Obama and Bernie Sanders meet at the White House

Bernie Sanders’ campaign reportedly is weighing whether to launch a tough attack ad against Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton in the closing days of the Iowa caucus race.

Sanders declined to take part because the debate is not sanctioned by the Democratic National Committee.

The comment is Clinton, in effect, challenging Sanders to debate between the Iowa caucuses on February 1 and the New Hampshire primary on February 9.

Maddow – who earlier this year hosted a Democratic forum in SC attended by Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley – has been rabble rousing when she’s interviewed the candidates on her show.

The Iowa voting is the first balloting in the months-long process to pick Democratic and Republican presidential nominees ahead of next November’s national election to select a successor to President Barack Obama when he leaves office in a year.

But administration officials well know it will be seen as a pat on the back to Sanders after Obama put a finger on Clinton’s side of the scale.

Sanders also discussed Monday’s Iowa caucuses, saying his campaign is “feeling really good about where we are”, but that in the end “what the Iowa campaign ends up being about is one word, and that is turnout”.

But White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said the president expected to stay out of the nomination contest, though he would vote by absentee ballot in the IL primary. I think, you know, voters are pretty sophisticated.

The White House says Sanders and Obama first discussed holding this meeting at a White House Christmas party in late December and aides have been working on scheduling it since. Many critics say that Democratic debates have been scheduled at times, such as weekends and near holidays, when fewer people are likely to tune in.

Clinton’s push for more debates signals her deficit in New Hampshire against Sanders, who has represented neighboring Vermont in Congress for more than two decades. “If you’re gonna go with somebody who has the courage to make moral decisions when they’re not popular, I think this is the guy”, Sarandon said.

“The DNC has said this would be an unsanctioned debate so we would not want to jeopardize our ability to participate in future debates”, Sanders’ campaign manager Jeff Weaver said.

“I think what the President is trying to do is the right thing, and what he is trying to do is keep our young men and women in the military out of a perpetual war in the quagmire of the Middle East”, he said.

Shortly after the United States reached the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal with 11 other countries in the Pacific Rim under the auspices of Obama last October, Sanders bashed the trade agreement as “disastrous”.