| Get Jonathan Bernstein's newsletter every morning in your inbox. Click here to subscribe. On Tuesday, Dr. Deborah Birx had perhaps her worst moment as a member of President Donald Trump's coronavirus task force when she contorted herself to find some way to say that Georgia Governor Brian Kemp's plan to begin reopening businesses — including bowling alleys, tattoo parlors, hair salons and more — wasn't in conflict with the administration's guidelines. On Wednesday, Trump made her look worse by saying that he in fact disagreed with Kemp, given that the governor's choices quite clearly did violate those guidelines. Later on Wednesday, Kemp stuck to his policy. This is one of those cases where at least two interpretations are possible. The one that I'm seeing generally is that Kemp was trying to impress Trump but miscalculated. That might be correct. Yet it's more likely that, after taking a very long time to accept the severity of the pandemic, Trump has come around to fully supporting the lockdown policies. Yes, during the initial few weeks, he wasn't very committed. That's the period in which he declared that churches should be full on Easter. But he never actually revoked the administration's recommendations, and eventually endorsed continued social-distancing for all of April. Now it's true that Trump has kept speculating about a quick recovery next month. But his proposals for a phased-in reopening don't actually say that or otherwise jump the gun; instead, while vague, they seem to offer a fairly mainstream plan consistent with what various experts have suggested. Meanwhile, Trump has repeatedly riffed on how the lockdown was the correct thing to do and how it has saved, in his view, millions of lives. Nor is Trump leading the push against the restrictions. Republican-aligned media and the fringes of the conservative coalition have been doing that. Yes, Trump sometimes echoes their talking points, given that Fox News and similar outlets are a major source of information for him. And he was unable to help himself from saying nice things about the anti-shutdown demonstrators who were wearing his hats and carrying his signs last weekend. But even then, he generally stuck with the official policy. (Those "LIBERATE" tweets? Less a demand that states lift their social-distancing policies, perhaps, than knee-jerk support for protestors with cool guns who seemed to like him.) What I'm saying, in other words, is that this isn't a case of anyone groveling to Donald Trump — it's an example of the enormous influence that the Republican-aligned media, and the most extreme portions of the coalition, now have over the broader party. And the rush to reopen willy-nilly by Kemp and some others is yet another example of Trump's weakness, not his strength. At least … that's what I think is happening. 1. Seth Masket at Mischiefs of Faction makes the case that, yes, the normal rules of presidential elections probably do apply this year. I'm not convinced, but he may be correct! 2. Jeffrey Kucik and Hailey Leister at the Monkey Cage on the service economy, jobs and the pandemic. 3. Reid Wilson on state governments in trouble. 4. Greg Sargent spoke with Dr. Tom Frieden about testing. 5. And my Bloomberg Opinion colleague Noah Smith on how bad the economy could get. Get Early Returns every morning in your inbox. Click here to subscribe. Also subscribe to Bloomberg All Access and get much, much more. You'll receive our unmatched global news coverage and two in-depth daily newsletters, the Bloomberg Open and the Bloomberg Close. | 
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