Donald Trump Passes on “Inappropriate” Debate With Bernie Sanders

Donald Trump will not be debating Bernie Sanders after all.

The presumptive GOP presidential nominee said Friday that, while he would like to face off against the current second-place Democratic presidential candidate, he will wait for frontrunner Hillary Clinton.

“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 in a statement.

Wasserman Schultz is the current chairperson of the Democratic National Committee.

On Thursday, Trump said he would be interested in debating Sanders — for a price. The billionaire businessman said the networks could fight over the coverage — which he assumed would draw a massive audience — and whichever prevailed would be required to donate millions to a women’s health charity.

Trump mentioned this again when he passed on the debate Friday.

“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,” he said in the statement. “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.”

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