RNC Chair to Discuss Debate Ultimatum with CNN's Candy Crowley

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus will go on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday with host Candy Crowley to discuss the letters he wrote to CNN and NBC this week. In the letters, he threatened both networks that the RNC would not partner with them on presidential debates in the 2016 election cycle if they air planned documentaries about Hillary Clinton.

Frank Fahrenkopf, the co-chair of the Commission on Presidential Debates, conceded that they made a mistake in selecting Crowley to moderate the second presidential debate between President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. 

During that debate, Crowley interjected herself incorrectly defended Obama, claiming Obama had called the Benghazi attack a terrorist attack the day after the tragedy when, in fact, Obama had not.

Crowley said this week that she felt Priebus was “wrong” in his assertion that CNN, which was derided as the “Clinton News Network” during the 1990s, was trying to boost Hillary Clinton’s image by airing a movie about her.

Priebus has indicated he does not want liberals, especially former Democratic operatives like George Stephanopoulos who randomly asked Mitt Romney about contraceptives and birth control to lay the foundation for what would later become the “war on women” meme Democrats would employ against Republicans, to sabotage Republican presidential candidates before the general election.

Priebus told CNN’s Erin Burnett:

If your company is so interested in spending million of dollars in promoting Hillary Clinton when they know darn well that Hillary Clinton and the people around her are gearing up for a presidential election, then that is a choice as a news agency that’s trying to be, at least claims to be fair, ought to stop in their tracks and start to think about what the effects of that are.

Priebus also told liberal Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski that he would not allow her to moderate a Republican primary debate “because you’re not actually interested in the future of the Republican Party and our nominees.” 

“It’s not a slam on you, Mika, but I have to choose moderators that are actually interested in the Republican Party, it’s not going to be NBC if they continue to go forward with this miniseries,” he explained.