With Joe Biden ‘happy to debate’, Donald Trump calls for verbal duel at courthouse

“I am happy to debate him,” Biden told radio host Howard Stern on Friday. “I am, somewhere. I don’t know when,” he said.

Trump responded swiftly, saying he was willing to debate “crooked Joe Biden … ANYWHERE, ANYTIME, ANYPLACE”.

Trump, who accuses Biden of using the justice system to undermine his White House bid, proposed holding the debate either at his campaign rallies in the midwestern state of Michigan next week – or as early as Friday evening.

In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump complained that he was “stuck in one of the many Court cases that [Biden] instigated as ELECTION INTERFERENCE AGAINST A POLITICAL OPPONENT – A CONTINUING WITCH HUNT!”

He added: “In fact, let’s do the Debate at the Courthouse tonight – on National Television, I’ll wait around!”

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Biden, who has branded Trump as a threat to democracy, told reporters last month that any agreement to debate the real estate mogul “depends on his behaviour”.

The non-partisan Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) has already arranged three dates and locations for Trump and Biden to go head-to-head at US universities throughout the country in September and October.

But Trump bashed the CPD as being biased toward Democrat Biden when, ahead of the last election in 2020, it planned to move a third and final debate to a virtual format amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Then-US president Trump had shown up to the second 2020 debate against Biden only three days before testing positive for Covid.

Biden at the time had said he would not participate in another in-person debate with Trump while the Republican was still ill.

A verbal sparring match could be a useful opportunity for both the 77-year-old former president and 81-year-old current president to display stamina, as Biden is still dogged by Trump’s old “Sleepy Joe” nickname – and Trump faced online teasing when he appeared to nod off during his criminal trial in New York last week.