A decision by the Democratic National Committee to tweak the qualification rules for the next presidential debate have Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders's campaign criticizing the change.

The rule change, announced on Friday, removes the requirement for candidates to meet a minimum requirement of donors starting with the Feb. 19 debate in Nevada. It is being interpreted by the Sanders camp as yet another move by the DNC to elbow out the left-wing candidate who railed against a rigged primary system in the 2016 campaign.

"To now change the rules in the middle of the game to accommodate Mike Bloomberg, who is trying to buy his way into the Democratic nomination, is wrong. That’s the definition of a rigged system," Jeff Weaver, Sanders's senior adviser, said in a statement.

The change, which still provides candidates two other methods to qualify, opens the door for former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a billionaire who is self-funding his bid and not accepting campaign contributions, to appear on the debate stage.

The DNC claimed the decision to remove the donor requirement for the first time this election cycle hinged on grassroots support now "actually" being captured in "real voting." DNC representative Adrienne Watson further explained: "The donor threshold was appropriate for the opening stages of the race, when candidates were building their organizations and there were no metrics available outside of polling to distinguish those making progress from those who weren't."

Sanders, 78, generally leads by a small margin in the polls in Iowa, which will hold its first-in-the-nation caucus on Monday, and in New Hampshire, which will hold its primary on Feb. 11. Former Vice President Joe Biden, 77, has the edge over the field in national polls, while Bloomberg, 77, hovers around fourth place behind Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, 70, according to a RealClearPolitics average.

In recent days, Sanders's campaign and its supporters have raged against another decision by the DNC regarding this year's convention, where the party will pick its presidential and vice presidential nominees, set for July 13-16 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The subject of that outrage was a list put out by DNC Chairman Tom Perez that included dozens of nominations to committees charged with overseeing the convention and helping to create the party's platform.

"The DNC should be ashamed of itself, because it really is a slap in the face to folks who were asking for reform, and, if the DNC believes that it's going to get away in 2020 with what it did in 2016, it has another thing coming," Nina Turner, the national co-chairwoman of the Sanders campaign, said about the list during a Monday interview with Status Coup.

The list contained some Sanders supporters, but liberals have voiced frustration with picks such as John Podesta, who was Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman in 2016, and former Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, a critic of Sanders who was tapped to be co-chairman of the Rules Committee. The organization's Executive Committee voted on Saturday to appoint Perez's nominations.