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

BIDEN'S CLAIM: "All the way back in the beginning of February, I argued that we should be keeping people in China. And we had set up, in our administration, a pandemic office within the White House."

FACT CHECK: Biden's comments about what his administration would have done differently at the beginning of the pandemic were lacking some context.

What Biden appeared to be referencing was the United States having Centers for Disease Control and Prevention staff based in China in order to monitor the spread of the virus. Reuters reported earlier this year that the Trump administration had cut the number of staff in China by more than two-thirds, mostly over the previous two years in the agency's Beijing office.

In a Democratic presidential primary debate in February, Biden referred to funding cuts for public health agencies. "What I would do immediately is restore the funding," he said then. "I would be on the phone with China and making it clear, we are going to need to be in your country."

His answer at the town hall Thursday night did not provide that full context, though, which made it sound like he could have been referring to whether he supported putting restrictions on travelers coming from China to the United States, a step President Donald Trump took at the beginning of February.

It was not until the beginning of April that Biden's campaign confirmed in a statement to CNN that he supported Trump's decision to bar some travel from China, because the move was supported by scientists and medical experts.

-ABC News' John Verhovek

Mieke Haeck, the mother of a transgender child, asked Biden how he would protect LGBTQ rights.

“I will flat-out just change the law. Eliminate those executive orders, number one,” Biden said.

Biden then brought up the high number of trans women of color who had been killed this year, and mentioned his late son Beau, who he said helped get the first transgender rights law passed in that state.

Voter Mark Halfman, who cast a ballot for Trump in 2016, described the president's foreign policy as a "modern-day miracle" citing his Middle East peace plan and reduction in troops overseas.

He asked Biden if the president deserved some credit, to which the vice president said, "a little but not a whole lot."

"We find ourselves in a position where we're more isolated in the world than we ever have been," Biden said. "'America first' has made America alone."

Biden cited Trump's relationship with questionable figures and hurting relationships with America's democratic allies.

"You see what’s happened and everything from Belarus to Poland ... to Hungary and the rise of the totalitarian regimes in the world. And as well as this president embraces all the thugs in the world," he said.

When asked about the environment, Biden reiterated that he would not ban fracking, calling instead for the practice to be managed "very, very well." 

"I think you have to make sure that fracking is, in fact, not admitting methane or polluting the well or dealing with what can be small earthquakes and how they're drilling," he said. "So it has to be managed very, very well."

The former vice president also said that the future rests in renewable energy and criticized Trump for his comments on the environment.

"Every time we talk about global warming or the environment, the president thinks of, you know, it's a joke and I think it's jobs," Biden said. 

"I, as president, am going to invest that $600 billion we spend on government contracts only on those things that, in fact, also are not only made in America, but building an infrastructure that's clean and new," he added. 

Stephanopoulos pushed back on Biden, citing a New York Times op-ed written by a member of the Boilermakers Local-154, who said that fracking was at odds with Biden's goal to end the use of fossil fuels.

After touting the union's endorsement, Biden said that he would end oil subsidies. He also tried to distinguish between his plan and the Green New Deal.

"The new green deal calls for the elimination of all -- all nonrenewable energy by 2030," he said.  "You can't get there. You're going to need to be able to transition, George, to be able to transition to get to the place where we invest in new technologies that allow us to do things that get us to a place where we get to net zero emission, including in agriculture."