I too was hit by this a few months ago, after having to create a Google account for work, and worked around it by running an android emulator where I installed their authenticator app. This was enough to get past the stupid "you have to have a phone" requirement, and gave me access to the TOTP secret, which I then promptly added to my favourite open source 2FA utility.
Screw you, Google, you're not getting my phone number.
I might do this (install an emulator and use auth app there) if I can successfully login from it, I just need a lot of time to do that (internet here is really slow).
I asked one of my friends with faster internet to do that for me but google blocked an attempt to login with correct username and password.
Please read the original post - the QR code (nor the TOTP secret in any other format) is simply not available until you enable either SMS authentication or the authentication app.
Afterwards, yes, you have the TOTP secret available for use in any tool you want - but I am repeating myself.
Screw you, Google, you're not getting my phone number.