California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has hit Fox News with a $787 million defamation lawsuit after the network falsely claimed Newsom lied about a conversation he had with President Donald Trump.
The suit, filed Friday in Delaware, where Fox News is incorporated, accuses the network ― and Fox News host Jesse Watters ― of deliberately misrepresenting a phone call Newsom had with Trump amid protests in Los Angeles earlier this month.
“Fox knew the falsity of the lies its agents were promoting about Governor Newsom,” says the lawsuit, obtained by HuffPost.
The issue first began after Trump claimed on June 10 that he had spoken to Newsom about “a day ago” regarding Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops and Marines to Los Angeles in response to protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
The two leaders had spoken by phone late at night June 6 in California, which would have been June 7 in Washington.
“There was no call. Not even a voicemail,” Newsom wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Americans should be alarmed that a President deploying Marines onto our streets doesn’t even know who he’s talking to.”
Trump, who has bragged about his cognitive ability even as it’s been called into question, doubled down on his claim that he’d spoken to Newsom more recently.
Trump provided a screenshot of a call log between him and Newsom with Fox News’ John Roberts. But the image instead corroborated Newsom’s account, showing the two had talked for roughly 16 minutes June 7 ― not June 9, as Trump claimed.
“Likely realizing that June 6 or June 7 is not ‘a day ago’ from June 10, Mr. Roberts intentionally altered how he presented President Trump’s comment, stating that President Trump had said that he had called Governor Newsom ‘yesterday or the other day,’” the lawsuit says.
Later that night on June 10, Fox News host Watters played a clip of Trump talking about his call with Newsom but edited out Trump’s claim that they’d spoken “a day ago,” according to the lawsuit. Watters then accused Newsom of lying about having a call with Trump at all.
“Newsom responded, and he said there wasn’t a phone call,” Watters told his audience. “He said Trump never called him. Not even a voicemail, he 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? Why would he do that?”
The lawsuit accuses Fox News of deliberately covering for Trump and painting Newsom as a liar.
“It is impossible to know for certain whether President Trump’s distortion was intentionally deceptive or merely a result of his poor cognitive state, but Fox’s decision to cover up for the President’s false statement cannot be so easily dismissed.”
The staggering amount of $787 million that Newsom is suing for mirrors the amount that Fox News paid to Dominion Voting Systems in 2023 for lies the network peddled about 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 said in a statement to HuffPost. “I believe the American people should be able to trust the information they receive from a major news outlet. Until Fox is willing to be truthful, I will keep fighting against their propaganda machine.”
Newsom is being represented by private attorney Michael Teter, along with attorney Mark Bankston of the law firm Farrar & Ball.
Bankston is no stranger to holding liars accountable, having won more than $40 million in punitive damages against conspiracy theorist Alex Jones in 2022 for the lies he spread about the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting. Bankston also is involved in lawsuits against billionaire Elon Musk and far-right network Newsmax.
The lawsuit argues Newsom is entitled to punitive damages in this case because “Fox’s defamatory statements were accompanied with malice, wantonness, and a conscious desire to cause injury. Fox purposefully made the defamatory statements heedlessly and with reckless and willful indifference to Governor Newsom’s rights.”
Fox News called the lawsuit a “publicity stunt.”
“Gov. Newsom’s transparent publicity stunt is frivolous and designed to chill free speech critical of him,” Fox News said in a statement to HuffPost. “We will defend this case vigorously and look forward to it being dismissed.”
In a five-page letter to Fox News, Bankston and Teter said they would be prepared to drop the lawsuit if Fox retracts its false claim and Watters apologizes to Newsom on air.
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