Republican frontrunners Ben Carson and Donald Trump have threatened to boycott the next Republican debate if the host network, CNBC, doesn’t change the debate format to conform with their demands.
Trump and Carson, in a joint letter to CNBC, said, “Neither Mr. Trump or Dr. Carson will participate in your debate if it is longer that 120 minutes including commercials and does not include opening and closing statements.”
A CNBC spokesman, Brian Steel, told the Associated Press that the network would consider Trump and Carson’s demands.
“Our practice in the past has been to forego opening statements to allow more time to discuss the critical issues that matter most to the American people,” said Steel. “We started a dialogue yesterday with all of the campaigns involved and we will certainly take the candidates’ views on the format into consideration as we finalize the debate structure.”
For more on this, read the article from CBS News titled: “Donald Trump and Ben Carson threaten to boycott CNBC debate.“
