Jim Webb says the first Democratic debate on CNN was “rigged” by the network and its moderator Anderson Cooper to favor Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.

Webb, speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations on Thursday, insisted, “I’m going to be very frank, it was rigged in terms of who was going to get the time on the floor by the way that Anderson Cooper was selecting people to supposedly respond to something someone else said.” (RELATED: Webb Takes A Dig At Hillary’s Bodyguards, Says Americans Need Guns)

Webb joked, “I even turned around to [crscore]Bernie Sanders[/crscore] at one point and said, Bernie, say my name, will you? Say my name. So you know, in that kind of an environment, you know, I was either going to be Mr. Angry or I was going to be a potted plant. That was the only way to try to get into the conversation.” (RELATED: Here’s Why Jim Webb Killed A Man And Bragged About It At The Democratic Debate)

Webb explained, “it’s very difficult to win a debate when you don’t have the opportunity to speak the same amount of time on issues as the other two did. It’s a reality that the debate was being portrayed as a showdown between Mrs. Clinton and Bernie, but if you’re going to be invited to participate and people are going to judge whether you, quote, “won” or not, at least you should be able to have the kind of time that’s necessary to discuss the issues that you care about, that you’ve worked on.”

However, Webb said, “in the Drudge poll I was a very strong second… I was 25 and I think Secretary Clinton was 7 or 8. And in the Time poll we were a strong second, I got 36 on it.” (RELATED: Webb The Only Democrat To Say All Lives Matter At Debate)

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