Donald Trump, seemingly in need of regular praise, came to his Monday evening coronavirus press briefing ready to share. He held up one, then two articles praising parts of his coronavirus response.

Here's the catch: He had previously panned one of the authors as one of "the dumbest of the talking heads" and a "clueless pundit."

Mr Trump has turned to using props during his now-nightly Covid-19 briefings. On Monday evening, he brought a thick list of testing centres he contends state governors were not using to process coronavirus tests. He also brought two articles he said made his point about ventilators and governors over-stating their needs for the breathing machines.

"Unfortunately the press doesn't cover it other than the fair press, but then, so then you say, 'Gee, they needed ventilators,'" the president said in a mocking tone.

"We don't need ventilators," he said, continuing to mock some governors even as over 40,000 Americans were dead from the virus. "Nobody that needed a ventilator in this country didn't get one, and a story that just came out how the media completely blew the Trump ventilator story."

"I'm sure you would love to see that," he said, now mocking the 14 reporters seated in the social-distanced White House briefing room. So he read from his prop.

"That is by Rich Lowry, a respected journalist and person,"Mr Trump said, contradicting his feelings for Mr Lowry from five years ago. Or perhaps his feelings for the man have just evolved similar to his quickly shifting policy positions.

This was Mr Trump on 21 September 2015: ".@RichLowry is truly one of the dumbest of the talking heads - he doesn't have a clue!"

And this was Trump on 23 September 2015: ".@FoxNews owes me an apology for allowing clueless pundit @RichLowry to use such foul language on TV. Unheard of!"

No matter. Mr Trump had what he felt was a justification for his spring-long pushback of state officials about helping get them breathing machines, which he eventually did as the US death toll climbed. Now, with several highly populated areas past their expected peaks for cases and deaths, Mr Trump is declaring victory that he was correct for much of March that governors were over-stating their needs.

"'How the media completely blew the Trump ventilator story,'" Mr Trump said, reading from the article as he showed it to the journalists in the room. "Which unfortunately it did."

But the president was not finished. He had a second prop as he sought to settle yet another grievance.

"And here's another one that just came out: Kyle Smith. 'The ventilator shortage that wasn't,'" Mr Trump said, also showing this article to the press.

"The ventilator shortage that wasn't because we got it fixed, and we are also going to help the states, by the way, stockpile ventilators – so if a thing like this should happen again, they have got them."

The president has used his pressing American companies to to build new production lines to pump out ventilators to declare the United States the world's "ventilator king."

He has since moved on from a war with governors over the breathing machines. Now he and state leaders – mostly Democratic but some Republicans, too – are feuding over whether they have ample testing kits and whether he is doing enough to help them test at a level to allow states to safely open up.

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"We provided each governor with a list of the names, addresses, and phone numbers of the labs where they can find additional testing capacity within their states. Many, many labs," Mr Trump said, later showing journalists that very list and he flipped through its pages on live television.

"We are providing you with a list we will show to [you] now, if you need it we will give the details," he said. "But hundreds and hundreds of labs are ready, willing, and able. Some of the governors, like as an example the governor from Maryland, didn't really understand the list he didn't understand too much about what was going on so now I think he will be able to do that. It's pretty simple."

He was referring to Republican Larry Hogan, who has since responded that he was forced to buy half a million Covid-19 testing kits from a South Korean company – and felt he was merely following the president's directions in doing so.