Huckabee: It Wasn’t Just Trump and Carson Who Got CNBC to Cave; It Was All of Us

CHILDERS: “We want to move on to another topic right now, that being the CNBC debate, that is ahead, agreeing to Trump and Carson’s GOP debate terms. What do you think about that?”
HUCKABEE: “Well, let me clarify something. I have been hearing that, you know, it was Trump and Carson who pushed this. Actually, it was all the candidates. So it wasn’t just the two of them. Every one of the candidates and their representatives, the candidates weren’t, but their representatives were in a conference call, in fact, several of them. Some of them I understand got very heated according to the people on my team who were on them. And it was extraordinary push back. Number one, to keep this at two hours. Because the insufferable three hour debate that we went through the last time, should never happen again. The Gilligan and the Skipper only took the minute out, for a three hour tour. And the CNN debate was longer than that. And it was beyond tolerance. So that was one of the provisions. The other was to make sure the candidates had opening and closing statements, so at least no matter what the questions were, candidates could make one rational statement about something that mattered to them. And the result was that those concerns were dealt with and the other thing that the campaigns wanted, all of the campaigns, including some of those who were polling well, is to have some balance of time allocated to the various campaigns. Because in the last debate, I might as well gone out for a sandwich during the first 45 minutes and almost went over and handed my number and said text me when you think you need me.” (Laughter)
CARLSON: “Get one of those buzzers.”
MORRIS: “Yeah, like you are waiting at the olive garden.”
CARLSON: “Well you did a great job with the time had you, governor. Great to see you this morning. Thanks for doing it.”
CHILDERS: “Interesting that you said they all banded together, given what Carly Fiorina said in her comments about it.”