CNN Exclusive: Biden says he will ask Americans to wear masks for the first 100 days he's in office

Biden also said during the interview that he will be "happy to" get a coronavirus vaccine once Fauci says it is safe and that he will get the vaccine publicly to demonstrate his confidence in it.

"That's the moment in which I will stand before the public" and get the vaccine, Biden said.

Bush and Barack Obama -- said they would publicly get the coronavirus vaccine as a way to demonstrate its safety and efficacy.

"I think that my three predecessors have set the model as to what should be done, saying, once it's declared to be safe...

then obviously we take it and it's important to communicate to the American people," Biden said.

Biden also said he was concerned about reports that Trump is considering a host of preemptive pardons for his adult children and lawyer Rudy Giuliani, as well as the possibility of one for himself.

"It concerns me in terms of what kind of precedent it sets and how the rest of the world looks (at) us as a nation of laws and justice," Biden said, adding that his Justice Department will "operate independently on those issues" and how to respond to any Trump pardons.

"I'm not going to be telling them what they have to do and don't have to do," Biden said.

So the persons or person I pick to run that department are going to be people who are going to have the independent capacity to decide who gets prosecuted, who doesn't."

Biden concluded that his administration would not approach pardons in the same way as Trump, adding, "It's going to be a totally different way in which we approach the justice system."

Biden has yet to select an attorney general, but is considering a range of names, including former deputy attorney general Sally Yates; Doug Jones, the soon to be former senator from Alabama who was defeated in November; and Jeh Johnson, the Homeland Security secretary under Obama; among others.

Harris echoed the sentiment of Biden's remarks on the Department of Justice.

"We will not tell the Justice Department how to do its job," Harris said.