“LIBERATE MINNESOTA!” “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” “LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!” These Friday tweets from President Donald Trump condemning coronavirus restrictions by Democratic governors came less than a day after a press briefing that seemed to end a weeklong rhetorical standoff with the states. At Monday’s briefing, Trump had claimed “total authority” over the nation’s coronavirus response, prompting pushback from governors like New York’s Andrew Cuomo. “We have a Constitution,” he told CNN. “We don’t have a king; we have an elected president.” On Thursday, Trump essentially conceded this—first in a phone call where he reassured governors that they would be “calling their own shots,” and then at his briefing, where he finally released a set of recommendations, not orders, outlining when lifting state restrictions might be advisable.

Having lost that battle, Trump is pivoting to what he does best—inflaming his base, both to build public pressure on governors to open their state economies sooner and to misplace blame for an economic downturn made necessary by the administration’s initial failure to monitor and contain the virus. His allies in the conservative press are lending him a hand. In a Wednesday interview, Fox News’s Tucker Carlson accused New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, whose stay-at-home order and ban on large gatherings led to the breakup of a funeral earlier this month, of violating the Constitution. “The Bill of Rights, as you well know, protects Americans’ right—enshrines their right—to practice their religion as they see fit and to congregate together to assemble peacefully,” Carlson said. “By what authority did you nullify the Bill of Rights in issuing this order?”

Bemused, Murphy replied that he “wasn’t thinking of the Bill of Rights” when the state took action to suppress the virus’s spread, a response now being pilloried on conservative websites. The next day, Fox’s Andrew Napolitano pronounced Murphy guilty of “felony of misconduct of office,” called for his impeachment, and voiced support for a general uprising against coronavirus restrictions. “The sooner we take our freedoms back, the less likely the government will be able to continue doing this,” he said. “If we don’t take our freedoms back, they might not come back.”

The long list of Fox personalities amping up attacks on the way officials have responded to the coronavirus crisis includes Laura Ingraham, who brought Dr. Phil on her show Thursday to compare coronavirus’s human toll to the deaths caused by car accidents and smoking. On his radio show the same day, Rush Limbaugh added his denunciations of the shutdowns and suggested those critical of comparing the coronavirus pandemic to lesser influenza outbreaks were elements of a conspiracy aimed at taking Trump down. “All of that designed to keep the U.S. economy floundering,” he said. “All of that is about doing what Robert J. Mueller and the whistleblower and Adam Schiff on Ukraine failed to do. All of this, politically, is about completing the dream of getting Donald Trump—and that’s why good news is taboo. That’s why intelligent, reasonable, rational comparisons are taboo.”

Conservative groups against the state shutdowns are popping up and staging demonstrations across the country.

Meanwhile, conservative groups against the state shutdowns are popping up and staging demonstrations across the country. In Kentucky, on Wednesday, a press conference by Governor Andy Beshear was met by protesters shouting “Facts over fear!” and “Open up the church!” Similar protests have also occurred in Ohio, Minnesota, Utah, and North Carolina, and at least three new groups in Pennsylvania—ReOpen PA, Pennsylvanians Against Excessive Quarantine, and End the Lockdown PA—are planning another against that state’s restrictions on Monday.