Kemp also announced that Georgians would soon be able to resume socially distanced dining in at restaurants and go to movie theaters in the state in a matter of days.

The move drew a swift backlash from critics who pointed to indicators that Georgia’s number of new cases was still on an upward trajectory and had not met the White House’s own benchmarks for lifting social-distancing measures. Even Republicans from neighboring states expressed concerns about the breadth of Kemp’s plan.

Trump on Wednesday asserted that Kemp’s rolled-back restrictions were “in violation” of the first step of his administration’s phased plan to return to normal and revive the economic standstill.

At the same time, Trump indicated he was not so opposed to Kemp’s decision that he would ask the federal government to step in.

“He must do what he thinks is right. I want him to do what he thinks is right, but I disagree with him on what he is doing,” the president said. He argued that he felt Kemp had moved “just too soon,” and seemed not to rule out federal intervention “if I see something totally egregious, totally out of line.”

“I think it’s too soon, and I love the people,” Trump said. “I love those people that use all of those things, the spas, the beauty parlors, the barbershops, tattoo parlors, I love them. But they can wait a little bit longer, just a little bit — not much — because safety has to predominate.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-diseases expert, echoed Trump’s disapproval.

“If I were advising the governor, I would tell him that he should be careful,” Fauci said at Wednesday’s briefing, acknowledging a “natural” desire “to move ahead quickly.”

“I would advise him not to just turn the switch on and go, because there is a danger of a rebound,” he continued. “But going ahead and leapfrogging into phases where you should not be, I would advise him as a health official and as a physician not to do that.”

Kemp also came under fire earlier this month when, announcing one of the country’s last statewide shelter-in-place orders, he said he’d only recently discovered that Covid-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus, could be spread asymptomatically — a fact that has been public for months.

But the governor has defended his decision throughout the week, despite the pushback, and even Trump on Wednesday morning appeared to cheer on governors who were choosing to reopen their states.

While the president acknowledged that he’d left the responsibility of reopening the country up to state and local leaders, an authority he wavered on last week before releasing his phased reopening plan, his comments would seem to effectively box the governor in.

The split between the two comes amid a larger national discussion about how and when to begin scaling back social-distancing measures in order to prevent a potentially devastating resurgence of infections. Public health experts have said that pulling back restrictions depended on a testing capacity not yet reached.