Hillary Clinton's campaign says she'll only debate Bernie Sanders if his campaign takes a more positive tone

The Hillary camp puts its foot down.
(Image credit: Getty Images)

Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders has been angling for a New York debate with frontrunner Hillary Clinton in the run-up to the state's April 19 primary. Clinton's campaign hasn't agreed to an extra face-off yet, and may not, suggested chief strategist Joel Benenson.

"The debates have been very good, but Sen. Sanders doesn't get to decide when we debate, particularly when he's running a very negative campaign against us," he said Monday on CNN. "Let's see if he goes back to the kind of tone he said he was going to set early on. If he does that, then we'll talk about debates."

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Julie Kliegman

Julie Kliegman is a freelance writer based in New York. Her work has appeared in BuzzFeed, Vox, Mental Floss, Paste, the Tampa Bay Times and PolitiFact. Her cats can do somersaults.