Gave them permission? You just said it yourself: Democrat Governors and Mayors made these rules. They don't need the President's "permission."
He let them take it way too far. I think that one of Trump’s problems is that he is very sensitive to being called authoritarian, which if course he is not. But the left loves to scream that all the time, and I think he backs off from enforcing legitimate authority because he doesn’t want to give them something to scream about.
This is a mistake, in my opinion, and the fact that the Biden campaign is now releasing ads blaming Trump for the shut down and also for the rioting shows that he hasn’t been decisive enough in this.
Part if it is probably bad advisement (Fauci et al) and I think he’s trying to clean it up. But he doesn’t have a lot of time and he’s got to step out in front and lead and just let the chips fall where they may.