After Donald Trump and Ben Carson threatened to boycott CNBC’s Republican presidential debate on Oct. 28 over the event’s format, the network said Thursday it’s open to changing the rules.
Tensions boiled over in conversations with the network and the Republican National Committee over the event’s format, with the top two Republicans candidates threatening to walk away if the network refused to keep the debate to under two hours – with commercials – and allow for candidates to give opening and closing statements.
In a statement, CNBC spokesman Brian Steel called the criteria “a dialogue” and said the network has previously forgone opening statements to allow more time for debate.
“We started a dialogue yesterday with all of the campaigns involved and we will certainly take the candidate’s views on the format into consideration as we finalize the debate structure,” Steel said.
