The president does have powers governors don’t, including the authority to restrict international travel and close down borders, but no federal statute gives Trump the authority to override state orders, according to legal experts.

“There is no federal law, whether statutory or constitutional, that allows the president to issue an executive order vacating a declaration of emergency on the part of a governor or vacating a stay-at-home order a governor has issued as a result of that emergency,” said Claire Finkelstein, law professor at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School and director of the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law.

The Constitution’s 10th Amendment states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

For weeks, the president has careened back and forth between assuring Americans he and governors are getting along — even broadcasting their occasional praise of him in campaign ads — and blasting them over asking for medical supplies. He even accused them of hoarding ventilators.

“Many of them didn’t do their jobs,” Trump said Monday. “We helped some of the ones who didn’t know what they were doing.”

Trump said he told Vice President Mike Pence, the leader of the White House coronavirus task force, not to call governors he said were not "appreciative" enough of his efforts. “If they don’t treat you right, I don’t call,” Trump said.

And Jared Kusher, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser who is assisting with the pandemic response, suggested the strategic national stockpile, the stash of health care supplies created in 1998 to respond to terrorist attacks or natural disasters, is “supposed to be our stockpile. It’s not supposed to be states’ stockpiles that they then use.”

Some Trump allies are uncomfortable with Trump's rhetoric and say it could hurt him as he runs for reelection in states hard hit by the virus or in swing states where he needs to appeal to moderates.

"The president should try hard to work collaboratively," said an outside Trump adviser. "His supporters generally love his antagonism vs. the media, but in a crisis moment like this one, a battle vs. governors does not serve the national interest, nor his political interest."

Still on Tuesday, Trump likened Democratic governors to those engaged in a mutiny and blasted Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York, the epicenter of the outbreak. Cuomo said the president doesn’t have the authority over states but that he refuses to spar with Trump, who appeared to be “spoiling for a fight.”

“The president will have no fight with me,” Cuomo said at a news conference. “I will not engage.”