"No comment": Joe Biden wants to stay away from Donald Trump's legal troubles, aware that he will have to maneuver with delicacy if he wants to profit politically from the indictment of his potential rival in 2024.
The American president, who has not officially launched his campaign, knows that any comment could feed the argument of an instrumentalization of justice hammered by the Republican billionaire.
The 80-year-old democrat also takes care by his silence not to blur the image he is trying to convey: that of a head of state focused on his task, who for example went on Friday to comfort the inhabitants of a town devastated by a tornado.
Before his departure, Joe Biden had stopped to meet the journalists who were waiting for him on the lawns of the White House.
He could have, as often, climbed directly into his helicopter. But he wanted to make it very clear...that he wouldn't say anything.
"I have no comment," then "I'm not going to talk about Trump's indictment," "I have no comment," and "I have no comment on Trump," he said. he declared.
For the first time in history, a former American president will appear in court, charged in a case of buying the silence of a porn star.
Faced with this historic indictment, the White House "does not want to fuel the political debate", analyzed Thursday the former spokesperson for the Democratic president, Jen Psaki, on the MSNBC channel.
Joe Biden knows that any comment from him would give food for thought to Donald Trump, who claims to be the victim of "political persecution" from instrumentalized justice.
The American president, with this detached posture, also counts on a cinematographic effect of "split screen" (split screen).
On Friday, the former Republican president denounced a "witch hunt" from his luxurious residence in Mar-a-Lago in Florida.
Joe Biden, sunglasses on his nose and cap marked with the presidential seal on his head, wandered between collapsed houses and bare trees in Rolling Fork (Mississippi, south), a city devastated by a deadly tornado.
In this modest and predominantly African-American locality, the president, taking on a role he loves, has offered words of comfort and promises of aid for reconstruction.
"You built your lives here. We're going to make sure you can stay," Biden said.
On Monday, the American president will travel to Minnesota (north-central), to boast of his economic successes.
Meanwhile, journalists will begin to flock to New York to comment on Donald Trump's expected appearance on Tuesday, with fingerprints and photographs taken - the "mugshot", a cliché rarely flattering imposed on suspects in the United States.
Donald Trump's indictment - which in no way prohibits him from campaigning or running - may have a mobilizing effect in his own camp.
However, an easy victory for the former businessman in the Republican primary would not displease Joe Biden.
The 80-year-old Democrat tells himself he beat it once, so he can do it again. He also hopes that facing Donald Trump, 76, the question of his age will be less disabling.
"At the next election, I would be very lucky if I found myself facing the same man", slipped the Democratic president a year ago.
A recent Marquette University Law School poll had Joe Biden neck and neck with the former president in voting intentions, at 38% each.
It remains to be seen where the independents and the undecided will go.
For them, Joe Biden has for weeks already honed an argument on the cost of living, on the defense of health insurance and minimum old-age systems - which the Republicans want, according to him, to dismantle.
A Quinnipiac University survey released Thursday indicates that 68% of Americans worry about their standard of living after retirement.
03/31/2023 22:11:16 - Rolling Fork (United States) (AFP) - © 2023 AFP
