作为历史上第二个参议院弹劾对前总统的审判唐纳德·特朗普开始了，总统乔·拜登他的政府似乎决意不参与，试图将注意力集中在他雄心勃勃的新冠肺炎救助计划上。
拜登星期二说，他没有观看审判，他的“工作”是帮助受艾滋病影响的美国人冠状病毒流行病。
“参议院有他们的工作，”审判开始后不久，拜登坐在椭圆形办公室与首席执行官们开会时告诉记者。“他们就要开始了。我相信他们会表现得很好。关于弹劾，我只能说这么多了。”
白宫新闻秘书珍·普萨基(Jen Psaki)在周一的一次简报会上强调，总统“不会在本周花太多时间(如果有的话)观察会议进程”。
“乔·拜登是总统，”普萨基周二说。“他不是权威人士。他不会对正在参议院进行的反复辩论发表意见，也不会观察它们。”
Psaki周一表示，拜登将“与议长南希·佩洛西、领导人查克·舒默以及国会的一系列官员就他的计划保持密切联系，这正是他们希望他做的，就是继续关注这个问题。他将把弹劾程序的速度、过程和机制留给国会议员。”
拜登敦促参议院同时走路和嚼口香糖，推动在他执政的第一个月继续确认他的内阁提名人，同时继续就他在国会山的第一次立法推动进行谈判——近2万亿美元的美国救援计划尚未得到共和党人的支持。
拜登本周的日程也证实了尽管有审判，但他仍将重点放在推进政府的议程上。周一，拜登和副总统贺锦丽实际上参观了亚利桑那州的一个大规模疫苗接种点，白宫试图增加供应，让更多的美国人接种疫苗，以实现他们在上任头100天注射1亿针的目标。
由于审判将在国会山进行，拜登和哈里斯在椭圆形办公室设置了一个众所周知的分屏，重点是经济，并于周二与财政部长珍妮特·耶伦(Janet Yellen)和商界领袖会面，讨论他的新冠肺炎救助计划，该计划目前正在众议院进行和解。
拜登也将于本周离开白宫，分别于周三和周四访问国防部和国家卫生研究院。
政府官员继续在全国和地方广播中推动拜登的冠状病毒救助提议；白宫表示，官员们已经进行了100多次采访，包括30多次当地电视台的采访。
“我们还将继续向美国人民直接说明让这个方案越过终点线的紧迫性，”普萨基周一说。
乔治·布什政府的副新闻秘书托尼·弗拉托(Tony Fratto)告诉美国广播公司新闻，“这些人一直在追求的一件事是，今天有太多其他途径可以接触到观众，”包括通过社交媒体直接接触到美国人。“他们应该继续关注这一点，关注他们的信息，不要被今天弹劾审判的评论所困扰。”
第二次弹劾审判几乎是在特朗普在第一次参议院弹劾审判中被判无罪一年后进行的，此前特朗普因涉嫌试图胁迫乌克兰官员对当时的民主党总统候选人乔·拜登(Joe Biden)进行选举干预而被弹劾。
在竞选过程中，拜登并不回避他对弹劾的看法，他直接表示，他认为特朗普应该因试图诋毁拜登的竞选活动而被弹劾。
但现在，随着拜登入主白宫，他的政府试图与诉讼保持距离。
在周一的简报会上，普萨基面对了不少于六个关于弹劾的问题，但她基本上不予理会，在被问及拜登是否会收到舒默对程序的宣读，以及拜登是否会说一旦证据出示，他是否认为特朗普应该被禁止在未来担任公职时，她拒绝提供细节。
“我只是不想再让你参与弹劾了。我很感激——这是一个大故事，但我们的重点是美国救援计划和为美国人民服务，”普萨基在多次重复提问后说。周二也出现了类似的场景。
拜登更愿意分享他对弹劾的看法。在一些采访中，拜登承认他认为审判确实需要继续进行，并表示他认为17名共和党人不会投票赞成定罪。
但拜登一直不愿直截了当地说特朗普是否应该被禁止担任未来的职务。
“瞧，我拼命跑去打败他，因为我认为他不适合当总统。我看到了其他人看到的，当那些船员入侵美国国会时发生了什么。但我现在不在参议院。拜登周五接受哥伦比亚广播公司采访时说:“我会让参议院做出决定。”。
Biden laser-focused on pushing his agenda as Senate starts impeachment trial
As the historic, second Senate impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump gets underway, President Joe Biden and his administration appear hell-bent on not engaging, trying to keep the focus on his ambitious COVID-19 relief package.
Biden said Tuesday he was not watching the trial and that his "job" was to help Americans impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.
"The Senate has their job," Biden told reporters as he sat in the Oval Office at the beginning of a meeting with chief executives, soon after the trial had started. "They're about to begin it. I'm sure they're going to conduct themselves well. And that's all I'm going to have to say about impeachment."
White House press secretary Jen Psaki stressed at a briefing on Monday that the president "will not spend too much time watching the proceedings, if any time, over the course of this week."
"Joe Biden is the president," Psaki said Tuesday. "He's not a pundit. He's not going to opine on the back-and-forth arguments, nor is he watching them, that are taking place in the Senate."
Psaki said Monday that Biden would remain "closely in touch with Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi, Leader [Chuck] Schumer, a range of officials on the hill about his plan, and that's exactly what they want him to do, is to remain focused on that. And he will leave the pace and the process and the mechanics of the impeachment proceedings up to members of Congress.”
Biden urged the Senate to walk and chew gum at the same time, pushing for the continued confirmations of his Cabinet nominees in the first month of his administration, as he continues negotiations over his first legislative push on Capitol Hill -- the nearly $2 trillion American Rescue Plan that has yet to receive support from Republicans.
Biden’s focus on moving forward with his administration’s agenda despite the trial is also borne out in his schedule this week. Monday, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris virtually toured a mass vaccination site in Arizona amid the White House’s attempts to boost supplies and get more shots into the arms of Americans to meet their goal of administering 100 million shots in his first 100 days in office.
As the trial was set to get underway on Capitol Hill, Biden and Harris were setting up a proverbial split screen in the Oval Office, focusing on the economy and meeting with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and business leaders Tuesday to discuss his COVID-19 relief plan currently moving through the reconciliation process in the House.
Biden is also slated to leave the White House this week to visit the Department of Defense and the National Institute of Health on Wednesday and Thursday respectively.
Administration officials have continued to hit the airwaves both national and locally to push Biden's coronavirus relief proposal; the White House said officials have conducted over 100 interviews, including more than 30 with local television stations.
"We’re also going to continue to make the case directly to the American people about the urgency of getting this package across the finish line," Psaki said Monday.
"One thing that these guys have going for them is that there are so many other avenues out there for reaching audiences today," including directly reaching Americans through social media, Tony Fratto, a deputy press secretary in the George W. Bush White House, told ABC News. "They should just continue to feed into that and focus on their message, and don't get caught up on the commentary of what happened today at the impeachment trial."
The second impeachment trial comes almost exactly one year after Trump was acquitted in his first Senate impeachment trial, after being impeached for allegedly attempting to coerce Ukrainian officials to provide election interference against then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.
Amid the campaign, Biden was not shy about his view on the impeachment he was tethered to, saying outright he believed that Trump should be impeached for his attempts to get dirt on Biden’s campaign.
But now, with Biden in the White House, his administration has sought to distance itself from the proceedings.
Psaki faced no less than a half-dozen questions on impeachment during her briefing Monday, but she largely brushed them off, declining to provide specifics when asked if Biden would receive readouts of the proceedings from Schumer and if Biden would say whether he believed Trump should be barred from holding public office in the future once the evidence is presented.
“I'm just not going to have any more for you on weighing in on impeachment. I appreciate -- it's a big story, but our focus is on the American Rescue Plan and delivering for the American people,” Psaki said after multiple iteration of questions. A similar scene unfolded Tuesday.
Biden has been a bit more willing to share his view on impeachment. In a number of interviews, Biden has acknowledged that he believes the trial does need to go forward and has said he doesn’t think 17 Republicans will vote in favor of conviction.
But Biden has been reticent to say outright if Trump should be barred from holding future office.
“Look, I ran like hell to defeat him because I thought he was unfit to be president. I've watched what everybody else watched what happened when that crew invaded the United States Congress. But I'm not in the Senate now. I'll let the Senate make that decision,” Biden told CBS News in an interview Friday.
