Dr. Ben Carson Campaign Stands Up for Carly Fiorina: ‘Ridiculous’ She Isn’t on the Debate Stage

GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina has been discussing how the CNN debate rules put her at a disadvantage and could leave her out of the top 10, not making the main debate stage on September 16th at the next GOP presidential primary debate. Dr. Ben Carson’s campaign manager appears to agree with Fiorina on the debate rule predicament.

“We think it’s ridiculous that Carly Fiorina isn’t on the debate,” Barry Bennett, GOP presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson’s campaign manager, said to Politico. “She’s what, fifth? She should be on the main debate stage.”

“We don’t like how far back they’re going in the polls,” Bennett stated about CNN’s polling calculation method. “Why does anyone care where someone was in presidential preference polls [three months ago]?”

CNN has stated multiple times it is unable to change the debate rules since they were made public.

“Our criteria are totally appropriate and we have been absolutely transparent about them throughout. If the Fiorina campaign had an issue with them they could have raised it when we published them in May. They did not,” a CNN spokesperson previously explained to The Wall Street Journal. “Revising the criteria on the eve of the debate at the demand of and solely for the benefit of one particular candidate is not something we have done in the past, and we will not do it now.”

The National Journal also reported, “Ac­cord­ing to CNN, Fed­er­al Elec­tion Com­mis­sion guidelines pre­vent them from chan­ging the cri­ter­ia after it’s been made pub­lic—a claim that some elec­tions law ex­perts con­test. Fior­ina’s sup­port­ers have re­spon­ded to the RNC’s de­bate cri­ter­ia with right­eous in­dig­na­tion.”