In a joint letter to CNBC’s Washington bureau chief Thursday, the billionaire businessman and retired neurosurgeon told the hosting network they will not appear at the October 28 debate unless it’s capped at two hours with commercials and the candidates are allowed to speak directly to the camera at its opening and close. DONALD TRUMP’sfinding an acquiescent CNBC and GOP after his debate demands.
Advertisement
On Thursday Donald Trump tweeted, “CNBC is pushing the GOP around by asking for extra time (and no criteria) in order to sell more commercials”.
The demand for opening and closing statements reflects the candidates’ interest in getting their messages out unchallenged. This is the same group that will use these debates to diminish the character and overall platform of each GOP candidate – in effect pre-softening them for Hillary Clinton. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a self-described “democratic socialist”.
Pretty simple calculation for CNBC: Enjoy two hours of boffo ratings with Trump as your star or three hours of middling ratings for special guest star Jeb Bush. He also has complained about the moderators of the first two debates, engaging in a nasty, weeks-long spat with Fox News Channel’s Megyn Kelly and accusing CNN’s moderators of asking too many questions that prompted his rivals to attack him. With fewer minutes onstage, there are fewer opportunities for Trump to screw up, and fewer chances for the other candidates to take the national spotlight. “Further, the debate must include opening and closing statements from all the candidates”. The networks tend to find statements like these boring and undramatic because candidates just tend to repeat parts of their ordinary stump speeches.
“What they’re trying to do, they’ve sold out all of their commercials and they want to increase them by an hour”, he said. Wadhams said. “I do applaud CNBC for wanting a lot of give and take between the candidates”.
Top aides to Senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul also insisted that the debate feature opening and closing statements, with Paul aide Chris LaCivita saying at one point that CNBC could “go f- themselves” if they weren’t willing to agree to those terms, according to two sources on the call.
Advertisement
Again, though, Trump could benefit. “To be number one in every poll, both state and national, and to have spent the least amount of dollars of any serious candidate is a testament of what I can do for America”. On the other hand, Republicans can’t seem to join hands but remain divided and, in many cases, have the approach that “if I can’t have my way, I’ll sit out and not participate or support my opponent”.
