California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s lockdown-heavy method to the COVID-19 pandemic is going through new scrutiny as he finds an unlikely ally in former President Donald Trump in attacking Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ dealing with of the pandemic forward of the 2024 presidential election.
Trump not too long ago dubbed DeSantis the “lockdown governor,” despite the fact that the Florida governor’s restrictions had been among the many least heavy-handed – and short-lived – within the nation. Through the pandemic, DeSantis confronted heavy criticism, together with from Trump’s personal administration, for not imposing the sort of restrictions that California and different states did.
Newsom, whose title has been floated as a attainable Democrat different to President Biden, and who has joined in on Trump’s assaults on DeSantis’ dealing with of the pandemic, was the primary governor to lock down his state and the final to reopen colleges.
Newsom not too long ago mocked DeSantis’ “freedom”-based method to the pandemic as “BS,” pointing to Florida’s loss of life fee.
Florida “had fifty-eight p.c increased per capita loss of life charges below COVID. That is freedom? Fifty-eight p.c increased per capita loss of life charges?” Newsom mentioned in an April 12 interview.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom visits a cell COVID-19 vaccination heart on March 10, 2021, in South Gate, California. (Picture by Mario Tama/Getty Photographs)
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Whereas Florida’s COVID-19 loss of life fee is certainly increased than California’s, its fee continues to be on par with the lockdown-heaviest states like New Jersey, Michigan and New York. Moreover, Florida’s aged inhabitants, the heaviest hit inhabitants from the pandemic, makes up 21% of the Sunshine State, making it the oldest state within the nation second solely to Maine, in comparison with younger California with solely 15% of its inhabitants being 65 and older.
In reality, a newly launched research revealed that California and Florida have had roughly equal well being outcomes, regardless of their wildly totally different approaches, however California suffered far worse financial and schooling outcomes than Florida resulting from its extended lockdowns.
However Trump clearly sees a political benefit in aligning with Newsom towards DeSantis, and whereas Trump and Newsom proceed to hammer the Florida governor, they’ve avoided concentrating on one another, even when given the chance to take action.
Trump hasn’t criticized Newsom’s pandemic response both, despite the fact that Newsom was the primary governor within the nation to challenge a stay-at house order.
Former President Donald Trump, heart, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, proper, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, left (Getty Photographs)
Trump’s personal lockdown steerage even predated DeSantis’ first and solely stay-at-home order in Florida. On March 16, 2020, then-President Trump and his White Home Coronavirus Process Drive chief, Dr. Anthony Fauci, unveiled their “15 Days to Sluggish the Unfold” plan, which really useful that governors shut down colleges, eating places and different public locations. Newsom closed down his state three days later, whereas DeSantis waited greater than two weeks to challenge his on April 1, 2020, which lasted a complete of 30 days and by no means returned.
Whereas DeSantis took a extra libertarian method to the pandemic, Newsom repeatedly shut down companies in his state all through 2020 and 2021, and he used his authority to verify all of California’s native governments had restrictions in place – even threatening to chop funding to some cities that refused to implement them.
An indication posted saying closures resulting from COVID-19 is seen at Huntington Seashore, California on April 30, 2020. (Picture by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP by way of Getty Photographs)
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In April 2020, Newsom mentioned he noticed an “alternative” to make use of the COVID-19 disaster to usher in new progressive insurance policies in his state and elsewhere within the nation.
“Completely, we see this as a chance to reshape the way in which we do enterprise and the way we govern,” he mentioned on the time.
“That shouldn’t put shivers up the spines of 1 celebration or the opposite,” he mentioned. “I believe it’s a chance anew for each events to return collectively and meet this second and actually begin to suppose extra systemically, not situationally, not nearly getting out of this second.”
Demonstrators protest throughout a “Freedom Rally” towards stay-at-home directives on April 18, 2020, in San Diego, California. (Picture by Sandy Huffaker/Getty Photographs)
Newsom didn’t raise his ban on important non-emergency surgical procedures, reminiscent of coronary heart valve replacements and tumor removals, till greater than a month after his preliminary lockdown order. His ban on elective surgical procedures like dental extractions and mole removals was lifted on April 26, 2020, and on April 30, 2020, he launched a listing of permitted, social-distanced out of doors actions, which included “exploring rock swimming pools,” “kicking a soccer ball (not in teams),” and going exterior to “wash the automobile” or “watch the dawn.”
Church buildings in Newsom’s state remained utterly closed till greater than two months after the preliminary order. They briefly reopened on Could 25, 2020, when the governor allowed them to function at 25% capability, however he nonetheless banned singing and chanting indoors to scale back the unfold of saliva droplets carrying the virus.
Anti-lockdown protests broke out in California in early Could 2020, which led to tons of of arrests. Then later that month, main protests swept the nation over the Minneapolis police loss of life of George Floyd. Newsom defended the Floyd protesters on the time, saying, “To those that need to specific themselves. … God bless you. Preserve doing it. Your rage is actual.”
Protestors collect at PCH and Principal Avenue in the course of the “March to Open California” on the Huntington Seashore pier in Huntington Seashore, CA on Friday, Could 1, 2020. (Picture by Paul Bersebach/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register by way of Getty Photographs)
Protesters name to reopen companies and seashores because the rising the coronavirus pandemic continues to cripple the economic system on Could 1, 2020, in Huntington Seashore, California. (Picture by David McNew/Getty Photographs)
On June 18, 2020, Newsom issued a statewide masks mandate for anybody in public older than 2, and he was one of many final governors to raise it.
In August 2020, Newsom began releasing 1000’s of violent criminals early, together with these doing time for homicide, in an try to scale back to unfold of COVID-19 throughout the jail system.
It was revealed later that November that California’s Employment Improvement Division, overwhelmed by the uptick in unemployment claims because of the pandemic, paid out at the least $140 million in taxpayer funds to jail inmates ensuing from 35,000 fraudulent claims in one of many greatest scams within the state’s historical past.
Across the identical time, Newsom introduced $600 million in taxpayer funds could be spent on lodge rooms for homeless folks in an effort to fight COVID-19.
Kelly Johnson, proper, of Huntington Seashore is joined by Marc Ang, left, and Crystal Jade, heart, as he throws a face masks into a fireplace pit at Huntington Metropolis Seashore in Huntington Seashore on Tuesday, June 15, 2021, as a part of a protest towards Gov. Gavin Newsom and the State of California’s masks mandates. (Picture by Leonard Ortiz/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register by way of Getty Photographs)
On July 13, 2020, Newsom backtracked on reopening plans he had beforehand promised and once more shut down church buildings, gyms, eating places and museums resulting from an uptick in circumstances.
That October, Newsom outraged dad and mom after he despatched his 4 children again to in-person studying at a personal faculty in Sacramento County, whereas public colleges within the county remained closed.
Newsom, whose candidacy and recall battle was largely funded by lecturers unions, had beforehand ordered all colleges, together with personal, to shut on April 1, 2020, for the remainder of the college 12 months. He was later sued over the personal faculty closures, and in a win for college alternative advocates greater than a 12 months later, the U.S. ninth Circuit Courtroom of Appeals dominated in July 2021 that the governor violated the elemental “proper of oldsters to regulate their kids’s schooling and to decide on their kids’s instructional discussion board.”
On Nov. 6, 2020, Newsom was infamously photographed mingling and not using a masks with California Medical Affiliation officers on the ritzy French Laundry restaurant in Napa, violating plenty of his personal COVID-19 restrictions.
Newsom later admitted that going to the restaurant was a “dangerous mistake” on the identical day he banned indoor eating in 41 of the state’s 58 counties, which incorporates greater than 94% of the state’s inhabitants.
The controversy got here simply weeks after Newsom’s former member of the family, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was caught on digital camera breaking COVID-19 restrictions by getting her hair executed at a shuttered hair salon in San Francisco.
In November 2020, Newsom began mulling a statewide curfew, citing research from varied international locations, together with Saudi Arabia. On November 19, 2020, he ordered an in a single day curfew for almost all of the state that stayed in place for greater than two months.
Roughly two weeks after the curfew mandate, Newsom issued a brand new stay-at-home order banning non-essential enterprise and journey, warning that “we have to do every thing we will to stem the tide.”
Only one month later, on Jan. 25, 2021, the governor lifted the lockdown order because the Republican-led effort to recall him gained momentum. He mentioned on the time that it was “full utter nonsense” to recommend politics drove his resolution to raise the lockdown.
On February 7, 2021, the Supreme Courtroom lifted Newsom’s ban on indoor church companies, forcing him to challenge revised tips, which nonetheless included a masks mandate, a capability restrict and a singing ban.
Earlier this month, the Calvary Chapel church in San Jose was fined $1.2 million for violating the masks mandate between November 2020 and June 2021.
A girl holds an indication calling to “open our church buildings” as demonstrators rally for President Trump, who’s battling his case of COVID-19, on October 3, 2020, in Woodland Hills, California. (Picture by David McNew/Getty Photographs)
Newsom sparked an uproar once more a month later when he and comic George Lopez filmed a TikTok video inside a Fresno restaurant that was closed on the time resulting from his restrictions.
On the time of Newsom’s video, California remained the one state within the nation to nonetheless have an indoor eating ban in place.
The governor later defended himself for collaborating within the video as a result of he didn’t eat on the restaurant.
In July 2021, Newsom mandated that all state staff and well being care staff be vaccinated. He additionally renewed the state’s common masks mandate in colleges, contradicting steerage by the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC) on the time that mentioned vaccinated workers and college students didn’t want masks for defense.
The subsequent month, Newsom mandated that each one faculty workers both get vaccinated or bear weekly COVID-19 testing, and that anybody who attend an indoor occasion with 1,000 or extra folks be required to point out proof of vaccination or a latest damaging COVID-19 take a look at.
In September 2021, DeSantis was threatening heavy fines for Florida companies who imposed vaccine mandates and vaccine passports, and his ban on masks mandates in colleges was upheld in courtroom. In the meantime, Newsom gained a recall election that Sept. 14 after repeatedly warning {that a} Republican governor would use the DeSantis mannequin on the pandemic and take California proper over “the COVID cliff.”
Protesters maintain a banner that claims “Finish His Tyranny” with a photograph of California Governor Gavin Newsom portrayed as a Nazi in the course of the demonstration. (Picture by Stanton Sharpe/SOPA Photographs/LightRocket by way of Getty Photographs)
Demonstrators rally in entrance of posters with California Governor Gavin Newsom exterior Los Angeles Metropolis Corridor on Could 1, 2020, to demand the top to the state’s shutdown because of the coronavirus pandemic. (Picture by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP by way of Getty Photographs)
On Oct. 1, 2021, Newsom introduced a vaccine mandate for all Okay-12 college students in private and non-private faculty, a primary of its type within the nation that truly by no means got here to be.
“As you already know now we have not been shy. We now have continued to lean in,” Newsom mentioned on the time. “We hope this encourages people to get vaccinated.”
The mandate was later delayed pending FDA approval, and it ended this February together with the expiration of California’s state of emergency with out ever going into impact.
Folks collect to rally with truckers firstly of “The Peoples Convoy” protest towards COVID-19 vaccine and masks mandates in Adelanto, California, on February 23, 2022. (Picture by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP by way of Getty Photographs)
Advocates towards vaccine mandates protest in entrance of Metropolis Corridor in downtown Los Angeles on August 14, 2021. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Occasions by way of Getty Photographs)
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In December 2021, Newsom issued a brand new common indoor masks mandate for everybody older than 2 and mandated booster photographs for well being care staff.
The subsequent month, in January 2022, Newsom broke his personal masks guidelines once more by partying with San Francisco Mayor London Breed and then-Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and not using a masks at a 49ers-Rams recreation at SoFi Stadium, which additionally had its personal masks mandate.
Newsom defended himself once more, saying he solely took his masks off briefly for image taking.
In Could 2022, California’s division of finance introduced that its inhabitants had declined for a second 12 months in a row. That very same month, Newsom introduced he examined constructive for COVID-19, regardless of being absolutely vaccinated and receiving two boosters.
A number of months later, Fox Information Digital completely reported that Kenneth and Judith Siebel, Newsom’s in-laws and longtime California residents, are DeSantis donors and have become Florida residents in 2020 after buying a $3.3 million Naples house.
A supporter of Sean Feucht kneels as homeless advocates and their supporters stage a protest towards Christian musician Sean Feucht as he plans to carry a public occasion in Skid Row regardless of the rise of Covid-19 circumstances within the area, in Los Angeles on December 30, 2020. (Picture by RINGO CHIU/AFP by way of Getty Photographs)
On Oct. 6, 2022, Newsom signed a invoice punishing docs who espouse alleged “misinformation or disinformation” associated to COVID-19 that’s not according to the mainstream. A federal choose blocked the legislation in January following a pair of lawsuits difficult it on free speech grounds.
California’s COVID-19 state of emergency formally ended on Feb. 28 of this 12 months, practically three years after his first of many lockdowns.
Newsom’s orders had been carried out in a different way throughout the state. In Los Angeles, Garcetti licensed the Los Angeles Division of Water and Energy to close off utilities to properties that had been discovered to have hosted personal events. In December 2020, Los Angeles County deputies arrested practically 158 folks at a Palmdale home celebration that violated state coronavirus orders.
Many companies within the state that refused to close down had been criminally charged, and individuals who refused to observe stay-at-home orders got hefty fines and threatened with jail time. Native officers revoked enterprise licenses of companies discovered violating Newsom’s orders, and lots of of these companies needed to completely shut.
Members of small enterprise house owners participate in a ‘Save Small Enterprise’ protest in Los Angeles, California on December 12, 2020. (Picture by RINGO CHIU/AFP by way of Getty Photographs)
The Committee to Unleash Prosperity launched a research final 12 months that in contrast state efficiency on metrics together with the economic system, schooling, and mortality from the virus and examined how states and their respective governments dealt with the pandemic response.
The research discovered that California, New York, New Jersey and Illinois had been among the many worst in coping with the pandemic, performing “poorly on each measure.”
These states “had excessive age-adjusted loss of life charges; that they had excessive unemployment and important GDP losses, and so they saved their colleges shut down for much longer than nearly all different states,” the report mentioned.
Dad and mom and college students protest on the Santa Monica – Malibu Unified College District on Thursday, Dec. 17, 2020 in Santa Monica, CA to demand that the youngsters be let again to highschool. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Occasions by way of Getty Photographs)
In February, the Paragon Well being Institute research launched a research saying nearly the identical, that extra extreme lockdowns didn’t considerably enhance well being outcomes however led to worse financial and schooling outcomes in states like California.
“States with extra stringent lockdowns, although, had a lot worse financial outcomes (elevated unemployment and decreased GDP) and far worse schooling outcomes (much less in-person education),” the research mentioned. “Different research present extreme studying deficits related to the lack of in-person schooling, and that the financial and academic impacts of lockdowns disproportionately affected lower-income households.”
Demonstrators protest throughout a ‘Freedom Rally’ towards Keep-At-Dwelling Directives on April 18, 2020, in San Diego, California. (Picture by Sandy Huffaker/Getty Photographs)
For the primary time in years, California is going through a $22.5-billion projected funds deficit after boasting a couple of strong surplus lower than a 12 months in the past. This, regardless of being the No. 1 state within the nation for highest revenue taxes, gross sales taxes and having the second-highest gasoline tax within the nation, second solely to Pennsylvania.
Newsom outraged Republicans and Democrats alike after he proposed slashing his funds dedication for foster care companies by two-thirds with a view to assist make up for the funds shortfall.
Orange County Supervisor Don Wagner, proper, joins a bunch of protesters demonstrating towards the closing of Orange County companies on Sunday, December 13, 2020. (Picture by Mindy Schauer/DIGITAL FIRST MEDIA/Orange County Register by way of Getty Photographs)
California can be No. 9 within the nation for jobless claims, tied with Michigan with a 4.3% unemployment fee, in comparison with Florida’s 2.6%.
California’s homeless disaster has additionally severely worsened for the reason that pandemic, regardless of Newsom spending billions to fight it. The state holds greater than 30% of the nation’s homeless inhabitants, and that quantity has risen about 6% since 2020, in comparison with simply 0.4% in the remainder of the nation, in line with the Public Coverage Institute of California.
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Nonetheless, Newsom toured pink states like Florida, Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi this month to tout his file because the 2024 presidential election heats up, and his eyes stay mounted on DeSantis.
Earlier than giving a speech ripping DeSantis on the New Faculty of Florida, Newsom blasted the Florida governor as “authoritarian.”
“The issue in our nation proper now: authoritarian leaders who’re so hellbent on gaining energy and retaining it by no matter means mandatory,” Newsom mentioned in a video.
DeSantis’ workplace responded by saying “stunts from political opponents don’t matter and haven’t any impact.”
