(Bloomberg) -- President Joe Biden said he intends to debate Donald Trump ahead of their November general-election rematch, a break with previous comments expressing reluctance about sharing a stage with his predecessor.

Biden spoke Friday in a wide-ranging interview with radio host Howard Stern, in which he criticized Trump’s support for people who stormed the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 and the former president’s reported comments mocking fallen US soldiers as losers. The president said he would be happy to take those arguments to Trump on a debate stage.

“I am, somewhere. I don’t know when. I’m happy to debate him,” Biden said on “The Howard Stern Show.”

Biden previously declined to commit to debating Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee, saying his participation would depend on his rival’s “behavior.”

Trump has said he would be willing to debate his opponent “anytime, anywhere, anyplace” and participate in debates hosted by the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates, which has overseen the contests for three decades. The Republican National Committee, however, has said its nominee would not participate in debates hosted by the commission, accusing it of bias.

Biden at multiple points in the interview grew heated as he described Trump and his brand of politics, implying that he would have had a confrontation with the former president when they were younger, had he mocked him over his stutter.

“Trump makes fun of me,” Biden said, adding Trump is the type of person “you wish you could have got in the neighborhood and meet head-to-head.” 

The president drew contrasts with Trump and Republicans on abortion, one of the few issues where polls show voters prefer Biden to his opponents. Biden expressed confidence he could codify nationwide abortion rights if reelected, saying a wave of ballot referenda would bring voters to the polls, costing Republicans in key races.

“They’re going to see that, they’re going to want to restore it,” Biden said.

‘Arsenio Strategy’

Biden’s appearance on Stern’s show is part of what’s become known as the “Arsenio strategy,” after then-Governor Bill Clinton broke with previous standards of political decorum by playing the saxophone on “The Arsenio Hall Show” in 1992. The gambit helped boost his popularity with young and minority voters.

The president spoke for over an hour with Stern, a New York disc jockey who popularized the “shock jock” format. Stern backed Biden in the 2020 election.

Their conversation discussed the president’s four-decade political career and his personal story, including his grief after the death of his first wife, and his courtship of the first lady, Jill Biden. Biden said women used to send him “salacious” photos following the death of his first wife and that he had given them to Secret Service personnel. 

The president also choked up when discussing the death of his son, Beau Biden, from cancer. 

Stern’s softer tone with the president is different than his contentious relationship with Trump, who used to enjoy a cozy rapport with the self-described “King of All Media,” and was a frequent guest on his show.  

In dozens of appearances over two decades, Trump engaged in often lewd banter. He boasted of his sexual exploits, described his daughter Ivanka in crude terms and compared avoiding sexually transmitted diseases to fighting in Vietnam. 

Trump and Stern’s relationship soured during his presidency, especially after the host said in 2020 that Trump — who had suggested injecting bleach as a cure for Covid-19 — and his supporters should “all take disinfectant and all drop dead.” 

Trump has called Stern a “broken weirdo” and a “weak, pathetic, and disloyal guy.”

(Updates with additional details, background from fifth paragraph)

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