


Democrats are undeterred in their efforts to troll the first 2024 Republican presidential primary debate, despite former President Donald Trump's decision not to attend.
The Republican field is playing from Trump's "same playbook" and campaigning on his "same unpopular positions," according to President Joe Biden's reelection campaign co-chairman Cedric Richmond.
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"So whether he's on a stage or not, his extreme agenda will be, and the only thing that will be missing is the chaos and disruption, the bullying, the name calling of former President Trump," Richmond told reporters Tuesday. "We will continue to highlight differences and what we want to do for the American people because again, this is about the American people."
Richmond, Biden's former White House Office of Public Engagement director and a onetime congressman from Louisiana, contended it does not matter who "wins" the debate because Republicans have chosen "a losing strategy."
"And that strategy is to be as extreme, as MAGA, and as out of touch with the American people as possible," he said.
Richmond particularly underscored the Republican candidates' policies regarding abortion, Social Security and Medicare, democracy, education, taxes, and guns.
"They would rather ban books than assault weapons," he said. "So as they race to the right to secure a far-right base, they are nailing themselves to positions that they just cannot recover from in November for the general election."
Earlier, Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison dismissed the Republican debaters as the "most extreme, the most divisive, most chaotic" in "history."
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"This election will be a choice, a choice between hope or fear, between competence or chaos, between unity or division," he said. "As they did in 2020, voters will choose hope, they're going to choose competence, they're going to choose unity, and they will send President Biden and Vice President Harris back to the White House to finish the job."
The Biden campaign on Tuesday launched a new ad in Wisconsin before Wednesday's opening debate, part of a 16-week, $25 million paid media outreach bid in battleground states. The DNC has also organized a plane to fly around Milwaukee's Fiserv Forum Wednesday night with a sign reading, “GOP 2024: A Race for the Extreme MAGA Base.”