US President Donald Trump sought to insult former Vice President Joe Biden on Sunday by saying that his Democratic opponent would listen to scientists if elected president.
Amid a global pandemic that’s claimed more than 219,000 lives in the US, Trump mocked Biden during a campaign rally in Carson City, Nevada, which around 5,000 mostly unmasked supporters attended.
“If you vote for Biden, he will surrender your jobs to China. He will surrender your future to the virus. He’s going to lock down, he’s going to want us to lock down,” Trump said.
“He’ll listen to the scientists,” Trump continued. “If I listened totally to the scientists, we would right now have a country that would be in a massive depression, instead of, we’re like a rocket ship. Take a look at the numbers.”
Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, Trump has dismissed and disputed science, sent mixed messaging to the public, ignored his own government’s guidance, feuded with public health experts and mocked others for following the rules ― even after he and dozens of people in his circle tested positive.
To date, the US has the highest Covid-19 case count and death toll of any country in the world, and the rates of new infections and deaths continue to climb.
Biden campaign spokesperson Andrew Bates responded to Trump’s comments in a statement to Axios.
“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,” Bates said. “Now new coronavirus cases are surging and layoffs are rising.”
While the unemployment rate rebounded over the summer as local economies reopened, economists said the pace of recovery has slowed. As the number of coronavirus cases began to climb in the fall, major companies announced tens of thousands of layoffs. The unemployment rate is currently higher than it was when Trump took office.