WASHINGTON — Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump is run­ning as the “law and order” can­di­date. But that hasn’t stopped him and his cam­paign from open­ly defy­ing state emer­gency orders and flout­ing his own administration’s coro­n­avirus guide­lines as he holds ever-grow­ing ral­lies in bat­tle­ground states.

Demo­c­ra­t­ic gov­er­nors and local lead­ers have urged the pres­i­dent to recon­sid­er the events, warn­ing that he’s putting lives at risk. But they have large­ly not tried to block the gath­er­ings of thou­sands of peo­ple, which Trump and his team deem “peace­ful protests” pro­tect­ed by the First Amendment.

“If you can join tens of thou­sands of peo­ple protest­ing in the streets, gam­ble in a casi­no, or burn down small busi­ness­es in riots, you can gath­er peace­ful­ly under the 1st Amend­ment to hear from the Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States,” Tim Mur­taugh, a Trump cam­paign spokesper­son, said in a statement.

Trump’s refusal to abide by health guide­lines — even those craft­ed by his own admin­is­tra­tion — under­scores the extent to which he believes pro­ject­ing an image of nor­mal­cy is vital to win­ning in Novem­ber, even as the coun­try approach­es 200,000 deaths from COVID-19.

Trump has tried to use this summer’s mass protests over racial injus­tice and police mis­con­duct as cov­er for his ral­lies, mak­ing the case that, if demon­stra­tors can gath­er en masse, so can his sup­port­ers. So far, Demo­c­ra­t­ic gov­er­nors have declined to stand in his way, refus­ing to become a foil to Trump and feed into his nar­ra­tive that lib­er­als are try­ing to deny Repub­li­cans their First Amend­ment rights.

Trump’s cam­paign insist­ed that it takes appro­pri­ate health pre­cau­tions, includ­ing hand­ing out masks and hand san­i­tiz­er and check­ing the tem­per­a­tures of rallygoers.

But images of thou­sands of mask­less sup­port­ers stand­ing shoul­der to shoul­der remain jar­ring in a coun­try where sports are still played in emp­ty are­nas and con­certs have been large­ly banned. That’s espe­cial­ly true for those who have lost loved ones or spent months iso­lat­ing at home and wor­ry that ral­lies will fur­ther spread infec­tion, under­min­ing hard-fought progress. An indoor ral­ly that Trump held in Tul­sa, Okla­homa, in June was blamed for a surge of virus infec­tions there.

“Pres­i­dent Trump believes that peo­ple can make their own deci­sions,” about whether to attend a ral­ly, Jared Kush­n­er, the president’s senior advis­er and son-in-law said Tues­day on NBC’s “Today” when ques­tioned about the mes­sage indoor cam­paign ral­lies are sending.

Trump held an indoor ral­ly at the Xtreme Man­u­fac­tur­ing facil­i­ty in Hen­der­son, Neva­da, on Sun­day night. The state restricts gath­er­ings to 50 peo­ple — based on White House reopen­ing guide­lines —- but thou­sands of sup­port­ers packed into the ware­house nonethe­less. Few peo­ple wore masks.

“This is an insult to every Nevadan who has fol­lowed the direc­tives, made sac­ri­fices, and put their neigh­bors before them­selves,” said Neva­da Gov. Steve Siso­lak, a Democrat.

The city of Hen­der­son on Mon­day announced that it was fin­ing Xtreme Man­u­fac­tur­ing $3,000. Siso­lak slammed the ral­ly as “shame­ful, dan­ger­ous and irre­spon­si­ble.” But it does not appear the gov­er­nor would try to pre­vent a replay. If Trump returns to the state for anoth­er ral­ly, said COVID-19 response direc­tor Caleb Cage, state offi­cials will con­tin­ue to encour­age his cam­paign to fol­low state law and directives.

In some oth­er states, the ral­lies are legal. In North Car­oli­na, an order signed by Demo­c­ra­t­ic Gov. Roy Coop­er lim­its out­door gath­er­ings to 50 peo­ple and man­dates masks in pub­lic, but “activ­i­ties con­sti­tut­ing the exer­cise of First Amend­ment rights” are exempt.

“By using the First Amend­ment exemp­tion for mass gath­er­ings under the governor’s exec­u­tive order in this way, they’re mak­ing it much hard­er for North Car­oli­na to get our chil­dren back in school and peo­ple back to work safe­ly,” said Dory MacMil­lan, a spokesper­son for Cooper.

In Michi­gan, polit­i­cal speech is exempt from Demo­c­ra­t­ic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s order lim­it­ing the size of out­door gath­er­ings. And while Whitmer’s office issued a memo say­ing peo­ple engag­ing in First Amend­ment activ­i­ties still must adhere to social dis­tanc­ing mea­sures, the state hasn’t moved to enforce the rules at Trump’s ral­lies or dur­ing protests.

“We hope the pres­i­dent would care enough about his sup­port­ers and their friends and fam­i­lies that he would encour­age social dis­tanc­ing and mask wear­ing,” said Ryan Jarvi, a spokesper­son for Demo­c­ra­t­ic Attor­ney Gen­er­al Dana Nessel.

Neva­da is one state where Trump has encoun­tered resis­tance. His cam­paign had orig­i­nal­ly planned to hold a pair of ral­lies over the week­end in Las Vegas and Reno, but those plans were scut­tled after the Reno-Tahoe Air­port Author­i­ty warned one of the hosts that the ral­ly would vio­late the governor’s restric­tions and the company’s lease. Trump’s cam­paign imme­di­ate­ly moved to blame Siso­lak for the push­back, but the governor’s office insist­ed it had had no involvement.

Trump told the Las Vegas Review-Jour­nal in an inter­view Sun­day that “he did not believe he was sub­ject” to the order and blamed Siso­lak for forc­ing him to aban­don plans for the out­doors rallies.

“They can­celed six dif­fer­ent sites because the gov­er­nor wouldn’t let it hap­pen, all exter­nal sites,” the pres­i­dent said. The cam­paign did not respond to ques­tions about what sites they had tried.

Upcom­ing ral­lies in Wis­con­sin on Thurs­day and Min­neso­ta on Fri­day will be held in open-air air­plane hangars, and nei­ther state caps atten­dance on out­door events, even though COVID-19 cas­es have been surg­ing in Wisconsin.

Ash­ley Mukasa, a spokesper­son for Wisconsin’s Win­neba­go Coun­ty Health Depart­ment, said the coun­ty doesn’t have any local ordi­nances that would allow it to issue or enforce local health orders. How­ev­er, the agency briefed Trump’s advance team about the statewide mask man­date, she said.

“They want­ed to avoid break­ing any laws,” Mukasa said.

In Min­neso­ta, where Demo­c­ra­t­ic Gov. Tim Walz has long been reluc­tant to spar pub­licly with Trump, the virus order exempts any­thing that would lim­it “the move­ment of fed­er­al offi­cials in Min­neso­ta while act­ing in their offi­cial capac­i­ty.” Bel­tra­mi County’s pub­lic health direc­tor, Cyn­thia Bor­gen, said Minnesota’s health depart­ment had decid­ed the president’s vis­it would fall under that exemp­tion — even though he will be there to campaign.

For one activist from the state, Trump’s co-opt­ing of the term peace­ful protest rep­re­sents “a new low.”

“His actions are a mock­ery of legit­i­mate peace­ful protests that have been hap­pen­ing in Min­neso­ta and around the coun­try regard­ing our stances against police vio­lence and bru­tal­i­ty,” said Neki­ma Levy Arm­strong, a civ­il rights lawyer and for­mer pres­i­dent of the Min­neapo­lis NAACP.

Trump on Mon­day again drew hun­dreds of sup­port­ers to an indoor event in Phoenix that his cam­paign adver­tised as a “Lati­nos for Trump round­table,” lim­it­ing scruti­ny, but Trump said “it looks like a rally.”

Most in the audi­ence did not wear masks, though tables filled with hun­dreds of unused masks were at the entrance to the event.