"For us it was imperative that the time be changed to 120 minutes’ for the length of the debate. Mr. Trump had been unhappy with the nearly three-hour length of the CNN debate that Republicans recently took part in.”
“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.’
“Until we have this criteria specifically laid out, it is difficult to participate,” Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski told the New York Times.
Brian Steel, a spokesman for CNBC, said in a statement: “Our goal is to host the most substantive debate possible. Our practice in the past has been to forgo 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," Steel said.
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