(Washington) Joe Biden declined to comment Friday on the historic indictment the day before of his predecessor, and potential rival for the 2024 presidential election, Republican Donald Trump.

The Democratic president, who is traveling to Mississippi for the day, was questioned on this subject several times by the journalists gathered to witness his departure from the White House.

Thursday, “no comment” at the White House when the media announced that, for the first time in history, a former American president will have to appear in court, indicted in a case of buying the silence of a porn star.

Keeping a “low profile” on the subject of the indictment, especially “not talking [about it]”, is the idea, according to the former spokeswoman for the Democratic president, Jen Psaki.

The White House is “going to be as quiet as possible for as long as possible,” she told MSNBC on Thursday. And to add: “They do not want to fuel the political debate”.

So far, the one who succeeded him on the podium of the White House press room, Karine Jean-Pierre, has remained stubbornly silent on the procedures targeting Donald Trump, taking refuge behind a law which prohibits him from mentioning future elections.

Joe Biden will especially not want to give grain to grind the argument of “political persecution” advanced by Donald Trump.

The president, who has not yet officially launched his campaign for re-election in 2024, should mainly rely on the effect that is described in the United States under the cinematic term of “split screen”. On one side a head of state at work, on the other a former president entangled in legal proceedings.

Case in point next week: On Monday, Joe Biden will go to Minneapolis to explain “how his economic policy has created the strongest job growth in history” and attract some very big investment, according to a statement.

The next day, Tuesday, Donald Trump will, unless unforeseen, appear in New York, with fingerprinting, reading of the indictment and statutory photograph.

On Thursday, heavyweights on the right, including the one who is painted as an ambitious young rival of Donald Trump, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, closed ranks around the former businessman.

An easy victory for Donald Trump in the Republican primary would not displease Joe Biden.

The 80-year-old Democrat figures he beat it once, so he can do it again. Joe Biden also hopes that facing a Donald Trump now 76 years old, the question of his age may be less disabling.

“In the next election, I would be very lucky if I found myself facing the same man,” the Democratic president slipped about 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 worked out an argument on the cost of living, on the defense of the insurance systems – health and minimum old age – which the Republicans want, according to him, to put down.

A Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday found that 68% of Americans are worried about their standard of living after retirement.

On the other hand, the Democratic president has relegated to the background, or even frankly abandoned, the virulent and solemn attacks against his predecessor, such as the one launched in early September 2022 in Philadelphia.

Joe Biden, in a rare frontal charge, had accused Donald Trump of fueling “extremism” threatening the “foundations” of the American nation.