Sanders Aide Reportedly Threw a Fit About Debate Changes to Focus on Paris Attacks

In response to the terror attacks that rocked Paris last night, tonight’s Democratic debate was reportedly tweaked from its planned format in order to provide greater focus on national security and foreign policy. However, reports indicate that an aide for Bernie Sanders threw a fit when he found out the opening statements were going to be cut down from 90 seconds to 30.

During a conference call between CBS executives and the three campaigns, Yahoo reported, strategist Mark Longabaugh denounced the changes for not being part of the deal established between the network and the candidates.

“It wasn’t advertised as a foreign policy debate and it’s turning into a debate it wasn’t supposed to be,” Longabaugh stated in an account from a staffer on the call. “How can you change the terms of the debate, you know, on the day of the debate. That’s not right.’”

The staffer reported that the exchange went on for 5 to 7 minutes, by which point the others were left in “stunned silence.” The current plan is to have the candidates start with a one minute opening statement, and the questions dealing with national security would be front-loaded so that candidates will be able to address the attacks before moving on to other issues.

Campaign manager Jeff Weaver was also reportedly displeased with the change, saying that Sanders needed his full allotted time in order to continue the introduction of his platform to the country. Weaver said the campaign was not trying to shut down a conversation on these issues, but that there were others the debate had to address as planned.

“Others attempted to change those. We pushed back on those and ended up prevailing. We’re very happy about that,” Weaver said in a report from Politico. When asked for more details, Weaver said “let’s just say we won.”

[image via screengrab]