Republican National Committee Pulls Out of NBC GOP Debate Slated for February

The Republican National Committee announced this week that it will be pulling the upcoming February GOP debate from the NBC network after CNBC received criticism from its handling of this past Wednesday's debate.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said in a statement that the handling of this past Wednesday's debate at the University of Colorado, Boulder influenced the GOP decision to pull the debate in February.

"The CNBC network is one of your media properties, and its handling of the debate was conducted in bad faith," Priebus said in a statement. "We understand that NBC does not exercise full editorial control over CNBC's journalistic approach. However, the network is an arm of your organization, and we need to ensure there is not a repeat performance."

"I have tremendous respect for the First Amendment and freedom of the press. However, I also expect the media to host a substantive debate on consequential issues important to Americans. CNBC did not," Priebus added.

The moderators overseeing this past Wednesday's debate received criticism for asking disrespectful, silly and biased questions during the debate. For example, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie criticized the moderators for asking a question regarding gambling and fantasy football when there were such bigger issues to tackle during the two-hour allotted time.

"While I was proud of our candidates and the way they handled tonight's debate, the performance by the CNBC moderators was extremely disappointing and did a disservice to their network, our candidates, and voters," Priebus said following the debate on Wednesday, adding that the questions were "deeply unfortunate."