President Joe Biden is not going to make former President Donald Trump’s legal problems a centerpiece of his 2024 White House run, Biden campaign co-chair Cedric Richmond said Sunday.
“Are Trump’s legal problems going to be part of your campaign against him?” ABC’s Martha Raddatz asked.
“No,” Mr. Richmond said in response. “Those emails go out—you know, you get five and six of them a day. So, I wouldn’t read much into that.”
“Even though it was the day of the Fulton County Jail. Okay,” Ms. Raddatz quipped before moving on to say that some voters “seem to think” that legal cases against former President Trump and President Biden’s son Hunter “cancel out.”
“The president has said from the beginning that he wanted an independent Justice Department, and we have to adjust that,” Mr. Richmond replied, putting off the question about Hunter Biden.
Following a nearly five-year federal investigation, the president’s son was set to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges and enter a pretrial diversion agreement to avoid a felony firearm charge. But that deal has collapsed, renewing the likelihood that Hunter Biden could head to trial as his father ramps up his bid for a second term.
“So, we’re not going to comment, we’re not going to focus on Donald Trump’s legal problems,” the Biden aide said.
Meanwhile, the Trump campaign is seizing the opportunity to turn the Georgia booking into a multi-million dollar fundraising haul.
The former president, who has so far been indicted in four separate cases, on Thursday shared on the internet his first mugshot—the first ever taken of a U.S. president. His campaign wasted no time to put the image on all manner of merchandise sold on its website, reportedly raking in millions of dollars in a matter of days.
The mugshot, which was made public by a Georgia courthouse on Thursday night, shows President Trump leaning forward and staring directly into the camera while wearing his signature blue suit and red tie. Products featuring the shot, sold at the official Trump campaign online store at this time, include T-shirts, bumper stickers, coffee mugs, and beer coolers. Some private and non-political groups have also capitalized on the mugshot.
In his first post on X since being suspended from it when it was known as Twitter, President Trump shared the image along with a link to his fundraiser website that asked supporters to make a “contribution to evict Crooked Joe Biden from the White House and SAVE AMERICA during this dark chapter in our nation’s history.”
“If you are doing poorly due to the sinister people in control of our country right now, don’t even think about donating,” his website added.
“The American people know what’s going on. What has taken place is a travesty of justice and ELECTION INTERFERENCE. The Left wants to intimidate YOU out of voting for a political outsider who puts the American people FIRST,” the donation site also said. “But I walked into the lion’s den with one simple message on behalf of our entire movement: I WILL NEVER SURRENDER OUR MISSION TO SAVE AMERICA.”
According to Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung, $4.18 million raised this Friday alone—a sum similar to what he raised after his first indictment, marking the “highest grossing day” of the campaign.
Overall, President Trump has collected $7.1 million since his mug shot was released Thursday night.
“Organic money has skyrocketed, especially after President Trump tweeted out the picture along with the website,” Mr. Cheung wrote on X.
A day before his mugshot was taken, the Republican National Committee and Fox News held the first presidential primary debate, which President Trump opted to skip, citing his 40-point lead over other candidates in opinion polls. Instead, he sat with former Fox host Tucker Carlson in an interview on X, attracting more than 250 million views.
“The Interview has, at this moment, 260,000,000 Views, the biggest of all time, whereas the FoxNews Debate had only 11,000,000 Viewers,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform. “End of story! If FoxNews doesn’t get on board the greatest MOVEMENT of all time, MAGA, they will continue to Hemorrhage Viewers and Ratings—They will never come back—The beautiful Golden Goose will be forever gone!”
President Trump has since made no new post on X, although he continues to post on Truth Social. It’s not clear if Trump will once again use X frequently as he did while in the White House.
Trump’s reappearance was welcomed by X owner Elon Musk, who shared the mugshot post, calling it “Next-level.”
