The coronavirus pandemic has knocked Joe Biden off the campaign trail, so he's reaching out from his basement. (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

(CNSNews.com) - "How are you able to stay connected to people during this period of mandated social distancing?" MSNBC's Nicole Wallace asked 2020 presidential hopeful Joe Biden on Tuesday.

"I'm in the basement of my home," Biden told her. A television studio has been set up for him there since he's staying off the campaign trail and following the advice to stay at home.

"Well, what I'm trying to do is become much more facile in being able to use social networking here. The fact is that I'm in the basement -- ("Me too," Wallace volunteered) -- I'm in the basement of my home, and you know what I'm talking about," Biden laughed.

“I laid out in detail a plan that I thought we should be implementing a couple days ago, and it didn't get that much national coverage, but they tell me over, I think, 3-and-a-half million people watched it online.

“And so, I'm learning how to deal with the vehicles that are available to get news out and get -- communicate with people.”

Biden kept talking:

Look. Think about this. I am so -- it sounds corny. I'm so proud to be an American right now. Look at the way the nation is responding, look at the way ordinary people are reaching out. Look at all these doctors and first responders. I was talking to some of the firefighters. These folks are risking their lives. They're not – and, well, you and I had this discussion a while ago when I announced, about saying we had to restore the soul of this country. Stop appealing to prejudice and the like. Well, none of these folks, none of these docs are out there saying by the way, you're black, you’re white, you’re Chinese, you're this, you're that. They're just doing it. They're on the phone.

Here Biden talked about his wife Jill getting a phone call from one of the “significant people” on the board of Biden’s cancer “moon shot” initiative. The caller asked if the Bidens could organize a phone chain to call or email cancer patients on a regular basis to alleviate their worry and stress.

He also mentioned a story he heard about a kindergarten teacher who drove through her students’ neighborhoods just to wave to the children in their driveways.

“We have never, never, never failed to respond to a crisis as a people. And I tell you what, I'm so darn proud. And those poor people who have -- lost – you know, anyway -- way it's just -- my heart goes out to them,” Biden said, ending that particular thought chain.

“We're two people in our basements with nothing but time," Wallace told the former vice president.









