Donald Trump backs out of debate with Bernie Sanders
Donald Trump will not participate in a debate with Sen. Bernie Sanders, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee said in a statement 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."
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."
Read more: http://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2016/05/donald-trump-backs-out-of-debate-with-bernie-sanders-223674