UPDATE 10/16/15:
CNBC has reportedly agreed to the demands, meaning the boycott is off:
See original story from 10/15/15 below.
Leading the GOP pack of presidential candidates are Donald Trump and Ben Carson who share a similar campaign strategy: say the most ridiculous thing possible to garner attention. For Carson that’s meant mentioning Hitler and for Trump it’s basically anything that comes out of his mouth. The two rivals have banded together for the purpose of threatening CNBC by saying they would skip the next GOP debate, which the network will host, if CNBC doesn’t meet their demands.
The next debate, to be held in Boulder, Colorado, on Oct. 28 will be short two candidates if its format doesn’t change. Trump and Carson wrote CNBC a letter threatening to pull out “If it is longer than 120 minutes including commercials and does not include opening and closing statements." The statement was echoed by Trump’s campaign manager Corey Lewandowski in a conference call with Republican National Committee officials on Thursday. The candidates’ threats come after CNN decided to make the first GOP debate a grueling (for viewers) three hours.
As he is wont to do, Trump tweeted his disapproval for CNBC’s decision, accusing it of extending the debate for more commercial time while bashing the “boring” Democratic debate for not being held to the same length—it was two and a half hours including opening and closing statements.
CNBC released a statement in regards to the candidates' threats which read: "Our goal is to host the most substantive debate possible. Our practice in the past has been to forego opening statements to allow more time to address the critical issues that matter most to the American people. 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."
You can bet CNBC will give in to Trump and Carson's demands for the sake of not losing viewers, but wouldn't it be great if it didn't? Two less buffoons to hear from.
[via CNN]
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