Trump won't follow New Jersey Covid-19 quarantine rule, White House says ‘the president is not a civilian’
President Donald Trump will not abide by New Jersey's new coronavirus precautionary order and will not change his plan to travel to the state over the weekend because he is "not a civilian," the White House on Wednesday, June 24, said. The White House statement comes shortly after New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy issued a new order requiring visitors from states with a high number of coronavirus cases to quarantine for 14 days.
White House spokesperson Judd Deere was asked on Wednesday whether Trump would comply with the quarantine order considering his visit to Arizona on Tuesday, June 23. Arizona has witnessed a sharp increase in Covid-19 cases. "The president of the United States is not a civilian," Deere, in response, said. "Anyone who is in close proximity to him, including staff, guests, and press are tested for Covid-19 and confirmed to be negative. With regard to Arizona, the White House followed it’s Covid-19 mitigation plan to ensure the President did not come into contact with anyone who was symptomatic or had not been tested," CBS News reported.
"Anyone traveling in support of the president this weekend will be closely monitored for symptoms and tested for Covid and therefore pose little to no risk to the local populations," the spokesperson added.
Trump is expected to travel to his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey this weekend, according to reports. The president, in his past visits to the club, has flown on Air Force One to airports in Newark and Morristown.
The White House statement came hours after the governors of New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut announced on Wednesday that visitors from the states with large number of Covid-19 cases will be required to undergo quarantine for at least two weeks, and if they refuse to do so, fines would be levied on them.
Governor Murphy, while addressing reporters during a conference call about the move, said: "This is the smart thing to do. We have taken our people ... through hell and back." Murphy's spokesperson, however, declined to comment on the White House statement for Trump's imminent visit. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, in the same call, said: "We worked very hard to get the viral transmission rate down. We don’t want to see it go up because a lot of people come into this region and they can literally bring the infection with them. Because what happens in New York happens in New Jersey and happens in Connecticut."
The latest reports state that at least eight people, who worked for Trump's rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, last weekend, tested positive for coronavirus and two of them are Secret Service agents.
The president has consistently refused to wear a mask amid the coronavirus pandemic, saying he would not give the press the "pleasure of seeing" him in one. Trump recently, on June 18, had reiterated his disapproval of face masks, suggesting that the masks could actually spread the disease than preventing it. "They put their finger on the mask, and they take them off, and then they start touching their eyes and touching their nose and their mouth. And then they don't know how they caught it?" Trump told The Wall Street Journal.