Gavin Newsom filed suit against Fox News on Friday, accusing the conservative cable giant of defaming him with its coverage of his phone call with President Donald Trump earlier this month amid the Los Angeles protests over Trump’s immigration crackdown and federalization of the National Guard.
The California governor is seeking at least $787 million in damages and a court order prohibiting the network from airing any additional segments that falsely claim that he lied about the call with the president, which took place on June 7.
The punitive damages sought by Newsom are nearly identical to the amount that Fox paid to Dominion Voting Systems in 2023 to settle a defamation suit over election conspiracies broadcast by the network.
“If Fox News wants to lie to the American people on Donald Trump’s behalf, it should face consequences — just like it did in the Dominion case,” Newsom said in a statement. “Until Fox is willing to be truthful, I will keep fighting against their propaganda machine.”
“Gov. Newsom’s transparent publicity stunt is frivolous and designed to chill free speech critical of him,” Fox News said in a statement. “We will defend this case vigorously and look forward to it being dismissed.”
The Democratic governor, meanwhile, appears to be taking a page out of Trump’s playbook with his legal complaint against the MAGA cable news channel. The president is currently suing CBS News for $20 billion over a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, which is increasingly looking like it will be settled despite its lack of merit as the network’s parent company Paramount looks to complete a media merger that requires the Trump administration’s approval.
Trump, who has seen other news organizations settle with him in recent months, also recently threatened to sue CNN and The New York Times over their reports on an early intelligence assessment that indicates the US military strikes on Iran may have only set back the Middle Eastern country’s nuclear program a few months.
The lawsuit hinges largely on a segment hosted by Fox News primetime host Jesse Watters, who accused the governor — and likely Democratic presidential candidate — of lying over the description and timeline of a call with Trump. Newsom’s legal team sent the network a letter demanding a formal on-air apology and a retraction from Watters, noting that if those conditions are met, the governor will drop the lawsuit.
As demonstrations broke out in Los Angeles earlier this month over the administration’s aggressive ICE raids, Newsom and Trump spoke on the phone late in the evening on June 6 on the West Coast, which would have been early in the morning on June 7 for the president in Washington, D.C. Later that weekend, Newsom told NBC News about the call, labeling it as largely cordial.
During a press conference in the Oval Office on June 10, the president asserted that he had spoken with the governor “a day ago” and told him to “do a better job,” a claim Newsom immediately refuted. “There was no call. Not even a voicemail. Americans should be alarmed that a President deploying Marines onto our streets doesn’t even know who he’s talking to,” the governor said on social media.
Newsom’s office would also clarify that the governor was specifically denying the president’s assertion that a call had taken place the previous day, noting that the last time the two leaders had spoken was the June 6 conversation.
Meanwhile, Trump would provide screenshots to Fox News anchor John Roberts as “receipts” of their phone call, which only proved Newsom’s original point that they had last spoken over the weekend and not “a day ago.” Watters, however, would later dishonestly spin during his primetime broadcast later that night.
“Why would Newsom lie and claim Trump never called him? Why would he do that?!” Watters declared while an on-air graphic blared “Gavin Lied About Trump’s Call.” The pro-Trump host would go on to accuse Newsom of claiming “Trump never called him” before airing an edited clip that left out the president’s saying the call took place “a day ago.”
“It is perhaps unsurprising that a near-octogenarian with a history of delusionary public statements and unhinged late-night social media screeds might confuse the dates,” Newsom’s attorney Mark Bankston —who represented the Sandy Hook families in their lawsuit against conspiracist Alex Jones — wrote to Fox News in a letter. “But Fox’s decision to cover up for President Trump’s error cannot be so easily dismissed.”
