President Joe Biden sat down for a surprise live interview in New York with iconic radio host Howard Stern on SiriusXM on Friday. The discussion was announced just minutes before the two went on the air.

"I think I should leave now," Biden joked as Stern, who as recently as this week expressed his fondness for the incumbent Democrat on his radio program, introduced him to the audience by singing his praises and expressing how much he wanted to meet him.

Friday's sitdown marks Stern's first interview with a sitting president.

"Look at me, sitting with the president," Stern said at the end of the interview, to which Biden quipped back: "Look at me, sitting with Howard Stern."

The longtime radio host -- and one-time New York libertarian gubernatorial candidate -- interviewed Donald Trump numerous times through the years before he became president, and sat down with 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton for an extensive interview in 2019. (Stern told late night host Stephen Colbert in 2019 he believes if Clinton had sat for an interview ahead of the election, it might have "made a difference" in her presidential campaign.)

The wide-ranging interview -- which lasted over an hour -- touched on a number of topics, from Biden's feelings of grief after the death of his first wife and infant daughter in a car accident, to pledging to debate former President Donald Trump, his likely opponent in November. 

"I don’t know when, but I am happy to debate him," Biden told the radio host.

Biden was also questioned about his favorite predecessors -- Thomas Jefferson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and, of course, his old boss, Barack Obama, who he said was "a hell of a president" -- overcoming his stutter and how he met his second wife, first lady Jill Biden.

Here are some of the topics they touched on during the interview:

President Biden spoke candidly about mental health when Stern asked him about the loss of his first wife, Neilia, and infant daughter, Naomi, in a 1972 car crash that left his two sons -- Beau and Hunter -- critically injured.

Stern, who has three daughters, grew emotional at points during the interview when talking about the incident.

"It was a great romance," he said to the president. "And you had three children. You had a daughter and two sons, and you had a young family, you had just been elected to the United States Senate, and the worst thing ever happens in your life. It's a horrible tragedy. Your wife was in a car accident, some truck hit her, and you lost your 13 month old daughter. And I get the chills when I say it because I can't imagine this kind of loss. You lose your 13 month old daughter, you lose your wife and your two boys end up in the hospital. I can't even imagine that kind of loss."

Biden said he struggled in the aftermath of the incident, which came just a few weeks after he was first elected to represent Delaware in the U.S. Senate.

"I didn't want to stay in the U.S. Senate, and I let everybody know," Biden said. "We had a Democratic governor, and he'd appointe a successor, another Democrat."

But he met resistance from some of the powerhouses of the U.S. Senate at the time -- namely then-Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy and a handful of others -- who convinced him to stay.

"Sen. Mansfield, 'Iron Mike' from Montana, a man with more integrity in his little finger that most people have in their whole body, and Teddy Kennedy and [South Carolina Sen.] Fritz Hollings ... and a few others, they all came to me and said 'look, just stay six months, help us organize,'" he recalled. "Like a damn fool, I said, I said 'okay, but I'm not going to stay.' And I started commuting back and forth to the train and two or 300 miles round trip a day."

Later in the interview, Stern brought up Biden's loss again, leading to a candid discussion about mental health and suicidal thoughts.

"You describe you were suicidal at that point," Stern said. "You thought about it?"

"I don't drink," Biden replied. "That's not a virtue, I never drank And I used to sit there and think to myself, 'I'm just gonna pick out a bottle of scotch ... and I was going to just drink it and get drunk, and I could never bring myself to do it."

"And I actually thought about, you know -- you don't have to be crazy to commit suicide," he continued. "If you've been at the top of the mountain, you think it's never gonna be there. And there was a brief moment, I thought maybe I just go to the Delaware Memorial Bridge and jump. But I had two kids. Don't get me wrong. I wasn't like, 'I've got to commit -- It was like, you've been to the top of the mountain, and it's never gonna happen again. You're never gonna be okay. But I had my boys."

When asked if he considered therapy, Biden said he didn't, emphasizing the support of his family -- but encouraged others to seek mental help.

"I strongly, strongly, strongly encourage people to go to therapy," Biden said. "I strongly urge people to deal with mental illness. It's just like you breaking a bone in your body, but I guess because I had such an internal support ... I never considered it, but I wish I had. I remember when the boys were hospitalized, Hunter had a fractured skull from the accident and Beau broke literally every bone in his body, he was in a body cast both arms, both legs for a long time."

Biden recalled that Ted Kennedy sent a child therapst from University of Massachusetts to help his children recover from the accident, which he said was "wonderful," but he never sought therapy because of his family's support.

"I encourage people to get therapy, I hope they don't read from this and they shouldn't get a therapist," Biden said. "I think it's really important. Mental illnesses should not be viewed as anything different than a physical illness, and it should be just treated. And there's real serious people and experts who can help."

If you or someone you know needs help, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or live chat at 988lifeline.org.

When asked by Stern if he'll debate Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Biden said he's planning on it.

"I am somewhere," Biden said. "I don't know when. I'm happy to debate him."

The comment marks the first time the incumbent president has committed to debate his 2020 election opponent. The statement comes after several news outlets, including ABC News, NBC News, CNN, C-SPAN, The Associated Press and NPR, sent the two candidates a letter urging them to debate. 

"Ok let’s set it up !” Trump campaign manager Chris LaCivita said on social media in response.

In a post on his Truth Social platform after the interview, Trump accused Biden of being facetious, writing: "Everyone knows he doesn't really mean it, but in case he does, I say, ANYWHERE, ANYTIME, ANYPLACE, an old expression used by Fighters."

"I suggest Monday Evening, Tuesday Evening, or Wednesday Evening at my Rally in Michigan," Trump said, before baselessly accusing Biden's policies on electric vehicles of "destroying" the Wolverine State.

"In the alternative, he's in New York City today, although probably doesn't know it, and so am I, stuck in one of the many Court cases that he instigated," Trump continued, accusing Biden of instigating the hush money trial against him. (There is no evidence Biden interfered in the case, and the president does not have jurisdiction over a state-level prosecution.)

"In fact, let's do the Debate at the Courthouse tonight - on National Television, I'll wait around!" he challenged.

Trump did not participate in a single Republican National Committee-sanctioned debate for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. In 2020, he pulled out of a planned debate with Biden.

Stern offered Biden a strategy for a potential debate.

"This is how I would handle it. Tell me if I'm nuts -- well I am nuts -- but tell me if this is accurate: I would stand there on stage with Trump and I would repeat over and over again, 'excuse me, please find me 11,000 votes so that I can win the election?'" Stern said, referencing the now-infamous phone call the Republican president placed to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger after the election. "I would just repeat that over and over again. And I'd say to the audience, 'what are we debating?'"

The conversation then turned to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. Biden accused Trump of "sitting in that office off the dining area of the Oval Office for three hours and [saying] nothing."

"It was derelict, it was almost criminal. He did nothing. He just sat there and watched what was happening," Biden charged of Trump before condemning his once-and-likely-future opponent's pledges to pardon those who stomed the Capitol. 

Stern asked Biden if any of the Republican members of Congress he served with expressed outrage about Trump.

"I'd never say the names I never will, the last few years have had seven sitting Republican senators -- two are gone now -- seven sitting Republican friends call me and tell me, 'Joe, I agree with you, but I just can't -- he'll get me.'"

"They're not saying they're gonna vote for me, they're saying 'I agree with you,'" he added.

Stern opened the interview in a somewhat unusual fashion, praising the president for a specific piece of policy: A new Transportation Department rule issued earlier this week entitling passengers on significantly delayed flights to receive automatic cash refunds and mandating that airlines be more transparent about fees for bags, select seats and other amenities before a ticket is booked.

"He did something so great, and I don't know how many people are aware of it: But you've got this thing with the airline passed that now when an airline for some reason screws you up and doesn't let you, you know -- when you can't make the flight, they used to give you a credit. But now they are forced to refund you. And like, I think that's a huge deal."

The action is part of Biden's push to cut so-called "junk fees" -- hidden costs on everything from concert tickets to online food delivery -- as a way to lower costs for Americans.

"There's a lot of those, Howard," Biden said. "The fact is that when you're raised in a middle-class family, all this stuff matters to you. It matters, those items that they say, 'well, it's only costs this, it only costs that,' it matters."

"There's a lot of junk fees too," he continued. "Like for example, banks can charge $35 for overdrafts any more, it'll cost you three or eight dollars. A whole range of things that matter."

As he often does, Biden launched into an anecdote about his father to underscore his point: "My dad used to say, 'At the end of the month, how much you got left?'"

Biden's interview with Stern came one day after the Supreme Court heard arguments about Trump's claim of absolute immunity in the federal election subversion case against him. 

Stern pressed Biden about the Supreme Court, to which the president replied: "I got to be careful what I say about the court."

"Why do you have to be careful?" the host asked, before referencing Senate Republicans' successful effort to scuttle President Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland to succeed the late Justice Antonin Scalia in 2016, which led to Trump's ideological reshaping of the high court. "This keeps me up at night, I'm not exaggerating."

"It's a really extremely conservative court," Biden said. "Maybe the most conservative court in modern history."

Biden then steered the conversation toward abortion, pledging that if reelected and given a Democratic Congress, they will restore Roe v. Wade.

"When they struck down Roe v Wade, saying that it was not constitutionally -- federal constitutionally guaranteed, it was a state issue, states can make those judgments ... one of the justices, Clarence Thomas, said it's not that women don't have a choice, they can in fact change it ... at a state level, we'll see if they have the power."

"Well, they ain't seen nothing yet, they're gonna see what will happen," Biden continued, adding: "If I'm elected President again to a second term, we're going to be able to ... make Roe v. Wade the law of the land again."

"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."

The interview comes one day after a report from POLITICO was published about tension between Biden's White House and The New York Times stemming from Biden's refusal to sit with the paper of record for an interview. The Times pushed back on the report, but condemned the president for not sitting for interviews with traditional media outlets, calling it "troubling that President Biden has so actively and effectively avoided questions from independent journalists during his term."

"It is true that The Times has sought an on-the-record interview with Mr. Biden, as it has done with all presidents going back more than a century," the New York Times said in a statement. "If the president chooses not to sit down with The Times because he dislikes our independent coverage, that is his right, and we will continue to cover him fully and fairly either way."

However, in meetings with Vice President Harris and other administration officials, the publisher of The Times focused instead on a higher principle: That systematically avoiding interviews and questions from major news organizations doesn’t just undermine an important norm, it also establishes a dangerous precedent that future presidents can use to avoid scrutiny and accountability," the statement continues. "That is why [NYT publisher A.G.] Sulzberger has repeatedly urged the White House to have the president sit down with The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, CNN and other major independent news organizations that millions of Americans rely on to understand their government."

Biden didn't address The New York Times controversy specifically, but he did accuse news outlets of not "speaking up" against Trump like they did previously.

"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," Biden told Stern.

If you or someone you know needs help, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or live chat at 988lifeline.org.