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“It would be chaos and mayhem,” Cuomo told CNN’s Ana Cabrera. “It’s totally opposite everything he’s been saying. I don’t think it is plausible. I don’t think it is legal.”
More than 52,000 of the nation’s over 113,000 coronavirus cases have been reported in New York state alone. And officials are forecasting that the apex of the pandemic there is still 14 to 21 days away.
“This would be a federal declaration of war on states,” Cuomo said, adding that he doesn’t think the President is looking to start a war with states.
Trump said earlier Saturday that he’s mulling a short-term quarantine of “hot spots” in parts of the tri-state area — New York, New Jersey and Connecticut — where cases of coronavirus continue to rise.
“We’re thinking about certain things. Some people would like to see New York quarantined because it’s a hotspot. … We might not have to do it, but there’s a possibility that sometime today we’ll do a quarantine, short-term, two weeks on New York. Probably New Jersey, certain parts of Connecticut,” he told reporters as he departed the White House for Norfolk Naval Station to send off a Navy hospital ship to New York.
“I’d rather not do it, but we may need it,” said the President, who later tweeted that “decision will be made, one way or another, shortly.”
Cuomo noted that a tri-state quarantine would dramatically affect the national economy, telling Cabrera, “I think it would paralyze the economy.”
“I think it would shock the economic markets in a way that we have never seen before,” he said. “I am not going to close off my borders. Trucks have to come in, food has to come in, mail has to come in.”
Trump earlier Saturday said that possible quarantine would be “enforceable” and “restrict travel” from parts of the tri-state area. He also cautioned that any quarantine wouldn’t affect truckers from outside the New York area.
“Restrict travel, because they’re having problems down in Florida, a lot of New Yorkers going down. We don’t want that,” he said.
The White House has not responded to CNN’s requests for comment to ascertain more details about Trump’s recent remarks regarding a potential quarantine for the New York area.
White House chief of staff Mark Meadows has said that the administration is exploring different legal options for what the mechanism would be.
This story has been updated to add more details from Cuomo’s interview with CNN.
CNN’s Jeremy Diamond contributed to this report.
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