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Senior Hillary Clinton adviser Karen Finney accused Bernie Sanders's campaign, which once pledged to be issue-based, of paying closer attention to poll numbers and attacking Clinton. | AP Photo Clinton and Sanders trade accusations over New York debate

The debate in the Democratic race has largely returned to where it was several months ago — on the debates themselves.

Hillary Clinton's campaign on Tuesday refused to budge from its refusal to participate in future debates until Bernie Sanders pledges not to launch any attacks on the former secretary of state, maintaining that the Vermont senator has not upheld the lofty ideals he set for his own campaign's rhetoric.

Sanders' campaign, however, is not backing off, saying that Clinton only wants to debate when it suits her position in the polls, and she should accept his offer to debate in New York ahead of the April 19 primary.

In an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon said the Sanders campaign was creating a controversy out of nothing.

“To be honest, Wolf, this is a bit of faux controversy. There is a process for adding to the debate schedule. The campaigns get together privately, have discussions in coordination with the DNC. That process is underway and we should let that process play out. There’s plenty of time between now and the New York primary which isn’t for another three weeks," Fallon said. "I think this was really just a manufactured controversy that arose in the last couple of days because the Sanders campaign sorta jumped the gun and publicly issued a letter to our campaign trying to hasten the process. I don’t think that was necessary, I think there’s plenty of time to work things out.”

Later on Tuesday, Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver appeared on CNN to dispute Fallon's claims.

"Let’s understand the genesis of these debates that are coming up. Back right before New Hampshire when Sec. Clinton was underwater in New Hampshire, they desperately wanted to have a debate, a late scheduled debate, outside of the regular process in New Hampshire and we said yes, we’re happy to do that, as long as you agree to three more debates," he said, adding that one of them (in Michigan) had already taken place but the requested April and May debates still remain in the air.

"Now it looks like they’re trying to go back off having these April and May debates. Now let’s be clear it would be really dishonest of them to having negotiated to have a debate in New Hampshire in exchange for three other debates to now go back on their word and try to get out of doing these other two debates," Weaver said.

Weaver said that while the campaigns were in discussion with one another, the request for a New York debate was not being considered the way they had hoped. “There’s no way to get this on the table without bringing it to the attention of the American public," he said.

In an interview with Bloomberg Politics on Tuesday evening, Fallon opened the door to a New York debate, if ever so slightly.

"There have been back channel conversations throughout the day today," Fallon said. "Our campaign indicated through the Sanders campaign through the DNC that we’re perfectly willing to debate in April and we provided some options including here in New York."

But, he added, the two campaigns had to work together to figure out dates and locations. "She's perfectly willing to debate in New York among other places," he said.

The latest tussle over the debates broke out over the weekend, when Weaver sent a letter to Clinton’s campaign manager, Robby Mook, accusing the former secretary of state of denying the people of New York the chance to see the two rivals debate. The letter came after Sanders delivered five blowout wins over the past week, and was eager to keep the momentum going to prevent Clinton from securing an insurmountable delegate lead.

But Clinton's campaign countered aggressively on Monday, with chief pollster Joel Benenson saying on CNN that any future debate participation on the part of their campaign would depend on the "tone" set by their opponent. Later in the day, Fallon called the Sanders campaign's letter over the weekend calling for a debate in New York a "stunt" for attention.

The fracas over the debate schedule dates back to the very beginning of the Democratic primary in which former candidate Martin O'Malley and Sanders' campaign expressed their displeasure that the Democratic National Committee appeared to be favoring Clinton by limiting the debate schedule, as they scrapped for national exposure. Clinton did agree to more debates as she sought to regain some of her own momentum, but not all the dates were nailed down.

Sanders himself added pressure to Clinton on Tuesday morning with a tweet featuring a video of Clinton in 2008 declaring, "You should be willing to debate anytime, anywhere.”

But Clinton's campaign hit the airwaves on Tuesday morning to reiterate their position. “I think what Joel was getting at a couple of things — we had a process whereby we were talking about adding additional debates," senior Clinton adviser Karen Finney told CNN's "New Day" on Tuesday. "That seemed to be working just fine. And then we see this kind of stunt, as Brian Fallon pointed out yesterday, they send this public letter about let’s — you know, demanding a debate. At the same time, we see reports about how they’re doing polling on new lines of attack on Hillary Clinton."

"And so it just felt like — hold on, here — you don’t get to set the terms and conditions around when or where we debate," Finney continued. "We’ve had a process. Let’s stick to that process rather than public stunts, particularly at a time when you had said at the beginning of this campaign, ‘I don’t do negative attacks.’ I think at one point Sen. Sanders also said, ‘I’m not really into polling.’ Well now it’s all about polling and how to attack Hillary Clinton? What kind of a campaign is that?”

CNN host Alisyn Camerota challenged Finney on the reasoning behind their reluctance to participate in more debates, pointing out that most campaigns often point out their opponents' negatives as the election season progresses.

“I’m all for that, but don’t then say, set a standard at the beginning of the campaign and say one thing and then decide you’re going to play it another way just because," Finney answered. "And by the way, I think this is an important point — if we have a debate in New York, I can guarantee you Hillary Clinton would do very well. Not just because she does well at debates, but because this is a state that knows her well, knows that when she says she’s gonna do something she gets it done.”

Pressed on why the Clinton camp would not be moved about debating in New York, Finney reiterated that "the point is less about do we agree or disagree about ‘should we debate in New York?’ and more about ‘Let’s talk about the tone of this campaign’ and again, let’s talk about we had a process by which we were talking about debates.

Finney also rejected the notion that the Clinton campaign is itself trying to set a tone by which the Sanders campaign must abide.

"We’re just going by what Sen. Sanders himself said. I mean, he essentially said, 'I’ll never run a negative attack ad,' you know, ever," she said, remarking upon that if the standard by which the Democratic race is being judged is that it is not as bad as the Republican one, "Our country is in a lot more trouble than we might have suspected.”

Camerota then asked whether the Clinton campaign would be open to a debate if the Sanders campaign promises to avoid negative attacks.

“We’ll have a conversation about it. Like I said, we’ve had a conversation that led to the debate in Flint," she said, referring to the early March debate in Michigan that was added to the calendar. "Let’s go ahead and go back to that process and talk about it.”

Appearing in back-to-back interviews on MSNBC less than two hours later, Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver and Finney traded words over the conditions for the next debate.

"It would be very dishonest for them not to do the debates they promised to do. We don't know why Clinton is concerned about debating in New York. They've already agreed to a debate in April. Why not have it in New York?" Weaver asked.

Finney reiterated the campaign's line that it would not accede to "games and gimmicks by the Sanders campaign" on the debates.

Nolan D. McCaskill contributed to this report.