President Donald Trump will not change his travel plans this weekend to align with New Jersey's order requiring visitors to quarantine for 14 days if they have recently been in a state with high coronavirus numbers.
Trump recently visited Arizona, which has experienced a startling resurgence in coronavirus cases.
"The president of the United States is not a civilian," White House spokesperson Judd Deere said when asked about the state order, reports NBC New York.
He later added in a statement, "Anyone who is in close proximity to him, including staff, guests and press are testing for COVID-19 and confirmed to be negative."
Steady success against the pandemic in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut has come in contrast to more than two dozen other states which are seeing a resurgence of the virus for the past several weeks.
Fearing out-of-state super-spreaders causing new outbreaks, the governors of the hardest hit states have imposed mandatory quarantines for travelers from states with a positive rate of infection in the total population higher than 10 percent or if 10 out of every 100,000 people test positive on a seven-day rolling basis.
States like Arizona, Texas, Florida, Washington, Utah, Alabama, Arkansas and the Carolinas are reporting record coronavirus numbers on an almost daily basis. Travelers from those states must quarantine, per the orders by the Tri-State area governors.
"With regard to Arizona, the White House followed its COVID mitigation plan to ensure the President did not come into contact with anyone who was symptomatic or had not been tested," the White House added of the recent trip.
"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."
Trump is expected to travel this weekend to his golf club in Bedminster, NJ.
The president has been criticized repeatedly during the pandemic for not appearing to follow CDC-recommended guidelines on social distancing and face covering.
This spring, Trump was photographed touring a mask-making facility while not wearing a mask himself.
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