Trump says if Biden's elected, "he'll listen to the scientists"

The Biden campaign slammed President Trump after he said at a Nevada rally Sunday if his Democratic presidential rival Joe Biden were elected there'd be more coronavirus pandemic lockdowns because "he'll listen to the scientists."

What he's saying: "If I listened totally to the scientists, we would right now have a country that would be in a massive depression," Trump said.

The other side: Biden campaign spokesperson Andrew Bates said in an emailed statement, "Donald Trump tanked the strong economy he inherited from the Obama-Biden Administration by continually discounting and attacking warnings from the scientific and medical experts working around the clock to save lives.

• "Now new coronavirus cases are surging and layoffs are rising."

For the record: The U.S. has the highest number of cases and death toll from COVID-19 in the world. Infections jumped almost 17% over the past week as the number of new cases increased in 38 states and Washington, D.C.

• The virus has killed more than 219,600 people and infected over 8.1 million in the U.S., per Johns Hopkins.
• Airlines, oil companies, tire manufacturers, book publishers and insurers are among the industries where tens of thousands of layoffs have been announced.

Go deeper: The onset of winter will make the pandemic even worse.