Joe Biden visited Howard Stern‘s SiriusXM show today, the latest interview that the president has given to a non-traditional media outlet.
Biden sat down with Stern at his midtown Manhattan studio for a live interview.
The hourlong interview did yield some news. When Stern said that he wanted Biden to debate Donald Trump, Biden said, “I am, somewhere, I don’t know when but I am happy to debate him.”
Trump co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita quickly shot back, “Ok, let’s set it up!”
Trump has challenged Biden to debate, an event that has traditionally been held in the fall general election campaign.
Stern and Biden also got deeply personal, as the president talked of his experience coping with grief after the death of his wife and daughter in an auto accident in 1972.
“I used to sit there and just think I’m going to take out a bottle of scotch,” Biden said. “I’m going to just drink it and get drunk.”
Biden even said that he even “thought let me just go to the Delaware memorial [bridge] and jump.”
The interview also covered Biden’s time as a public defender and how he has coped with his stutter. “I used to memorize the lines I was going to have to read because it was easier than looking at the paper,” Biden said.
Biden went to the New York area on Thursday,, having headlined an evening fundraiser at the home of Michael Douglas.
Biden’s interviews with non-journalists — he recently sat for the Smartless podcast along with former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama — have rankled traditional news outlets. Following a Politico article on the tiff between the White House and The New York Times, the Times put out a statement in which it said that it was “troubling that President Biden has so actively and effectively avoided questions from independent journalists during his term. The president occupies the most important office in our nation, and the press plays a vital role in providing insights into his thinking and worldview, allowing the public to assess his record and hold him to account.”
Per Mediaite, Biden told Stern that he thought that “the free press is not speaking up as much as it used to.” Referring to Donald Trump, Biden said that he thought that some outlets are “worried about attacking him, worried about taking him on.”
Stern’s sit-down with Biden was a surprise, as it was not on the White House public schedule until just minutes before it started. This also is Stern’s first interview with a sitting president.
