Donald Trump is so good at negotiating, according to Donald Trump, that he personally trimmed a 3.5-hour GOP debate down to just two last night.
Suck it, CNBC!
During his closing remarks at Wednesday"s Republican rumble in Boulder, Colo., Don lamented that America doesn"t win anymore. Like at anything.
Well, if Trump"s surprisingly resilient presidential campaign loves to remind us of anything (besides its own admittedly robust poll numbers), it"s this:
Trump"s mere existence will make us winners again because the White House, Congress and entire political system, frankly, are all losers right now.
He WILL get what he wants, the Art of the Deal author says, pointing to none other than this specific event, which he apparently threatened to boycott.
Trump says he and Ben Carson almost ditched the CNBC event because the last two GOP debates ran over three hours, which they did not like.
Donald said he negotiated with network execs to bring the time down to two hours – at a great loss of ad revenue to CNBC – because he"s Trump.
Those are the skills that can "make America great again" … or at least spare us from another hour in which Mike Huckabee will speak at least once.
Debate moderator John Harwood countered that the debate was supposed to run just two hours from the beginning, but we"re not sure we buy that.
Almost immediately following the previous GOP debate, the Trump and Carson campaigns began openly griping about the three-plus-hour durations.
There were numerous media reports of the two men – first and second in every GOP poll – threatening to walk if the event length wasn"t shortened.
When and why CNBC made the call and what went on behind closed doors, we can"t say, but it"s likely Trump wielded some influence, directly or indirectly.
So Trump isn"t completely talking out of his arse here; whether it makes him Commander in Chief material is another story, and a subjective topic.
