Biden says he'll debate Trump: 'I'm happy to'

President Joe Biden participated in a surprise live interview on Friday with radio host Howard Stern, the latest example of the White House favoring media personalities and nontraditional outlets ahead of the president’s reelection.

Biden said in the interview that he planned to debate former President Donald Trump this election cycle, but did not know when or where it would happen.

“I am happy to debate him,” Biden said.

Although Trump did not participate in any of the presidential primary debates, his campaign has called on Biden to debate and has suggested adding more debates to the general election schedule. The Biden campaign had previously been noncommittal about participating.

In a post to his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump said Biden “doesn’t really mean it, but in case he does, I say, ANYWHERE, ANYTIME, ANYPLACE.”

Aside from weighing in on the fall debate schedule, the hour-long interview largely stuck to Biden’s biography. Biden and Stern spoke about the president’s time in law school, how he met his first wife, his life-long journey with his stutter and the death of his son. And the interview often veered into the personal.

Biden spoke about his grief after losing his first wife and daughter and his struggle with suicidal thoughts in the aftermath, and he appeared to choke up when talking about his late son Beau Biden.

“You don’t have to be crazy to commit suicide. If you've been at the top of a mountain and you think it’s never going to be there again,” Biden said.

The Biden team has been criticized by some members of the Washington press corps for how few interviews the president has participated in with legacy outlets such as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Since taking office, Biden has sat for interviews with only two print reporters (Josh Boak of the Associated Press and Evan Osnos of The New Yorker).

The Biden White House has maintained that the media landscape has dramatically shifted and that the president no longer has to engage with traditional outlets in the same way in order to reach voters. Instead, Biden has leaned into friendlier formats such as podcasts, appearing on popular shows such as “SmartLess” and “On Purpose with Jay Shetty.”

Biden has also been critical of traditional media. He argued on Friday that “the free press is not speaking up as much as it used to” particularly when it comes to Trump and issues of democracy.

“I think some of them are worried about attacking him, worried about taking him on,” Biden said.

Although Stern frequently hosted Donald Trump on his radio show prior to his presidential run, the radio host has become an outspoken critic of the former president.