Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is "very much looking forward to debating Donald Trump", his campaign deputy manager and communications director Kate Bedingfield said on Fox News on Monday.
The announcement came just after former Clinton White House press secretary Joe Lockhart urged Biden in an op-ed not to participate in debates with Trump. He called it a "fool's errand to enter the ring with someone who can't follow the rules or the truth", citing a Washington Post article alleging that the US president has made "more than 20,000 false or misleading claims".
Biden has previously said that he cannot wait to debate President Trump.
"I can hardly wait. I can hardly wait to deal with what he refers to himself as a 'stable genius', Biden told WBRE, apparently referring to a 2018 tweet in which Trump described himself as a 'stable genius'.
The first debate in the run-up to the November election is set to take place on 29 September in Cleveland, Ohio, the second debate will be on 15 October at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami, Florida, while the third is scheduled for 22 October at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, according to the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD).
