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Was Trump kidding about a debate? Not according to Sanders (w/video)

 
Published May 27, 2016

VENTURA, Calif. — Who knows if the purported debate between Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders will come off?

The Republican seemed to be half-joking when he suggested at a North Dakota appearance that he'd debate Sanders, the Vermont senator running for the Democratic nomination, if the event could raise money for women's health groups.

But Sanders, at least, took him seriously.

"Let me begin by telling you something I just learned a few moments ago and which excites me very much," Sanders said as he opened a speech Thursday in Ventura. "We asked Donald Trump if he would be prepared to debate and it appears that Donald Trump is prepared to debate. I'm very excited about it and we're going to have to rent out the largest stadium that you have here in California."

Both men have something in common as they publicly negotiate a joint appearance: embarrassing Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton. She had agreed to a debate in California earlier in the campaign but this week refused a Fox News request that she and Sanders meet before the June 7 primary.

Sanders didn't mention Clinton in his remarks, but he used the subject to go after Trump, and fiercely.

"We're gonna ask Mr. Trump why he thinks giving hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks to the richest people in this country is a good idea," Sanders said.

"We're gonna ask him why he thinks that wages in America are too high. … We're gonna ask him how come he thinks that climate change is a hoax when the scientific community is almost unanimous that climate change is causing devastating problems."

And, he added to sustained applause, "Mostly we're going to be asking him why he thinks that, in a nation in which our diversity is our strength, why he thinks it is appropriate to be insulting Mexicans and Latinos, why he thinks it's appropriate to be insulting Muslims and women. Why he thinks it's appropriate to be insulting veterans like John McCain. And maybe he can tell us why he was one of the leaders of the so-called birther movement designed to delegitimize the presidency of the first African-American president we have ever had."