Tom Clancy wrote about this very thing in Executive Orders! Iran was the protagonist and an aerosol version of Ebola was the disease.
Clancy’s fictional President Ryan shut down U.S. interstate travel and effectively killed the epidemic in two weeks.
That was not a popular decision, and if President Trump shuts down interstate travel, it will not be popular either.
HST, if he effectively ends the Communist Chinese Coronavirus Pandemic, in two weeks, it will become a very popular move, and President Trump will be a hero!
IIRC, the phrase “The Constitution is not a suicide pact!” was an argument that the fictional President Ryan used to justify his travel ban.
Wikipedia has a good article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Constitution_is_not_a_suicide_pact
” ‘The Constitution is not a suicide pact’ is a phrase in American political and legal discourse. The phrase expresses the belief that constitutional restrictions on governmental power must be balanced against the need for survival of the state and its people.”
Still plenty of US and State highways.
Children and Amazon most affected.
He TRIED to, but his rival for the Presidency, Ed Kealty (since he hadn't been sworn in properly when the jumbo jet hit the State of the Union address), sued, on the basis of United States vs. Guest (which in the book was called "The Lemuel Penn case." (*))
In the book, the Supreme Court sided with Kealty and the quarantine was left as voluntary. However, counsel for Jack Ryan responded, that by referring to President Jack Ryan both by name and the title of his office, the Supreme Court had also (implicitly) recognized him as the legitimate President.
(*) This is a real case. In real life, Lemuel Penn was a black Lt. Col. shot to death with a shotgun by KKK members, and the corrupt cops and state let them skate. The Supreme Court reversed, partly on grounds that the state by covering up, became part of the KKK conspiracy to kill him, thus denying him his Civil Rights; since we was (IIRC) on a US Highway or Interstate or something when he was shot, his Constitutional right to travel freely between states was also infringed. Thus, the Government cannot prevent free travel between states. How this intersects with quarantine powers, however, is something that hasn't been considered in the Courts in real life, yet.