M. Scott Mahaskey 2016 Trump threatens to pull out of next GOP debate The Republican front-runner's campaign objects to lack of opening and closing statements and risk of a 2-plus-hour debate.

A Republican National Committee conference call to discuss plans for the Oct. 28 GOP debate with top advisers to the presidential campaigns spiraled into chaos Thursday afternoon as Donald Trump threatened to pull out of the debate if his demands for the format are not met.

At issue is whether CNBC, which is hosting the debate, to be held in Boulder, Colorado, will allow candidates to give opening and closing statements.


A day earlier, the RNC and CNBC held a conference call to discuss logistics that turned heated — with CNBC saying it wouldn’t allow opening and closing statements, and several campaigns saying they wanted them.

On Thursday’s call — which the RNC abruptly scheduled earlier in the morning — Corey Lewandowski, Trump's campaign manager, said that if the debate does not include opening or closing statements and is longer than two hours total, including commercial breaks, the real estate mogul would have to drop out of the debate.

Neither Lewandowski nor Trump's spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, responded to a request for comment. But in a Thursday afternoon tweet, Trump — who has been vocal about his unhappiness with how the two previous Republican debates were formatted — said that, “@CNBC is pushing the @GOP around by asking for extra time (and no criteria) in order to sell more commercials.”

After the call was finished, aides to Trump and another Republican candidate, Ben Carson, submitted a letter to CNBC stating their opposition to the debate criteria. “Neither Mr. Trump or Dr. Carson will participate in your debate if it is longer than 120 minutes including commercials and does not include opening and closing statements,” said the letter, which was written by Michael Glassner of Trump’s campaign and Ed Brookover of Carson’s.

The fiery exchange involving Lewandowski was one of many on the 29-minute call, which was described by four sources present. Two top RNC officials, Katie Walsh and Sean Spicer, began the call by telling campaigns that Chairman Reince Priebus had been in contact with CNBC over the matter of opening and closing statements. They also reiterated that his job is to advocate for the candidates and that they wanted to make sure he was clear on what their demands were.

RNC officials wanted to know what the “red line” was for each individual campaign, and whether crossing that line would mean they wouldn’t attend.

The RNC, they assured the unhappy campaigns gathered on the call, would never make a step so drastic as to set up a format without consulting with the candidates first.

Then things went south.

First, Jason Miller, a top strategist for Ted Cruz, said his campaign would consider bailing if there were no opening and closing remarks.

Then, Chris LaCivita, an aide to Rand Paul, chimed in: “If we don’t have opening and closing statements, CNBC can go f--- themselves.”

After Lewandowski spoke, others chimed in — including Kasich campaign manager Beth Hansen, who said the conference call was a “debacle.” Hansen, according to one source on the call, added that if CNBC did not alter its planned format to allow openings and closings, that did not mean Kasich wouldn’t attend.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, an adviser to Mike Huckabee, voiced another concern: That not all candidates would have equal time to speak during the debate.

Then it was Marco Rubio campaign manager Terry Sullivan’s turn. Rubio would be present at the debate — he’d be in Boulder “hell or high water,” regardless of the final decision, but he wanted the campaigns to speak with one voice and agreed with other campaigns on the need for opening and closing statements.

Peter Flaherty, an adviser to Jeb Bush, voiced his position — that the former Florida governor intended to participate in the debate no matter what, but that he’d like there to be opening and closing statements.

Ken McKay, Chris Christie’s campaign manager, expressed worry about stating his position on an open conference call line, saying that it could expose his campaign to leaks.

Katie Walsh, the RNC’s chief of staff, tried to abruptly cut off the call. Before she could do so, Christian Ferry, a representative for Lindsey Graham, who’s been relegated to undercard debates, chimed in. If any of the top-polling candidates didn’t want to participate in the Colorado debate, Graham would gladly take their place.

CNBC later on Thursday indicated it is open to adjusting its debate format. In a statement, CNBC spokesman Brian Steel said the calls were just the beginning of a conversation with the campaigns.

"Our goal is to host the most substantive debate possible. 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," Steel said. "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."

On Thursday night, Trump griped to Fox News' "On The Record," saying CNBC wants to stretch the event to cash in.

“What they’re trying to do, they’ve sold out all of their commercials and they want to increase them by an hour," he said. "It’s unfair to the viewers. I don’t care, I could stand for five hours, I could stand for 10 hours, but its unfair to the viewers. It’s too long.”

The flare-up on Thursday's call is the latest for a party that, as it contends with a large and rambunctious field of primary candidates, has struggled to oversee the debate process. One chief point of contention has been how to include so many candidates onstage and whether to hold undercard debates. In recent weeks, several lower-tiered campaigns have openly expressed worry that the RNC, which works with the networks to organize the debates, will do away with the undercards.

Aides who were present on Thursday’s call said it was not immediately clear how the RNC would proceed with the planning for the Oct. 28 debate. RNC spokespeople did not respond to requests for comment.

Hadas Gold and Eliza Collins contributed to this report.