Trump, Carson fight CNBC debate format; GOP front-runner lays out terms to

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson narrowly trails frontrunner Donald Trump in a new NBC News/SurveyMonkey poll, with the retired neurosurgeon benefiting from a jump in support among white evangelical voters.

Donald Trump has registered another victory after CNBC, the host of the next Republican presidential debate, caved to his demand for a shorter event which would include opening and closing statements.

The sticking points are the length of the debate – CNBC reportedly wants another three-hour marathon – and the lack of opening and closing statements.

And, in an interview immediately after the CNN orgy of excess, when asked what he’d learned, Trump snarked he’d learned he could stand onstage for three hours – a red flag for CNBC debate planners if ever there was one.

Fox News is using CNBC’s announcement that it would change the format of its upcoming GOP presidential debate following presidential candidate Donald Trump’s demand that the network do so to applaud Trump’s negotiating skills. With so many persons vying for attention, limiting the debate to two hours (including commercials) means that after opening and closing statements, there may not be much time to get everyone’s opinions on key issues. For heaven’s sake, we have 10 candidates on the stage.

“Well, I think apparently they’re anxious about answering questions for three hours”, Fiorina told host Megyn Kelly.

The previous two Republican debates have gone television audiences of 23 to 25 million and CNBC was not going to risk having the top two contenders for the GOP nomination not participate, although CNBC declined to comment.

Republican National Committee spokesman Sean Spicer confirmed the agreement. “You know, prepared statements are what politicians do”. Wadhams said. “I do applaud CNBC for wanting a lot of give and take between the candidates”.

Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, Ohio Governor John Kasich, and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul could be in danger of not making the 3% poll number cutoff, which would put them out of the main debate. “They’re doing it because they want to make more money”.

The business mogul didn’t stop at writing a letter – he also took to social media on several occasions to blast out attacks to his 4.6 million Twitter followers.