Clinton campaign: Sanders rejected our debate offers

Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton’s campaign on Saturday lashed out at rival Bernie Sanders over the recent controversy about trying to set up debates.

{mosads}In a statement, Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said the Sanders campaign had rejected three separate dates on which to hold a debate.

“The Sanders campaign needs to stop with the games,” Fallon said in the statement. “Over the course of the last week we have offered three specific dates for a debate in New York, all of which the Sanders campaign rejected.”

The Clinton campaign first offered April 4 at 7:30 as a debate time, but Sanders’ camp rejected it because they wanted a date after Wisconsin’s April 5 primary, Fallon said.

“We then offered the night of April 14^th and that was rejected by Sanders. While we preferred to do an evening debate on the 14^th, we then agreed to a debate on Good Morning America on April 15, understanding that the Sanders campaign had already agreed to this forum. That, too, was rejected.”

Sanders spokesman Michael Briggs said in a statement Saturday that the dates proposed by Clinton’s team “don’t make a whole lot of sense.”

“The idea that they want a debate in New York on a night of the NCAA finals — with Syracuse in the tournament no less — is ludicrous,” he wrote.

April 4 is the night of the NCAA basketball championship.

Briggs’ statement did not address the offer to debate on April 14 or 15.

The Sanders campaign has repeatedly slammed Clinton after one of her aides suggested earlier this week that she would not agree to any more debates unless the Vermont senator changed his “tone.”

On Saturday, the Clinton campaign publicly offered to debate in mid-April, and criticized Sanders for his “negative attacks.”

“Both offers for the night April 14 and the morning of April 15 still remain,” the statement said. “The Sanders campaign needs to stop using the New York primary as a playground for political games and negative attacks against Hillary Clinton.”

ABC has extended an invitation to both candidates to debate on “Good Morning America” on April 15, the network confirmed to CNN.

– Updated at 1:36 p.m.