Could a debate between presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders be in the works?
Trump says he’d “love to.”
Sanders? “Game on.”
Appearing on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live” Wednesday night, Trump said he would be willing to spar with Sanders in lieu of likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, joking, “How much is he going to pay me?”
“If I debated him, we should have such high ratings, and I think I should give — take that money and give it to some worthy charity, OK?” he said.
“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.”
But the whole proposal appears to have been orchestrated by the Sanders campaign.
Michael Briggs, a Sanders spokesman, said that Kimmel allowed the Sanders campaign to submit a question to Trump to be asked during the taping — so they asked about a potential debate.
The Sanders campaign jokingly, but half seriously, wants to debate Trump now that Clinton has declined to debate. They think it’ll be (as Trump also said) the highest rating ever on whatever network that would run it.
Briggs says that he expects that Trump will also be allowed submit a question for the senator to answer when Sanders tapes Kimmel Thursday night.