Trump pussies out:
Trump says he will not debate Sanders
Washington (CNN)Donald Trump on Friday said he would not debate Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders because it would be "inappropriate" to square off against the candidate who currently trails Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary fight.
"Based on the fact that the Democratic nominating process is totally rigged and Crooked Hillary Clinton and (Debbie) 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 in a statement.
Trump also said news networks "are not proving to be too generous to charitable causes," which he previously had said would be a goal of debating Sanders.
The two populist candidates had floated the idea of debating each other throughout the week. Sanders has been trying to debate Clinton ahead of the California primary on June 7, but she, too, declined.
Speaking to reporters in Los Angeles, Sanders said he was disappointed that Trump changed his mind.
"I hope that he changes his mind again. Mr. Trump is known to change his mind many times in a day," Sanders said. "Trump is a bully, he's a big tough guy. Well, I say to Mr. Trump, what are you afraid of?"
Trump's announcement on Friday is a far cry from a statement he made the day before, when he told supporters in Bismark, North Dakota, that he'd "love to debate Bernie."
"He's a dream," the real estate magnate said. "If we can raise for maybe women's health issues or something. If we can raise $10 or $15 million for charity, which would be a very appropriate amount."
"I understand the television business very well. I think it would get high ratings," Trump added.
The idea of the two debating surfaced on Wednesday night, when ABC's Jimmy Kimmel told Trump he had a question from Sanders' campaign, asking if Trump would be willing to debate the Democratic hopeful.
Trump joked, "How much is he going to pay me?"
"That could happen, I've been saying that should happen anyway," he added. "If he paid a nice sum for charity, I would love to do that."
Minutes later, Sanders responded on Twitter.
"Game on," Sanders wrote. "I look forward to debating Donald Trump in California before the June 7 primary."
Later in the day, Sanders' campaign manager Jeff Weaver told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that he hoped Trump doesn't "chicken out" after the two talked about the possibility of a one-on-one debate.
The two candidates reiterated their support for a debate throughout Thursday.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/27/politics/ ... e-sanders/
All week long, Trump has been insisting that he seriously wanted to do this, and all week long "sources" in his campaign (probably Manefort) have been insisting that he was just joking...
Looks like the advisers finally prevailed on Trump...
And technically they're right; it's
not appropriate for the presumptive nominee of one party to be debating the second place finisher in the other...
But when has "appropriateness" ever been any kind of a guide for Trump? Saying and doing inappropriate things is the centerpiece of his campaign.
I think he definitely would have had something to gain from doing this, and I agree with CP that he would have gone easy on Bernie for both tactical and strategic reasons:
Tactically, it's obviously to Trump's advantage to help Sanders make life as miserable for Hillary as possible, have him hang in all the way through the convention, and make it difficult for her to unite the party. Giving Sanders this kind of platform to help push him over the top in the California primary would definitely help serve that end.
And strategically, Trump also wants to be able to attract a chunk of Sanders voters in the fall, so that would also mean it would have made sense to go easy on him...
He would have echoed criticisms Sanders has made against Clinton, ("not qualified" "too close to Wall Street" "bad judgement" etc....he does this regularly at his rallies) and joined Sanders in a bashfest against the absent Hillary...
And he also would have emphasized areas where he and Sanders have a lot of agreement. For example, the one and only positive theme Trump has emphasized in his campaign is the need to do better for veterans; this is an area of particular interest to Sanders as well, who served as Chairman of the Veterans Affairs Committee in the Senate...
They are also both pro-protectionist, "anti-establishment outsiders" and like to talk about how "the system is rigged" and politicians are bought...
And they are both far more dovish on national defense and security than Clinton...(for different reasons)
If there had been a debate you can bet your boots that Trump would have been pointing all this out to make a play for Sanders supporters who would have been in the TV audience.
The loser from this debate would have been Hillary Clinton.
I saw a lot of pundits this week saying they didn't think Trump would have any to gain from this, but I strongly disagree. I think this would definitely have been beneficial for him, so I'm perfectly happy to not see it happen.
