Donald Trump had said earlier this week that he would not be a part of the Republican debate if CNBC did not reduce the duration to two hours, including commercial breaks, and did not let the candidates give opening and closing statements. Ben Carson supported Trumps demands, as previously reported by HNGN.
CNBC has finally agreed, and Trump couldn't resist sharing his victory over the media through Twitter, reported Vox Policy and Politics.
.@CNBC has just agreed that the debate will be TWO HOURS. Fantastic news for all, especially the millions of people who will be watching!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 16, 2015
While CNBC has not yet confirmed Trump's claim, a spokesman said, "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," according to Fox News.
"Well, I think apparently they're worried about answering questions for three hours. For heaven sakes, we have ten candidates on stage. I don't think three hours is a long time. They also apparently asked for prepared statements. You know, prepared statements are what politicians do. ... So, honestly, here are two outsiders supposedly. Donald Trump and Ben Carson -- they sound a lot like politicians tonight to me," said Carly Fiorina, criticizing Trump's demands, according to CNN.
Trump's demands mean that the actual debate duration will be about 90 minutes to be shared among approximately 10 Republican presidential hopefuls. The 30 minutes of the 120 minutes he has wrangled from CNBC will be used for commercials and opening and closing statements.
