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🏛️ The House Republican leadership has a quintessentially Capitol Hill problem: A shift in committee chairs has left lawmakers without a place to light up cigars — and they're getting a little tense about it.

• Rep. Tom Cole's (R-Okla.) move to chair of the Appropriations panel created a domino effect in office changes that took away members' private spot to enjoy stogies close to the House floor.
• Now GOP members are urging Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to find a solution.

👀 GOP lawmakers stressed to Axios the importance of having quiet places to gather off the House floor to bond, saying the loss of Cole's "hideaway" — as such areas are known — has created a void Johnson should address.

• Given stark divisions and constant infighting among this crop of House Republicans, there's a good argument for anything that could ease tensions in the House GOP conference.

🔎 How we got here: When Cole chaired the powerful Rules Committee, his Capitol hideaway was a place for lawmakers to huddle and talk policy over cigars.

• But after Cole became Appropriations chair he let former chair Kay Granger (R-Texas) stay in her office, even as he surrendered the Rules committee spot to that panel's new chairman, Michael Burgess (R-Texas).
• That left Cole without a hideaway of his own, and cigar aficionados without a lair. Burgess, a physician, isn't into the cigar thing.

"We desperately need a place to smoke cigars, and I do not have — and should not have — the chairman's office right now ... because Kay Granger needs that, and that's the appropriate thing to do," Cole said.

• He noted that members used to be able to smoke in the Speaker's Lobby, a tradition Nancy Pelosi did away with in 2007, when she replaced John Boehner — an avid smoker — as speaker.

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🛡️ Trump's GOP Protection Squad continues to push various political and legal maneuvers to try and reverse his felony conviction in New York.

• Sunday it was Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) — a loyalist and contender to be Trump's vice presidential nominee — suggesting that the conservative-led Supreme Court should "step into" the matter and overturn Trump's guilty verdict in the New York hush money case before the Nov. 5 election.
• There's no such legal case before the high court, and any unsolicited foray into such a politically hot issue would super-charge Democrats' allegations that the court has become guided by politics as much as the law.
• Trump would have to exhaust his legal appeals in a series of New York courts before his case could reach the U.S. Supreme Court.

But Donalds told NBC's "Meet the Press" that House Speaker Johnson, "myself ... and many Americans believe the Supreme Court should step into this matter."

⚡️ Donalds' comments reflect a growing view among Republican lawmakers that all levers of powers should be exercised in attempting to overturn the former president's conviction, Axios' Andrew Solender reports.

• House Republicans are eyeing legislation that would allow Trump, if elected president, to move his case from state to federal court.
• 💰 Others have pushed to cut federal funding for state and federal prosecutors who have cases against Trump.

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