乔·拜登总统并不打算前总统唐纳德·特朗普的法律纠纷他竞选连任的联合主席周日表示，这是他2024年竞选的核心。
“总统从一开始就说他想要一个独立的司法部...所以我们不予置评，”塞德里克·里士满在接受美国广播公司《本周》节目主持人玛莎·拉达茨的采访时说。“我们不会关注唐纳德·特朗普的法律问题。”
里士满说，拜登将专注于他和他的团队，而不是特朗普的指控，包括特朗普否认的两个州和两个联邦案件被视为他的立法成就在堕胎、社会保障和医疗保险等政策问题上攻击共和党。
里士满说:“我们将让司法系统来处理司法系统应该处理的事情。”。
周四晚上，当特朗普的车队抵达佐治亚州富尔顿县(Fulton County)监狱，接受与推动推翻他在该州2020年选举中失利有关的指控时，拜登在网上发起了一场筹款活动。
拜登在给支持者的电子邮件和社交媒体平台X(原名Twitter)上发出的筹款呼吁中写道:“毫无疑问，我认为今天是为我的竞选活动捐款的好日子。”。
当Raddatz问及具体时间时，Richmond坚持说，“我不会对此做过多解读。”拜登周五告诉记者，他看到了特朗普前所未有的面部照片。“帅哥。很棒的家伙，”他说.
特朗普本人打算利用他的第四次起诉卖印有他头像的t恤、马克杯和保险杠贴纸。
特朗普竞选发言人张致恒告诉美国广播公司新闻，特朗普在亚特兰大预订后的第二天，即周五收到了418万美元，这是2024年竞选中竞选活动最好的筹款日。
拜登竞选团队和白宫长期以来一直试图与特朗普越来越多的刑事指控保持距离。特朗普声称针对他的案件是出于政治动机，检察官驳回了这一指控。
周日，里士满呼应了拜登的观点，即整个共和党领域与特朗普的“极端”政策联系过于紧密，无论该党2024年的提名人是谁，他们都将以特朗普的形象参加竞选。
“我认为那天晚上我们看到的是一场向共和党极端部分的竞赛，一场向MAGA基地的竞赛，”Richmond对Raddatz说，这是对上周共和党初选辩论的回应。“这正是我们所期待的。”
里士满说，辩论对拜登竞选策略没有影响，到目前为止，是倾向于总统的经济议程在“拜登经济学”的标签下，围绕低失业率和增加国内投资。
然而，许多选民在民意调查中表示，他们不赞成拜登处理经济的方式。共和党人抓住这个标签作为他们认为伤害消费者的政策的例子，包括推高通货膨胀。
里士满对“本周”进行了反驳，指出美国人民的消费者信心和工作满意度很高，尽管其他地方有悲观的迹象。
当被问及总统团队需要做些什么来宣传他们经常宣扬的好处时，里士满说，“我们必须不断告诉他们我们在做什么。”
“我们要做的是继续做我们一直在做的事情，那就是告诉人们我们正在创造就业机会，降低成本，将制造业从海外带回美国，”里士满说。“这就是竞选的目的。让我们走出去，讲述我们迎接挑战的故事，我们已经取得的成就，我们仍然需要应对的挑战以及所有这些事情。”
在星期三密尔沃基举行的共和党初选辩论中，候选人把目标对准了拜登的经济记录。
佛罗里达州州长罗恩·德桑蒂斯说:“我们需要把乔·拜登送回他的地下室，扭转美国的衰落，这要从理解我们必须扭转拜登经济学开始。”
一些共和党候选人试图攻击拜登的另一个问题是他的年龄。80岁的他是美国最老的总统。
前联合国大使妮基·黑利呼吁对75岁以上的候选人进行心理能力测试——这显然也是对共和党领先的特朗普的一个打击，因为他已经76岁了。哈利还暗示拜登不会活到完成第二个任期的时候。
前副总统迈克·彭斯在辩论台上说，他正在寻求入主白宫，“因为我们不需要一个太老的总统，也不需要一个太年轻的总统。”
尽管拜登承认他的年龄是公众考虑的一个因素，但他的竞选团队不会参与其中，拜登本人也表示，他的记录证明了他的毅力。
“当他们谈论年龄时，我们将谈论美国人正在谈论的事情，那就是餐桌问题，”里士满周日说。
里士满说:“我们将把重点放在手头的问题上，我们将谈论总统希望保护女性生殖自由的事实，我们将谈论他将凯坦吉·布朗·杰克逊推上最高法院的事实，以及劳工、气候团体和妇女组织都已经支持他的事实。”。
Biden not looking to make Trump's legal troubles an election issue, campaign co-chair insists
President Joe Biden is not looking to makeformer President Donald Trump's legal troublescentral to his 2024 pitch, the co-chair of his reelection campaign said Sunday.
"The president has said from the beginning that he wanted an independent Justice Department ... so we're not going to comment," Cedric Richmond said in an interview with ABC "This Week" co-anchor Martha Raddatz. "We're not going to focus on Donald Trump's legal problems."
Rather than Trump's charges -- including two state and two federal cases, all of which Trump denies -- Richmond said Biden will focus on what he and his teamview as his legislative accomplishmentsand attacking the Republican field on policy issues, including abortion, Social Security and Medicare.
"We will let the justice system take care of what the justice system should take care of," Richmond said.
On Thursday night, as Trump's motorcade was arriving at the Fulton County, Georgia, jail for his surrender on charges related to the push to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state, Biden blasted out a fundraising pitch online.
"Apropos of nothing, I think today's a great day to give to my campaign," Biden wrote in his appeal for money sent out in an email to supporters and on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
Pressed by Raddatz about the timing, Richmond maintained, "I wouldn't read much into that." Biden told reporters on Friday only that he had seen Trump's unprecedented mug shot. "Handsome guy. Wonderful guy,"he said.
Trump himselfhas looked to capitalize on his fourth indictment, selling T-shirts, mugs and bumper stickers with his mug shot emblazoned on them.
Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung told ABC News that Trump received $4.18 million on Friday, the day after his booking in Atlanta, making it the campaign's best fundraising day of the 2024 race.
The Biden campaign and the White House have long sought to distance themselves from Trump's mounting criminal charges. Trump has claimed the cases against him are politically motivated, which prosecutors reject.
Richmond, on Sunday, echoed Biden's argument that the entire Republican field is too closely tied to Trump's "extreme" policies and that whoever the party's 2024 nominee is, they will campaign in Trump's image.
"I think what we saw that night was a race to the extreme part of the Republican Party, a race to the MAGA base," Richmond told Raddatz, reacting to last week's GOP primary debate. "And that's what we expected."
Richmond said the debate had no impact on the Biden campaign's strategy which, so far,has been to lean into the president's economic agendaunder the "Bidenomics" label, built around low unemployment and increasing domestic investments.
Biden-Harris campaign Co-Chair Cedric Richmond speaks during a press conference at a hotel in Milwaukee, Wis., Aug. 23, 2023, ahead of the first Republican presidential debate of the 2024 election cycle.
Francis Chung/politico/AP
Many voters, however, have said in polls that they don't approve of Biden's handling of the economy. Republicans have seized on the label as an example of policies that they contend hurt consumers, including by driving up inflation.
Richmond pushed back on "This Week," pointing to high consumer confidence and job satisfaction among the American people, despite signs of pessimism elsewhere.
Pressed on what the president's team needed to do to message the benefits they routinely trumpet, Richmond said, "We have to keep telling them about what we're doing."
"What we're gonna do is continue to do what we've been doing and that is to talk to people about the fact that we're creating jobs, bringing costs down, bringing manufacturing back to the United States from overseas," Richmond said. "And that's what campaigns are for. For us to go out and tell the story of us meeting challenges, what we've accomplished, the challenges we still have to meet and all of those things."
At Wednesday's Republican primary debate, in Milwaukee, candidates took aim at Biden's economic record.
"We need to send Joe Biden back to his basement and reverse American decline and it starts with understanding we must reverse Bidenomics," Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said.
Another thing some of the GOP hopefuls are trying to hit Biden on is his age. At 80, he is America's oldest president.
Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley has called for mental competency tests for candidates over 75 years old -- an apparent swipe at Republican front-runner Trump as well, as he is 76. Haley has also suggested Biden won't live long enough to finish a second term.
Former Vice President Mike Pence said on the debate stage that he was seeking the White House "because we don't need a president who's too old, and we don't need a president who's too young."
Though Biden has acknowledged his age is a factor that the public is considering, his campaign won't engage on it and Biden himself has said his record is proof of his stamina.
"While they talk about age, we will talk about the things that Americans are talking about, and that's kitchen table issues," Richmond said Sunday.
"We're going to focus on the issues at hand and we'll talk about the fact that this president wants to protect women's reproductive freedom, we will talk about the fact that he put Ketanji Brown Jackson on the Supreme Court and that labor, climate groups and women's organizations are all -- have endorsed him already," Richmond said.
