Biden says Trump legal troubles ‘have nothing to do’ with him

(NEXSTAR) – Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly blamed his legal troubles on President Joe Biden, but Biden wasn’t taking the bait Tuesday.

“His lack of ethics has nothing to do with me,” Biden said in an exclusive interview with Nexstar. “I have never once talked to anyone in my administration about Trump’s legal problems. A lot of them occurred well before I became president. And so I have nothing to do with that. Trump has a value set fundamentally different than most Americans. … His conduct that he’s acknowledged has been below what most Americans think.”

The interview with Biden came Tuesday as the first seven jurors for Donald Trump’s hush money trial were seated in a New York courtroom. Eleven more people still must be sworn in before opening statements begin as early as next week in the first criminal trial of a former commander in chief.

Biden calls inflation ‘stubborn,’ says there’s ‘more to do’ on economy in exclusive interview

It’s a moment of reckoning for Trump, who has tried to put off his prosecutions until after the November election and casts himself as the victim of a politically motivated justice system.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records as part of an alleged effort to keep salacious — and, he says, bogus — stories about his sex life from emerging during his 2016 campaign.

If convicted of falsifying business records, Trump faces up to four years in prison, though there’s no guarantee he will get time behind bars.

The trial puts Trump’s legal problems at the center of his closely contested race against Biden. It’s the first of Trump’s four criminal cases to reach trial, and it may be the only one to return a verdict before voters decide whether to elect the presumptive GOP presidential nominee.

In President Biden’s one-on-one interview with Nexstar Tuesday, he addressed other challenges he faces in the run for a second term, including inflation and conflicts in the Middle East. You can watch the full interview in the video player at the top of this story.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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