President Joe Biden said Friday he is “happy” to debate former President Donald Trump, though did not specify as to when.
The comment was made during a one-on-one interview with radio host Howard Stern, who asked if the president had plans to debate his 2024 opponent.
“I am somewhere,” Biden responded, the first time he’s indicated he will debate Trump this election cycle. “I don’t know when. I’m happy to debate him.”
President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the CHIPS and Science Act at the Milton J. Rubenstein Museum, April 25, 2024, in Syracuse, N.Y.
Evan Vucci/AP
After Biden’s remark on Stern’s show on Sirius/XM, Trump’s campaign manager Chris LaCivita responded on social media.
“Ok,” he wrote on X, “let’s set it up !”
Trump, however, is pouring cold water on the idea that Biden actually wants to debate him.
“Everyone knows he doesn’t really mean it,” Trump wrote in a post on his social media platform on Friday.
Trump then quipped that Biden should debate him at his rally in Michigan next week or even in New York City, where they both are Friday.
Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event in Schnecksville, Pa., April 13, 2024.
Joe Lamberti/AP
Trump, who skipped all four Republican National Committee-sanctioned 2024 primary election debates and pulled out of one of his three debates with Biden in 2020, has urged Biden to participate in the three general debates scheduled for this fall.
However, the Biden campaign has expressed concern with the organization of these debates by the Commission on Presidential Debates, signaling that the nonpartisan group that has sponsored the events since the 1980s has been unclear about their ability to administer a “fair” debate with Trump.
In April 2022, the Republican National Committee also voted unanimously to withdraw from the Commission on Presidential Debates.
During the interview, Biden became very personal with the host. The president ran through his life story, touching on how his stuttering affected his life.
“You realize how humiliating it is. So … it taught me to understand what other people are going through,” Biden said when referencing how his stutter helped make him more compassionate.
Howard Stern is seen arriving to the ABC studio for GMA, May 9, 2019, in New York.
Gilbert Carrasquillo/GC Images/Getty Images
Biden shared how after the passing of his first wife and 1-year-old daughter, he had a fleeting suicidal thought.
“You don’t have to be crazy to commit suicide. If you’ve been at the top of a mountain, you think it’s never gonna be there again. And just a brief moment, I thought, ‘maybe I just go to the Delaware Memorial Bridge and jump.’ But I had two kids,” Biden said.
He became emotional when discussing the passing of his son Beau and his father.
On abortion, Biden assured Stern that if reelected, he would be able to get a majority in Congress to reinstate Roe v. Wade, the nationwide abortion guarantee that the Supreme Court overturned in 2022.
“I think there’s going to be a real lesson learned on … the MAGA Republican side of the aisle, because we’re going to see a whole hell of a lot of state referenda and they’re going to see they’re gonna want to restore it. And that’s going to be able to be done.”
At one point in the interview, Biden referred to Nixon as Trump, but corrected himself and referenced it as a “Freudian slip.”
He also repeatedly referenced speaking at the Gridiron Club this Saturday — when he meant to say the White House Correspondents Dinner. The Gridiron Club already took place in March, and Biden spoke at it.
President Joe Biden waves as he walks to board Air Force One as he transits through John F. Kennedy International Airport, April 26, 2024, on his way back to the White House.
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images
“I’m doing the Gridiron dinner on a Saturday, right? And one of the things — a serious thing — I’m going to say at the Gridiron dinner is that, you know, paraphrasing, Jefferson said a choice between what we have and a free press, I’d pick a free press.”
He went on to accuse the press of not “speaking up” about Trump as much as they used to in the past.
“I haven’t figured it out yet. But I think it’s coming around. And I’m not blaming the press. I’m just saying. I think some of them are worried about attacking him; worried about taking him on.”
ABC News’ Lalee Ibssa and Soorin Kim contributed to this report.