Editor's note: Hannan Hussain is an assistant researcher at the Islamabad Policy Research Institute(IPRI), and an author. The article reflects the author's opinions, not necessarily the views of CGTN.

During a recent press briefing on Capitol Hill, a U.S. reporter stepped up and asked the president what millions of Americans wanted to know. "Today we hit the grim milestone of more than 40,000 Americans now having died from the coronavirus. Can you explain why you are showing clips of praise for you and for your administration?" The president – a masterful denialist – smirked inwards and replied: "All I played today was Governor Cuomo."

Unfazed and evasive, Trump ridiculed a man at the center of America's pandemic, like it was election year.

This is the same style of reckless governance that Trump has used to incite non-conformist behavior among the U.S. citizens, eclipsing his administration's "incredible job mantra" on the COVID-19 fight. What stands out most is how the president initiated his brazen advocacy for "LIBERATE MICHIGAN!" "LIBERATE MINNESOTA!" and "LIBERATE VIRGINIA."

On the back of that advocacy, on April 21, he managed to push several thousands onto the streets – jamming roads and flouting legal orders – across 18 states. Trump has used this ensuing disarray to consciously navigate a key policy challenge: federal accountability for greater COVID-19 testing.

In the past 10 days alone, governors, citizens, medical workers, health experts and journalists have collectively pressured Trump into delivering the COVID-19 testing capabilities that he promised. This was also a proposition that his administration billed as the "mobilization of public and private resources to attack the coronavirus."

However, an investigation launched by Reuters found that several state and local officials had informed the Trump administration that its so-called "drive-through testing" scheme was marred with weaknesses.

Instead, Washington turned a blind eye to it for weeks. "We are receiving many calls today from citizens who went through the drive-through testing in the earliest days and have not gotten a call," wrote Jennifer Avegno, one of the city health officials in a letter to the federal government. "Can you update us on how many results have been received, turnaround times, and how many individuals have been contacted?"

Trump officials responded with hollow, 48-hour deadlines, and never once acted on them.

It is for these reasons that the U.S. president is more comfortable putting his weight behind thousands of conservative protesters, who have helped transform his real-time incompetence into potential election leverage.

Consider the fact that most of these protesters have shunned scientific endeavors and deemed stay-at-home orders a human suffering, just like Trump. More significantly, they have successfully affected Trump's polling numbers in the space of just a week: an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll had previously found over half of U.S. voters to be worried that the country will move too quickly in loosening restrictions. 

Numerous protests later, a Pew poll put that number at nearly 70 percent – confirming the effectiveness of Trump's silver-tongued, violent rhetoric amid the pandemic.

Acclaimed author Katherine Stewart already drew the link between ultra-conservative protesters and Trump's primary election base –  a reality which naive liberal pundits are still busy dismissing as "fringe protests." Thanks to this misdirected critique, Trump has mustered a new approach to COVID-19 distortion: to simultaneously criticize and appease governors.

A case in point is New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. After heated exchanges with the president – ranging from ventilator supplies to COVID-19 slandering – Trump pulled a massive U-turn this week, to get Cuomo on-board. 

"During this time, Americans must maintain strict vigilance and continue to practice careful hygiene, social distancing and the other protective measures that we have outlined," backtracked the president at a recent press briefing. Now, he is meeting Cuomo at the White House. 

Thus, Trump's message is clear as ever: it doesn't matter how disastrous his COVID-19 handling is, when he wants a democratic governor on his side, he gets it.

Interestingly, it is understandable how the president's obsession to falsify COVID-19 origins isn't getting his election-year rhetoric very far. Note that most of his voter leverage ahead of November has already taken a turn for the worst – soaring unemployment rates, trillions in debt and an American crude oil hammered to the pennies. 

Thus, Trump's larger objective now is to keep holding back state funds, so that frustrated civilians march onto the streets, and echo the president's COVID-19 denial doctrine. "They seem to be very responsible people to me, but they've been treated a little bit rough," cheered Trump. This is conscious political scheming at its zenith.

Last week, The Guardian noted that various right-wing protesters were "echoing Trump campaign rallies' targeting of Hillary Clinton." Joe Biden is no exception this year. Part of the reason why the state of Michigan appeared at the center of agitation against social-distancing rules, was because Michigan's Governor Gretchen Whitmer is widely perceived by Trump as a potential running mate for democratic presidential rival Joe Biden. An electoral pattern remains naturally evident.

In a nutshell, it is clear that Trump is no longer able to make a case for his presidency solely on the back of shambolic economic figures, record unemployment growth, and disastrous approval ratings. Instead, he is doing what none of his competitors could ever pull-off: suppress the intensity of the COVID-19 outbreak, put some American lives above others, and let the country's governors take a beating for his actions.

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