The Bernie Sanders-Donald Trump debate is on — for now

Bernie Sanders wants to debate Donald Trump, and both candidates say it’s on — for now.

“I’d love to debate Bernie,” said Trump at a press conference Thursday afternoon, referring to a Wednesday night television interview in which he agreed to step up against the senator from Vermont. “We could have a lot of fun with it.”

Trump said his campaign and Bernie’s campaign had been in touch about setting up a possible debate. In response to a reporter’s question about debating U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, which whom he has sparred repeatedly on Twitter, Trump said he’d be up for that too.

“I’ll debate anybody — I don’t care,” he replied.

The Republican presidential candidate said Wednesday night that he was willing to debate the senator from Vermont, provided the money went to charity. In response to a question submitted from Sanders himself on “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” Trump said he and Sanders would pull in “such high ratings” if they did agree to a faceoff.

“If he paid a nice sum for charity, I would love to do that,” Trump said on the show.

Sanders, who had been angling for a debate with frontrunner Hillary Clinton ahead of California’s June 7 primary, took it at face value:

Trump stood by his agreement Thursday, saying he wanted to raise $10 million to $15 million for women’s health issues and that the event should be “held in a big arena somewhere.”

But Trump said the cards were stacked against his opponent.

“The problem with debating Bernie is he’s gonna lose,” Trump said, referring to Sanders’ primary battle against Hillary Clinton. “His system is rigged just like our system is rigged.”

CBS News reported earlier Thursday that several sources said Trump was joking and had no intention of participating in a debate, prompting Sanders’ campaign manager challenged Trump to stand by his word.

“We are ready to debate Donald Trump,” Sanders’ campaign manager Jeff Weaver said on CNN. “We hope that he will not chicken out.”

Weaver said on MSNBC “some backchannel discussions” had begun about a possible debate, but did not elaborate, according to Bloomberg.

The campaign has heard from “every network” about a possible Trump-Sanders matchup, Weaver told CNN.

Sanders hammered Clinton for declining to debate ahead of California’s primary, where the two are in a statistical dead heat. Hillary has a prohibitively strong lead in delegates and superdelegates, but Sanders noted his wins in recent state primaries in challenging Clinton to reconsider.

“Secretary Clinton may want to be not quite so presumptuous about thinking that she is a certain winner,” he wrote. “In the last several weeks, the people of Indiana, West Virginia and Oregon have suggested otherwise.”

This story was originally published May 26, 2016 at 2:11 PM with the headline "The Bernie Sanders-Donald Trump debate is on — for now."