Senate Budget Committee Chairman Sen. Bernie Sanders, and the panel’s top Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina on February 10, 2021 in Washington, DC.
Andrew Harnik-Pool/Getty Images)
- Sens. Bernie Sanders and Lindsey Graham will square off in an economic policy debate Monday.
- The debate at 12 p.m. will be streamed on Fox Nation, a subscription video-on-demand service.
- It is the first between senators in a series meant to “reintroduce the culture of seeking common ground.”
Sens. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, and Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, will square off on economic policy Monday in a live debate that’s the first in a series between leading US senators.
The debate will be an unusual duel between the most progressive member of the Senate and a staunch, Trump-supporting conservative from the south.
The hour-long event, starting at 12 p.m. on Monday, June 13, will be moderated by FOX NEWS Channel’s Bret Baier and will be streamed on Fox Nation, a subscription video-on-demand service.
“I think it will be fun,” Graham told Roll Call, joking that he agreed to the debate because had “nothing else to do.”
Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, said he looks forward to “sharp discussion.”
The goal of the debate series, called “The Senate Project,” is to “reintroduce the culture of seeking common ground and consensus that has been the essence of the Senate since it was conceived in 1789,” according to the Bipartisan Policy Center, which is launching the series with the Orrin G. Hatch Foundation, and the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate.
“We hope it will inspire policymakers to not only make the case for their points of view, but to then work towards the example set by Senator Ted Kennedy and Senator Orrin Hatch for bipartisan bridge-building,” the Bipartisan Policy Center’s announcement says.
While the debate topic is the “state of the US economy,” foreign policy and Ukraine will “most certainly” be a part of the conversation, Steve Scully, of the Bipartisan Policy Center, told Insider. Scully said the topic was made broad to give the senators latitude to move in a number of policy directions.
Both senators are former presidential candidates who sit on the Senate Budget Committee, Sanders as chairman and Graham as the top Republican.
“I hope it will be fun and hopefully informative,” Graham told Roll Call. “I like Bernie, and we’ll find out — maybe there’s some things that even the two of us agree upon.”
The debate will be held in the Kennedy Institute’s full-size replica of the US Senate chamber. Other debates will be held in July at George Washington University and in the fall in Utah.
