Donald Trump threatened to boycott the next Republican presidential debate, which is to be held on CNBC, because it was going to run over two hours. But the real estate mogul said that the network has changed the format to meet his demands.
This morning, Trump tweeted that CNBC “has just agreed that the debate will be TWO HOURS. Fantastic news for all, especially the millions of people who will be watching!”
A source told CNN that the Republican National Committee was already calling the candidates’ campaigns to tell them about the new format. The debate will run just two hours, with commercial breaks.
That’s in stark contrast to the previous debate, which ran three hours with commercials and left some of the candidates visibly tired by the end. Trump and Ben Carson said in a joint letter to CNBC that they wouldn’t participate if it was over 120 minutes. On Twitter Thursday, Trump cried that CNBC was just adding the third hour to sell more commercials.
With the two-hour debate format including commercials, opening and closing statements, it will be even more difficult for the candidates not named Trump to stick out. It would only run around 90 minutes, unless CNBC has limited commercials.
CNBC didn’t comment on Friday, but did release a statement on Thursday defending the three-hour format, which didn’t include opening statements.
“Our goal is to host the most substantive debate possible,” the network said. “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.”
The debate airs on Oct. 28, live from Boulder, Colorado.