WASHINGTON—In response to the presidential candidate’s criticism of the party’s current rules that have left him unqualified for tonight’s Democratic debate, the DNC announced Thursday that they have eased the debate requirements to 0.1% above whatever number Cory Booker was polling. “We’ve considered Senator Booker’s comments and have agreed to change the overly stringent prerequisites to include those candidates who poll just a fraction of a percentage above him,” said DNC chairman Tom Perez, adding that these less strict qualifications would be tied to a constantly sliding scale contingent on how Senator Booker’s campaign was doing at any point during the race, opening up the debate stage to a more inclusive group of Democrats who had low polling numbers that were still higher than Booker’s. “We’ve also taken the extra step of adjusting the number of necessary donations from 200,000 unique donors to whatever number makes Booker come up just shy of qualifying. We want to thank Senator Booker for pointing out this injustice after he learned that he would not be eligible for the upcoming debate, and we hope that this compromise satisfies Senator Booker’s request.” Perez added that the threshold may be relaxed even more to allow any Democratic candidate still in the race onto the debate stage after Cory Booker drops out.

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