M.Scott Mahaskey/POLITICO Sanders wants to debate Republicans He also wants to add more debates to the Democratic calendar.

Bernie Sanders on Sunday called for a more robust debate schedule beginning this summer.

The Vermont senator, challenging front-runner Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, also proposed on NBC’s “Meet the Press” some debates with Republican White House hopefuls.


“We need a lot more debates in this campaign,” Sanders said. “I hope very much that we can begin with the Democratic candidate debates as early as July and have some Republicans in those debates as well.”

The Democratic National Committee earlier this month announced that it will hold six sanctioned debates beginning this fall. The Republican National Committee, dealing with a significantly larger 2016 GOP field without a clear front-runner, has scheduled at least nine debates, the first in early August.

During a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” chat a couple weeks ago, Sanders suggested that he wasn’t entirely satisfied with the DNC schedule. “I don’t think six debates are enough and we will be interacting with the DNC to try to create a situation where we have as many debates as possible,” he wrote.

Insiders say that the DNC debate schedule was something of a compromise between the Clinton camp and the challengers’ campaigns, which wanted more debates.

A spokeswoman for former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, who officially got into the race at a rally in Baltimore on Saturday, also suggested at the time that the campaign wanted more debates.

“We will expect a full, robust, and inclusive set of debates—both nationally and in early primary and caucus states,” Lis Smith said in a statement at the time. “This has been customary in previous primary seasons. In a year as critical as 2016, exclusivity does no one any favors.”

There are a number of reasons why challengers such as O’Malley and Sanders would want more debates — namely, they offer free media time for candidates that will almost certainly have less money than Clinton’s team and a venue to directly pressure Clinton on specific policy areas. The Sanders campaign, in particular, is pushing specific policy proposals on issues such as free trade, Wall Street reform and higher education in a way that contrasts with Clinton, who has so far been quiet on several issues.

Both O’Malley and Sanders have strongly criticized Clinton recently for not weighing in on fast-track authority and the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement, supported by the White House but opposed by both challengers and the liberal wing of the party.

Sanders, who held a campaign kickoff event in Burlington last week, has had a strong few weeks — he’s posted good early fundraising numbers, has moved up considerably in recent polls, poached a top Draft Elizabeth Warren aide to run his New Hampshire operation, and is getting strong reviews from activists in Iowa and New Hampshire, where he’s visited this week.

After his Burlington campaign rally, which had more than 5,000 people, he has spoken to standing-room only audiences in the early states. More than 3,300 people have signed up for a coffee-and-bagels event Sunday in Minneapolis.