By now, it is an open secret that California Gov. Gavin Newsom plans to run for president in 2028.
Newsom’s challenge is that he is term-limited as governor, and so will no longer hold office when the primary field begins to take shape. This will severely hamper attempts to seem relevant and to rework narratives.
Among the numerous failures Newsom will have to explain are the many poor choices he made in regards to the COVID pandemic and how his administration embraced the complete suite of draconian policies pushed on this nation by “experts” like Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx.
Newsom kicked off his rewrite of the state’s COVID response by appearing on former Navy SEAL Shawn Ryan’s podcast. During their conversation, Ryan asked Newsom to reply to a “tough” question from fellow podcaster Joe Rogan. The question was: who should be held responsible for requiring COVID vaccines for children, and for the rise in related health issues?
Additionally, Ryan asked if the California governor felt “any remorse for that draconian decision that was obviously heavily influenced by the pharmaceutical companies’ desire for maximum profit?”.
Newsom’s response was as slick as you would expect, blaming Florida and “experts” and denying ownership in the ponderous set of pandemic policy choices that throttled the state for about three years.
“I mean, Florida shut down their bars and restaurants before California. The question was, when did we start to unwind some of those restrictions? California was more restrictive and we were certainly aggressive at scale,” he said.The governor claimed his team was compiling an “objective review” of the good and bad outcomes of these policies and comparing them to what other states did.Regarding vaccines, Newsom declared they “save lives” but that he respected Rogan’s question. He explained that he received “a lot of feedback” from independent advisors regarding their safety.”I took their advice, not as a doctor, but as a governor. So, with humility — seriously — humility and grace, I’ve asked them to have that report done. It’s going to be done next month. And it’ll be the only state that I know of that is putting out a truly objective review of what went right and what went wrong,” he added.
Unfortunately for Newsom, many of us were collecting all the receipts and challenging the narratives being put out by the “experts.” Newsom could have made different choices, but he went with the most heavy-handed option possible.
I would like to take a look at some of the “highlights” of Newsom’s COVID response. California was among the first states to issue statewide stay-at-home orders and one of the last to lift them, keeping businesses, churches, and schools closed for extended periods.
Trump’s own lockdown guidance even predated DeSantis’ first and only stay-at-home order in Florida. On March 16, 2020, then-President Trump and his White House Coronavirus Task Force leader, Dr. Anthony Fauci, unveiled their “15 Days to Slow the Spread” plan, which recommended that governors shut down schools, restaurants, and other public places. Newsom closed down his state three days later, while DeSantis waited more than two weeks to issue his on April 1, 2020, which lasted for 30 days and never returned.While DeSantis took a more libertarian approach to the pandemic, Newsom repeatedly shut down businesses in his state throughout 2020 and 2021, and he used his authority to make sure all of California’s local governments had restrictions in place – even threatening to cut funding to some cities that refused to enforce them.
It took Newsom 3 years to end California State of Emergency orders for COVID.
While most schools were closed, Newsom’s own children attended in-person classes at a private school. Additionally, there was also the infamous “French Laundry” incident, which fueled a recall effort against Newsom.
A rising chorus of parents and educators have demanded a statewide policy covering when to reopen school campuses; so far, those decisions have been left largely to local school districts, a matter particularly galling to those who note that Newsom’s four children returned this fall for limited in-person teaching at a private school in Sacramento.The most flammable moment came last month, when Newsom attended a dinner at a pricey Napa Valley restaurant. Photos leaked to a Los Angeles TV station showed the governor and his wife sitting in tight quarters with others, none of whom were wearing masks.
In one way, Newsom is an over-achiever. There have been 7 recall petitions and one recall measure that made the ballot in 2021. The number includes a 2025 effort, targeting his response to the Los Angeles wildfire disaster.
An effort to recall California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) began on March 28, 2025. Supporters of the recall have 160 days—or no later than September 4, 2025—to collect 1,311,963 signatures to require a recall election.Proponents of the recall effort criticize Governor Newsom for his handling of the Los Angeles County fires, the rising cost of living—including gas, electricity, and insurance—along with concerns about crime rates, homelessness, the drug epidemic, and border-related issues.
Despite Newsom’s current push to rebrand himself as a “centrist” and moderate administrator of government policies, his political opponents will have plenty of material to work with.
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