Gavin Newsom has voiced regret over California’s pandemic-era restrictions while angling toward a possible 2028 White House run.
The term-limited Democratic governor, 57, made the admission during a wide-ranging interview’s Jake Tapper conducted while the pair fished knee-deep in a Montana river. Newsom conceded that several of the state’s most sweeping COVID-19 crackdowns look indefensible with the benefit of hindsight.
“The idea that we closed beaches was insane in hindsight,” Newsom said, though he noted that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis initially did the same as officials scrambled to understand the virus. He also singled out the prolonged shutdown of the Los Angeles Unified School District as a particular failure.
“Obviously, the schools taking too long,” Newsom said. “A lot of districts were open, but the big ones weren’t. L.A. Refused, and I regret that.”
California’s classroom closures dragged deep into the 2020-21 school year, with the governor’s administration imposing statewide health rules that blocked in-person instruction in harder-hit counties. Individual districts retained substantial control over reopening decisions, but the state’s largest systems stayed remote longest. Math and reading scores plummeted during the period and have yet to fully recover, according to state data. Remote learning proved especially damaging for low-income students and students with disabilities, groups that Newsom’s own administration acknowledged were disproportionately harmed.
Newsom also revisited his November 2020 dinner at the French Laundry, the exclusive Michelin-starred Napa Valley restaurant where he attended a lobbyist friend’s birthday party while simultaneously urging Californians to avoid mixing with people outside their households.
“Just boneheaded decision, just stupid decision,” he said.
The governor, who issued the nation’s first statewide stay-at-home order in March 2020, tied his admissions to a broader call for political accountability. He said leaders must “own those excesses” and keep “trying to be better and do better.” The restrictions he imposed later fueled a Republican-backed recall effort that he survived in September 2021, a political brush with defeat he referenced directly.
“I got recalled. I mean, I almost lost,” Newsom said. “You know, talk about humility. Come on.”
The interview also touched on Newsom’s presidential ambitions. He told Tapper he would stay out of the 2028 race if former Vice President Kamala Harris runs, a pledge that frames his current positioning as contingent rather than committed.
Republican critics dismissed the timing of his regrets. Matt Klink, a Los Angeles-based political consultant, accused Newsom and other Democratic governors of attempting to rewrite their pandemic records ahead of another election cycle.
“Many Democrat governors, Newsom and [former New York Gov. Andrew] Cuomo, in particular, who implemented radical COVID restrictions are trying to equivocate and justify their draconian measures,” Klink said.
He pointed to what he called contradictory rules: beaches and churches restricted while liquor stores remained open and large public protests continued. Klink also referenced recent disclosures from Anthony Fauci’s diary and developments in Washington, D.C. As undermining the COVID narrative Democrats promoted.
“Newsom was so absolute in his statements during COVID — ‘two weeks to bend the curve’ and other harmful measures,” Klink said. “He is trying to skirt accountability and rewrite history for a possible 2028 presidential campaign.”
Anne Dunsmore, former head of Rescue California, which helped spearhead the 2021 recall, said Newsom’s mea culpa stopped short of addressing the fiscal fallout. California’s unemployment system paid out tens of billions in fraudulent or improper claims during the pandemic, much of it through state-issued debit cards.
“As a human, I’m glad to see that he’s recognizing major mistakes and a serious lack of judgment in how he handled COVID,” Dunsmore said.
She argued that Newsom had refused to acknowledge the billions lost to fraud and the lasting budget damage.
“What isn’t being talked about, and what he has still refused to do, is admit that those bad decisions resulted in a fiscal nightmare for the state,” Dunsmore said. “He will never say, ‘I wasted billions on ATM cards,’ or whatever that mess was.”
“He wasted billions of dollars on fraudulent enterprises and continued to increase budgets instead of looking at whether his shops were being run effectively,” she added. “He has left us in a financial wasteland.”
George Andrews, communications director for the California State Assembly Republican Caucus, offered a similarly sharp response to Newsom’s newly expressed regrets.
“Californians were telling Newsom these restrictions went too far while he was imposing them,” Andrews said.
“Now that 2028 is on the horizon, he seems to agree. Better late than never. Welcome to the party, governor.”