Trump was in a box: More testing meant more reported cases. The president quickly came to feel trapped by his own reopening guidelines, which put him in a box of his own making. The result was to intensify Mr. Trump’s remarkable public campaign against testing, which was among the most vivid examples of his rejection of any informed leadership role. And it highlighted how Mr. Trump often ended up at war with his own administration’s experts and stated policies. Mr. Trump shifted from stressing that the nation was already doing more than any other country to deriding its importance.

Source: New York Times July 18, 2020 18:02 UTC