Gavin Newsom by Sheila Fitzgerald / Shutterstock.com (Left), Maria Sbytova / Shutterstock.com (Right)
California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom filed a $787 million defamation lawsuit against FOX News June 27, alleging the network deliberately misled viewers about a phone call between him and President Donald Trump during the recent Los Angeles riots.
The lawsuit, filed in Delaware Superior Court, centers on FOX’s coverage of a 16-minute phone call between Trump and Newsom that occurred late June 6 — after 1 a.m. June 7 Eastern — as riots broke out targeting ICE facilities across Los Angeles.
Trump publicly mentioned the call on June 10, telling reporters he had spoken with Newsom “a day ago” and urged him to “do a better job.” Newsom fired back on X: “There was no call. Not even a voicemail.”
FOX News host Jesse Watters later noted the apparent contradiction, claiming on a Jesse Watters Primetime segment that Trump’s call log confirmed a 16-minute conversation between the two.
“Newsom responded, and he said there wasn’t a phone call, said Trump never called him. Not even a voicemail, he said,” Watters said. “But John Roberts got Trump’s call logs, and it shows Trump called him late Friday night and they talked for 16 minutes.”
“Why would Newsom lie and claim Trump never called him?” he added, as an apparent screenshot of Trump’s call logs — reportedly obtained by FOX News anchor John Roberts — appeared on-screen.
Newsom’s lawsuit, however, argues that his post was intended to dispute Trump’s timing of the call. According to Politico, the complaint states Newsom was correcting Trump’s claim that the call happened “a day ago.”.
The lawsuit claims the network’s coverage was “calculated to provoke outrage and cause Governor Newsom significant harm” and accuses FOX of protecting Trump “by smearing his political opponent.”
Newsom is demanding a televised apology from Watters and a public retraction. According to The New York Times, the governor has offered to drop the case if those conditions are met.
