Newsom Regrets Pushing Harsh COVID Lockdowns: ‘Would’ve Done Everything Differently’

'We're experts in hindsight'

California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during a news conference at James Denman Middle School, in San Francisco, Calif., on Oct. 1, 2021. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said he regrets the harsh COVID-19 restrictions that he once pushed in his state, insisting he and other officials would have taken a different approach in hindsight—while seeking to downplay his personal role in imposing restrictions.

Mr. Newsom, who during the pandemic imposed stricter and longer restrictions than many other states, made the remarks in a wide-ranging interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sept. 10, in which he reflected on California’s tough COVID-19 policies.

“I think we would’ve done everything differently,” said Mr. Newsom, who was the first governor in the country to impose a stay-at-home order and the last one to reopen schools.

In the interview, Mr. Newsom expressed regret over his harsh lockdown policies and said criticism is “legitimate” in hindsight—though he repeatedly insisted that he was merely acting on the basis of the current state of knowledge about COVID-19 at the time.

Mr. Newsom’s “hindsight” caveat rang hollow to some on social media, who were quick to point out that there were various studies published at the time suggesting California’s tough pandemic policies were too heavy-handed, while many experts said much the same thing.

“Totally fake apology and under NO circumstances should he be forgiven for anything he did,” Dr. Houman David Hemmati, who wrote in a post on X that “hindsight” wasn’t necessary at the time as many experts said repeatedly (though in many cases they were shamed or silenced for doing so) that, for example, closing schools and masking healthy children was wrong or shutting down businesses was deeply misguided.

California Governor Gavin Newsom speaks at California State University Long Beach, in Long Beach, Calif., on March 3, 2021. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

‘There’s a Lot of Humility’

In the interview, program host Chuck Todd questioned whether Mr. Newsom was even-handed in with his pandemic restrictions, giving as an example policies that allowed the film industry to reopen while keeping churches closed.

“You found a way to allow the motion picture industry ... to get back to work but you didn’t allow people to grieve together at funerals or at churches,” Mr. Todd said. “This is this anger between the populace and the elites—here you prioritize this industry, but you were tougher on those that just wanted to go worship.”

Mr. Newsom, who faced a lawsuit over his heavy-handed restrictions on houses of worship, expressed contrition for the policies in his remarks to Mr. Todd, while seeking to water down his own role in the policies.

“I think there’s a lot of humility,” Mr. Newsom acknowledged, though he was quick to add that, “it was hardly ‘I’, it was ‘we’ collectively. I think all of us, in terms of our collective wisdom, we’ve evolved.”

“We didn’t know what we didn’t know. We’re experts in hindsight. We’re all genius,” he added.

Signs reminding people of social distancing and wearing face masks remain at a mall in Calif., on June 14, 2021. Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images

Mr. Todd continued to press the Democrat governor on the focus of his pandemic policies, suggesting he may have unfairly targeted certain groups with restrictions while treating others more leniently.

“So think about what you ended up collectively prioritizing,” Mr. Todd said in response. “You prioritized an industry, one specific one, but then didn’t prioritize ones whose maybe values you didn’t connect with.”

Mr. Newsom replied by saying that “all of us went through a process” and argued that most states, including Florida, imposed aggressive lockdowns.

However, he acknowledged that the criticism he’s faced over his role in California’s restrictions are “legitimate, in terms of reflection.”

One area where Mr. Newsom said he would have acted differently is in regards to outdoor restrictions such as closing beaches.

“Understanding the spread in the context of how it spread very differently indoors than outdoors is one perfect example of what a lot of us would have done differently,” Mr. Newsom said.

In April 2020, Mr. Newsom cited contagion risk when scolding Californians for going to beaches in droves during a record heat wave and then later closed all beaches and state parks in Orange County.

A surfer wearing a face mask carries his surfboard in Manhattan Beach, Calif., on Nov. 21, 2020. Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images

Criticism

Mr. Newsom faced a barrage of criticism for flouting his own restrictions during the lockdowns, including mingling maskless with California officials at a Napa restaurant in November 2020 or going to a restaurant in Fresno in February 2021 when in-person dining was banned.

Some commenters on social media said that Mr. Newsom’s argument that officials were acting on the basis of the best available information at the time to impose restrictions doesn’t hold water.

“Gavin Newsom wants to pretend he forced lockdowns, masks, and mandates on millions because we didn’t know any better at the time,” the @Robber_Baron account on X wrote in a post.

“That is an outright lie. We knew so much in the first two months of Covid that he and other ‘leaders’ ignored,” the commenter continued, while providing a list of studies and analyses that were published in the first few months of the outbreak in spring 2020 that challenge Mr. Newsom’s remarks.

In February 2023, Mr. Newsom announced an end to California’s COVID-19 state of emergency, which was used to impose various restrictions.