The last Republican debate was so painfully long that many people bailed before it even reached the closing remarks. On Thursday, Donald Trump himself threatened to skip out on CNBC's Republican presidential debate on Oct. 28 if it is going to last longer than two hours total including commercial breaks, Politico reports.
The incident erupted during a conference call with the Republican National Committee, when "three sources who were also on the line" claimed that Corey Lewandowski, Trump's campaign manager, issued the demands and said if they were not met, Trump would "reconsider his participation." In addition to wanting to keep the debate short and sweet, Trump reportedly also insisted the debate have opening and closing statements, which are currently excluded from CNBC's plans for the evening.
"The criteria that was outlined by CNBC was never discussed with any of the candidates or the campaigns. So what CNBC did was send out a memo and said, 'Here's the criteria as you have approved them and that went out to all the campaigns. We said we never agreed to this criteria,'" Lewandowski explained to The New York Times. On an earlier phone call, aides to Ben Carson and Sen. Rand Paul also reportedly expressed frustration with the proposed structure.
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Fox News' GOP debate in August pulled in a record-breaking 24 million viewers; CNN's GOP debate a month later saw 22.6 million viewers tune in.
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