Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden lashed out at US President Donald Trump over his ‘close to criminal’ handling of the coronavirus pandemic during a CNN town hall in Scranton, Pennsylvania on Thursday.

While pitching for his election as the next US president in the gritty city of his birth, Biden accused Trump of knowing the seriousness of the coronavirus threat early this year and hiding it from the nation.

“He knew it and did nothing. It’s close to criminal,” the 77-year-old Democrat said, adding, “This president should step down.”

Biden framed the 2020 US Elections between him and Trump as a contest between “Scranton and Park Avenue.” Blue-collar Americans — like the family Biden grew up in — “are as good as anybody else,” he said, apparently targeting working-class white voters. 

Biden further added, “And guys like Trump, who inherited everything and squandered what they inherited, are the people that I’ve always found a problem with — not the people who are busting their neck.”

The Democrat presidential candidate has ramped up his public appearance, With less than seven weeks remaining for the elections, the both US presidential candidates in the race hitting the physical campaign trail in earnest, although still in different ways. 

Biden also showed his empathetic side when speaking to questioners who had medical ailments, whose relatives died from COVID-19, or who were suffering financially. “Thank you for what you do,” he told a nurse who voted for Trump in 2016. 

At the town hall, Biden took questions from a live, socially distanced audience of 100 people, who parked in front of the stage to watch the event. The US President branded Biden’s drive-in town hall “the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen.” while talking to supporters in Wisconsin. 

Biden leads the national poll in comparison to Trump and he is also ahead in several key battleground states like Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, which were all won by Trump in his shock 2016 election victory.