How Do I make Date a Variable?

Right now i am trying to build a script that when run will get the date and store it as a variable so down the line it can be compared with another date value to see if they match My question is how do I do that and in what forms can you call the date command. This is a script in bash fyi, this is what I am currently trying to do

#Specific Set Variables 
SpecficDate=timestamp() {
  date +"%T %D"
}
SpecficStatus="Pass" #SetVariable 

echo $SpecficStatus
echo $SpecficDate

Any help would be great, thank you