Biden's ABC town hall: Former VP lays out vision in stark contrast to Trump's

Biden was asked by Republican Kelly Lee about his views and plans for a future coronavirus vaccine.

During last week's vice presidential debate, Sen. Kamala Harris said she would trust scientists over the president with regard to the validity of a vaccine.

Biden warned that Trump's rhetoric on vaccine and health guidelines have been questionable.

"President Trump says things like, you know, everything from this crazy stuff he's walking away from now, inject bleach in your arm and that's going to work," he said. "I'm not being facetious though. He actually said these things."

Biden said that he's been meeting with scientists and complimented them for their diligence in their research.

"They're not there yet," he said. "And the most scientists say -- it's not likely to have a vaccine that would be available until the beginning of next year, into the spring of next year."

Stephanopoulos asked if Biden would mandate a vaccine's use once it's safe and effective. Biden said it would depend on several factors.

"It depends on the state of the nature of the vaccine when it comes out and how it's being distributed," he said. "But I would think that we should be talking about, depending on the continuation of the spread of the virus, we should be thinking about making it mandatory."

The first question of the night came from Nicholas Freden, an attorney from Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, who asked how Biden would have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic when it began and what following the science looked like to Biden going forward.

The former vice president responded by what he called for beginning in February, including keeping pandemic investigators on the ground in China and utilizing the Defense Production Act earlier. 

Trump "missed enormous opportunities and kept saying things that weren't true," Biden said.  "It's going to go away by Easter. Don't worry about it. It's going to all -- when the heat -- when the summer comes, it's all going to go away like a miracle. He's still saying those things." 

Stephanopoulos pressed Biden, asking why he didn't call for masks in January and February, early in the pandemic. The former vice president responded by saying he started wearing masks and social distancing in March when scientists, like Dr. Anthony Fauci, began to recommend it. 

" What we should be doing now, there should be a national standard," Biden said. "Remember what the president said to the governors. Well, they're on their own, it's not my responsibility, the governors can do what they need to do, not my responsibility. It is a presidential responsibility to lead. And he didn't do that."

A voter asked Biden what his administration would do to deal with COVID-19 that hasn't been done by the current administration.

"There should be a national standard ... it is the presidential responsibility to lead," Biden said.

Trump seized on the announcement from C-SPAN earlier that it has indefinitely suspended its political editor Steve Scully after Scully admitted to lying about his Twitter feed being hacked when confronted about a tweet to former Trump communications director Anthony Scaramucci.

Scully was the surprise pick to moderate the town-hall debate that was supposed to happen Thursday evening, until Trump rejected a virtual format and Biden signed on to the ABC News Town Hall instead. 

Moments after the Associated Press published an apology from Scully, Trump tweeted he was "right again!" and claimed Scully's lie showed the debate was "rigged" and that his campaign was "not treated fairly by the 'Commission.'" 

A week ago, after Trump called Scully a "never-Trumper," Scully tagged Scaramucci's Twitter account in a tweet -- in what looked like a direct message gone wrong -- and asked, "should I respond to Trump."

Scaramucci, a fierce critic of the president, tweeted back his advice: "Ignore. He is having a hard enough time. Some more bad stuff about to go down."

Scully said once he saw the controversy the exchange had created, he falsely claimed his Twitter account had been hacked.

"These were both errors in judgement for which I am totally responsible for," Scully said. "I apologize."