Coronavirus: Trump sets a trap for governors with reopening guidelines – then unleashes the hounds

'The political consultants then took over and figured out that he could turn his lemon into lemonade,' Republican source says

Donald Trump had just set an election-year trap for governors on Thursday night, but needed to leave some bait inside before releasing the hounds.

"I think they'd listen to me. They seem to be protesters that like me and respect this opinion, and my opinion is the same as just about all of the governors," Mr Trump, as skilled a game hunter as there is in the American political forest, said during what he billed as a "major news conference" when asked about protests in some states demanding state leaders end "stay-at-home" orders and open up their economies.

"They all want to open. Nobody wants to stay shut, but they want to open safely. So do I. But we have large sections of the country right now that can start thinking about opening," he added, sending signals to his most fervent conservative supporters before leaving some political bait in the trap for state chief executives ahead of November's election.

"So that will be a governor's choice," he said, "and we'll have no problem with it."

The latter remark was vintage Trump due to its illusion of being both definitive and conciliatory.

That veneer of, as he put it Thursday evening, his vow to "continue to work with governors" was gone by late Friday morning as conservatives in new states stormed their capital cities demanding an end to the lock down.

At 11:22 a.m. (EDT) came this presidential tweet: "LIBERATE MINNESOTA!"

At 11:23 a.m. came this tweet: "LIBERATE MICHIGAN!"

At 11:25 a.m., he posted this: "LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!"

Having prepared the battlespace with his campaign-themed "Open Up American Again" guidelines for states to begin – at their discretion – a recommended three-step process to get kids back to school and their parents back to work, and all of the sputtering US economy humming again, the president executed the next step in his emerging re-election plan.

Unleash the hounds

He unleashed his hounds. That's no pejorative. Trump's pack of hounds are loud and energetic and they are the ones who fuel conspiracy theories on right-leaning cable networks and talk radio, helping to convince even more moderate GOP voters that Democrats at all levels of government are out to take their hard-earned money and give it to minority groups, while building an American that is less white than the one in which they grew up.

Many of the white middle-class conservative voters who felt betrayed by the economy amid a socially- and racially-changing America, who propelled the tough-talking, anti-immigration, anti-globalism New York businessman to the Oval Office, still feel that way.

And just enough live in swing states like Michigan and Minnesota that Mr Trump's best re-election strategy on 17 April, seven months from Election Day, is to unleash these hounds with the hopes of chasing governors into his trap of opening up — for which he inevitably will take credit as the economy there revs up. And if the leaders of the states do, that will decide whether he or former Vice President Joe Biden win the election.

Some residents there, including ones images published by local media outlets showed were wearing pro-Trump gear, were "massing," as a local television station described it, outside the official residence of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, a Democrat.

That came a few days after protesters, again many clad in "TRUMP" and "Make America Great Again" hats and shirts, stormed the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing, demanding Democrat Governor Gretchen Whitmer rescind her orders that have shuttered normal life there.

Even some veteran Washington Republican hands see a Trump-set trap for governors in swing states.

"For a president who was so gung-ho a week ago that he was the one who had the sole power to open up the economy and then flip so quickly to put the burden – but I believe the constitutionally correct burden – on the governors, suggests to me that once the lawyers convinced him he did not have that sole power, the political consultants then took over and figured out that he could turn his lemon into lemonade, politically speaking," said G. William Hoagland, a former aide to then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican.

Democratic sources also see something of a set-up for governors in the White House's guidelines.

"They're using the only playbook they know: bombastic and sensational without regard for the veracity," one Democratic strategist said.

Brad Bannon, a Democratic political strategist, said "Trump excels at the blame game," and after first declaring on Monday that only he has the legal power to re-open the country, he has moved to a strategy based on shifting blame to governors, China and the world Health Organisation. "Donald Trump is doing everything he can to ensure his re-election, even if comes at the expense of the health and well being of millions of Americans."

'Voters will remember'

But Democrats also see a reason to hope Mr Biden can pounce on the Trump-led federal effort, under which more than 32,000 Americans have died from the virus.

"They're thinking about this entirely the wrong way. He's going to be judged on the process here as much as the result," said the Democrat strategist, granted anonymity to be candid. "How they message this matters as much as what they decide. ... I believe this time they're going to pay a price for that."

Mr Bannon said "Americans want the president to take responsibility during a national crisis, they don't want him to pass the buck to the governors or anyone else," adding: "Voters will remember in November."

But, as always, the president's new strategy appears mostly geared towards his own chances in the Electoral College and its race to 270 votes. Meaning he is putting some potentially vulnerable GOP governors at risk, Mr Hoagland said.

"There is also a political risk to Republican governors – in Texas, South Dakota and Florida – if they move to reopen too quickly, prompted in part by POTUS, and those [coronavirus case and death] trends turn sour," he said.

But, after setting his trap, the president ended his Thursday press conference and signalled he views his portion of running the nationwide response as behind him. It's election season again.

"We have incredible people that we are working with, and we're going to bring our country back, and it's going to be bigger and better and stronger than ever before," he declared before exiting the James S. Brady Briefing Room. "We have learned a lot. We learned a lot about ourselves, and I want to thank everybody. And, most importantly, I want to thank the American people."