House speaker Nancy Pelosi criticised Donald Trump‘s plan to end the nationwide lockdown and reopen the economy 1 May, saying he is not telling the truth about coronavirus.

At his daily press conference on Monday, Trump said the federal government has “absolute power” and the “total” authority to decide when states reopen. It is a claim governors like New York’s Andrew Cuomo have disputed, saying the US has a constitution and not a king.

In a private call to democrats, Ms Pelosi reportedly said she was “really very afraid of what the president may do”.

“He’s not learning from his past mistakes. He’s talking about reopening, and on the basis of what?” she said.

In a three week period following the lockdown, almost 17 million workers filed unemployment insurance claims, according to the Department of Labour.

The White House has set up a task force that will focus on rolling back the social distancing measures that expire at the end of April and reopening the economy in May.

In March, Mr Trump said if it were up to the doctors, they may say to keep the world shut down.

“You can’t do that with a country ― especially the No. 1 economy anywhere in the world, by far ... you can’t do that. It causes bigger problems than the original,” he told reporters during his daily press conference.

Ms Pelosi said the president has been using the daily White House press briefings as a bully pulpit.

“And that’s a good thing for a president to have. It’s a bad thing for the health of the country if the president is not speaking truth,” Ms Pelosi said in an interview with Politico. “Our purpose is really to say how do we follow the science, the evidence, the data... that will take us down from this.”

The California Democrat has faced criticism for a slow response to the coronavirus pandemic, having encouraged San Francisco residents to celebrate Lunar New Year in January and visit Chinatown in late February.

“Everything is fine here...come because precautions have been taken. The city is on top of the situation,” she said during a tour of the neighbourhood on 24 February.

“We know that there is concern surrounding tourism, travelling all throughout the world, but we think it’s very safe to be in Chinatown and hope that others will come. It’s lovely here.”