Republicans vying to replace Newsom in California recall attack his handling of Covid-19 in debate

Four of the Republican candidates vying to replace California Gov. Gavin Newsom in the September 14 recall election met on the debate stage Wednesday night, railing against Covid-19 mask mandates and accusing the Democrat of failing the state's business owners and school children by forcing closures during the worst of the pandemic.

Businessman John Cox, former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, Assemblyman Kevin Kiley and former Rep. Doug Ose all took part at the forum at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, largely avoiding taking shots at one another but faulting Newsom's leadership for everything from the state's homelessness crisis, to rising crime, to the labor shortage. It was their repeated calls for greater personal responsibility and less "government overreach" to halt the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic that created some of the most striking exchanges of the night -- in part because the hands-off approach they proposed to the pandemic would diverge so sharply from the course that Newsom has taken. The Republican-led recall gained steam last year because many GOP voters were angry about what they perceived as Newsom's overreach -- and the candidates sought to channel that anger Wednesday night by criticizing what they described as an erratic set of Covid regulations and mandates that they claim crushed businesses.