Newsom sues Fox News for $787M in defamation case over Trump call before National Guard deployment

California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom filed a lawsuit Friday against Fox News for $787 million in a defamation case over a call with President Trump ahead of him sending state National Guard members to Los Angeles.

Newsom claims that Fox News host Jesse Watters defamed him when the TV anchor said that the governor lied about his phone call with Trump before the president deployed Guard troops amid anti-immigration enforcement riots in Los Angeles earlier this month, Politico reported.

The governor's attorneys argue that Watters' TV show misleadingly edited a video of Trump to support the claim about Newsom.

The amount that Newsom is suing for is nearly the same as the $787.5 million total that Fox News paid Dominion Voting Systems in 2023 for defamation regarding the 2020 presidential election.

“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 told Politico 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. We will defend this case vigorously and look forward to it being dismissed,” Fox News said in a statement.

Newsom's attorneys said that the governor is prepared to drop the lawsuit if Fox News retracts its claims and Watters apologizes to him on air.

The lawsuit was filed in the Delaware Superior Court, the state where Fox News is incorporated, and claims that Newsom last spoke with Trump for about 16 minutes by phone on June 7, a day before the president sent 2,000 California National Guardsmen to Los Angeles over the governor's objections.

On June 10, Trump told reporters that he had spoken with Newsom “a day ago,” implying that they had conversed on the day that 700 U.S. Marines were deployed to Los Angeles. Shortly after Trump's comments, Newsom refuted his claim.

Later that evening, Watters played an edited video clip of Trump's remarks on air before saying, “Why would Newsom lie and claim Trump never called him?” He also displayed a screenshot of Trump's call history, which showed that the president's last call with Newsom was on June 7.

Newsom's lawyers argue that the incident could harm the governor's chances in future elections.

“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,” the attorneys wrote in the lawsuit. “But Fox’s decision to cover up for President Trump’s error cannot be so easily dismissed.”