US President Joe Biden is not looking to make former President Donald Trump's legal troubles central 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. "We're not going to focus on Donald Trump's legal problems."
Rather than Trump's charges, Richmond said Biden will focus on what he and his team view as his legislative accomplishments and 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 told ABC.
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 Twitter.
Pressed in Sunday’s interview 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 and quipped, "Handsome guy. Wonderful guy."
Trump has looked to capitalize on his fourth indictment, selling T-shirts, mugs and bumper stickers with his mug shot emblazoned on them.
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 ABC as reacted 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 agenda under the "Bidenomics" label, built around low unemployment and increasing domestic investments.
He also played down Republican candidates’ focus on Biden’s age, saying the campaign won't engage on it.
"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," he added.
Biden, who is 80, would be 86 years old at the end of a second term and his age has already been brought up by political rivals in the election. Republican candidate Nikki Haley warned recently that a vote for Biden is a vote for Vice President Kamala Harris, because Biden is unlikely to “make it” to 86.
Biden recently said that his decision to run for reelection in 2024 was not an automatic one, and added that it is legitimate to bring up his age as he seeks another term.
Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has also weighed in on concerns surrounding Biden's age, saying it's a legitimate issue and "people have every right to consider it".