Donald Trump Backs Out of Debate With Bernie Sanders

By Hadas Gold, Politico

28 May 16

onald Trump will not participate in a debate with Sen. Bernie Sanders, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee said Friday.

In a statement, Trump slammed Sanders, Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton and the Democratic nominating process, and said that debating the Vermont senator would be "inappropriate." Sanders' camp, in turn, accused Trump of flip-flopping on a "clash of ideas."

Trump told late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel earlier this week he would participate in a debate with Sanders, who is seeking the Democratic nomination, if the host network would donate millions of dollars to a charity. According to a source within the Sanders campaign, nearly every major television news network reached out to multiple members of the campaign staff in hopes of hosting the debate.

Minutes before Trump's statement, Sanders' campaign manager Jeff Weaver said both ABC and CBS offered charitable donations in order to host the debate. But after inquiries by POLITICO, a CBS spokesperson said they had expressed interest in the debate and discussed a venue, but do not pay for appearances and made no commitments regarding charitable contributions. Sanders campaign spokesman Michael Briggs later emailed a correction, saying "CBS had not made a formal proposal and had not specifically addressed the charity issues."

An ABC spokesperson said the network had offered to donate "any profits to charities of their choice" but that no specific dollar amount had been pledged.

Trump's statement read: "Based on the fact that the Democratic nominating process is totally rigged and Crooked Hillary Clinton and Deborah Wasserman Schultz will not allow Bernie Sanders to win, and now that I am the presumptive Republican nominee, it seems inappropriate that I would debate the second place finisher," Trump said. "Likewise, the networks want to make a killing on these events and are not proving to be too generous to charitable causes, in this case, women's health issues. Therefore, as much as I want to debate Bernie Sanders - and it would be an easy payday - I will wait to debate the first place finisher in the Democratic Party, probably Crooked Hillary Clinton, or whoever it may be."

Briggs, also in a statement, responded: "In recent days, Donald Trump has said he wants to debate, he doesn't want to debate, he wants to debate and, now, he doesn't want to debate. …

"There is a reason why in virtually every national and statewide poll I am defeating Donald Trump, sometimes by very large margins and almost always by far larger margins than Secretary Clinton. There is a reason for that reality and the American people should be able to see it up front in a good debate and a clash of ideas."

Beyond the broadcast networks, online show "The Young Turks" offered $1 million to host the debate, while technology company Traction and Scale offered $10 million to do so.

But it was pretty clear Trump was never very serious about the prospect of a debate, despite the Sanders campaign's goading. Almost immediately, reports began to emerge that Trump was "joking," and at a rally Friday in Fresno, California, Trump said that although he wanted to "debate him so badly," he probably wouldn't do it.

"If you're in first place, you don't want to really debate a guy who's in second place," Trump said.