Trump makes court offer to ‘happy to debate’ Biden

Joe Biden has said he is ready to face off against his White House challenger Donald Trump in a presidential debate, with the Republican, ensnarled in multiple criminal cases, proposing to hold the verbal duel at a New York court without delay.

Candidate debates have been important milestones in US presidential elections for decades, helping make or break voters’ opinions of the contestants’ personal style and demeanour as much as their policy expertise.

Biden’s team has for months been non-committal about his willingness to take part in the tradition, which is usually held in front of an audience and moderated by a well-known journalist.

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

Trump responded swiftly, saying he was willing to debate

“crooked Joe Biden” anywhere, anytime, anyplace.

In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump complained that he was “stuck in one of the many Court cases that [Biden] instigated”, which he said, in capital letters, was “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!”

Biden told reporters last month that any agreement to debate Trump “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 criticised the CPD as being biased toward Biden when, ahead of the last election in 2020, it planned to move a third and final debate to a virtual format amid the pandemic.