Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said Friday that the disastrous CNBC debate has created a comradeship among the 15 contenders such that many will come together on Sunday to discuss how to improve future contests.
"One of the things that CNBC has done is something nobody else has been able to do," the former Arkansas governor told
Megyn Kelly on Fox News. "They brought all of the Republican candidates for president together in a way we haven't been to now.
"The point of the meeting is so that the campaigns, if necessary, take control of the process," he added. "The reason is because we take this seriously because we're running for president.
"We don't want to be just elements of somebody's game show or their entertainment venue so they can drive up their ratings, their revenues."
Retired pediatric neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who has either tied or surpassed longtime front-runner Donald Trump in several recent polls,
told Newsmax TV on Thursday that he was planning to meet with other candidates to change the "silliness" that has permeated many of the debates.
Huckabee confirmed that he would attend the private meeting, which is expected to exclude the Republican National Committee, the group that organizes the debates.
In response to the uproar, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus Friday
suspended the organization's relationship with NBC, which would exclude the company's Telemundo Spanish-language network from co-hosting a Feb. 26 debate in Houston.
Huckabee told Kelly that candidates left Wednesday's debate at the University of Colorado-Boulder incensed because CNBC failed to follow through on its promises regarding format and content.
"They said it would focus on the economy and financial issues," he said. "It would be substantive debate: regulation, economics, taxes, trade policies.
"They also said they had algorithms and that it was going to monitor who had time, how many questions were being asked of each candidate.
"I got three questions the whole night. Several candidates got more than three times. Some people, they enforced the rules on," he added. "Others, they let them go — roll all over the clock.
"They lost the clock."
Huckabee said he had technical issues during the debate — and that CNBC has not apologized for the debacle.
"They haven't said anything. They haven't apologized.
"We even had technical issues," he told Kelly. "I was on one end of the stage. I could not hear what was going on on the other end."
He also thought that many of the questions were unfair.
"We can handle tough questions," Huckabee said. "We're running for president.
"Throw your best shot at me, but don't ask me to comment about the character of another candidate. If you want to talk about me, fair game.
"If you want to ask me about my policies, fair game, but the worst information you'll get into from another candidate is me," he added. "The worst information you're going to get about me is from another candidate on the stage."
Huckabee sized up the overall tenor of the CNBC debate this way: "They were tossing us cheese and hoping we would act like rats all night long."
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