Election 2020: No mute button, but mics will be muted at debate

Trump, during an all-staff campaign call, attacked Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert on the president’s own coronavirus task force, as a "disaster" while also dismissing the still surging pandemic, claiming Americans are "over COVID" as U.S. deaths near 220,000.

"People are tired of COVID. Yep, there's gonna be spikes, there's gonna be no spikes, there's gonna be vaccines -- with or without vaccines, people are tired of COVID," the president said on the call, using large attendance at his recent rallies as an example. "People are saying whatever, just leave us alone."

"People are tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots -- these, these people, these people that have gotten it wrong," Trump said. "Fauci, he's a nice guy. He's been here for 500 years ... Every time he goes on television, there’s always a bomb, but there’s a bigger bomb if you fire him. But Fauci's a disaster -- I mean this guy, if I listened to him we'd have 500,000 deaths."

Trump's attacks come after Fauci told CBS News program "60 Minutes" in an interview that aired Sunday night he was not surprised the president contracted COVID-19.

"Absolutely not. I was worried that he was going to get sick when I saw him in a completely precarious situation of crowded, no separation between people, and almost nobody wearing a mask," Fauci said. "When I saw that on TV, I said, 'Oh, my goodness. Nothing good can come outta that, that's gotta be a problem.' And then sure enough, it turned out to be a superspreader event."

It also comes as Trump trails Biden in nationwide polls, in part, due to his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. 

-ABC News' Will Steakin

Vice President Mike Pence is getting set to ramp up his campaign schedule in the final days of the 2020 election with scheduled visits to Maine, New Hampshire, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Pennsylvania and Florida this week. 

On a press call this morning, the vice president’s Chief of Staff, Marc Short, said Pence will maintain “a very aggressive schedule,” maintaining at least six days on the road with at least two rallies a day this week and they may do up to three rallies a day in the closing week.

Asked by ABC News if he will eventually link up with Trump for joint rallies, Short said that the campaign feels that "there’s a stronger benefit to them being in different markets," but that in the final days they could be doing more together.

“I think in the closing days, you will see them end up joining travel trips, and we actually do plan to do some of that a little bit beginning next week.”

Short added that the public could see them together as early as Monday during a trip to Pennsylvania and “certainly” in the “last couple of days.”

-ABC News' Justin Gomez

Monday marks the first day that county election officials in Georgia can begin processing returned absentee ballots, meaning they can open and scan them -- but not actually tabulate them.

During a news conference Monday morning, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger predicted the timeline for races to be called in Georgia may not be too far off what voters have become accustomed to previously. He said the results for races that are "really, really tight," may not be known until the Wednesday following Election Day, but the rest should be known that night.

Raffensperger also gave an update on early voting figures, which is now in its second week, and took a swipe at critics. He said that by the day's end, over 1.5 million Georgians will have voted.

"We're setting records, with every passing hour. There are those who attack and undermine our work through their disinformation efforts online and through the media, they're wrong and the numbers prove it," Raffensperger said. "It has never been easier to vote in the state of Georgia."

-ABC News’ Quinn Scanlan

The Biden campaign is latching on to Trump’s taunt over Biden listening to scientists, with the former vice president tweeting ”…yes,” in response to one report reading "Trump: Biden will 'listen to the scientists' if elected."

Trump, at a rally in Carson City, Nevada, Sunday night, mocked Biden for saying if elected he would “listen to the scientists” regarding the ongoing pandemic which has left nearly 220,000 Americans dead.

“If I listen totally to the scientists, we would right now have a country that would be in a massive depression,” said Trump, who also continued to criticize Biden’s use of circles at campaign events for social distancing. Trump also claimed Biden would create lockdown measures that would lead to the "Christmas season" being canceled.

Biden spokesperson Andrew Bates, responding to the attack in a statement Monday, turned to the economy.

"Now new coronavirus cases are surging and layoffs are rising. If Donald Trump had listened to Joe Biden when he urged him not to trust the Chinese government over his own scientific advisers about this crisis, he wouldn't be the worst jobs president since 1929,” Bates said. 

Biden’s rapid response spokesperson Rosemary Boeglin also took aim at the attack tweeting, “Closing message, 8 months into a pandemic he’s let spin out of control: “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."

Shortly afterward, the Biden campaign announced Biden’s 11th negative COVID-19 test since Trump tested positive earlier this month.

"Vice President Biden underwent PCR testing for COVID-19 today and COVID-19 was not detected,” the campaign said in a statement to reporters.

-ABC News' Will Steakin and Molly Nagle