Gov. Gavin Newsom has filed a lawsuit against Fox News, claiming he was defamed by host Jesse Waters. Politico notes that elements of the lawsuit seem to have been chosen for symbolic rather than practical reasons.

The California governor accused Fox News of defamation in a lawsuit Friday morning, alleging the network should fork over $787 million after host Jesse Watters claimed Newsom lied about his phone calls with Trump, who ordered National Guard troops to Los Angeles this month. Newsom’s lawyers argue Watters’ program misleadingly edited a video of Trump to support the claim.

The Democratic likely presidential hopeful’s request for damages is nearly identical to the $787.5 million sum Fox News paid Dominion Voting Systems in 2023 to settle another defamation case over election falsehoods. And it comes amid a spate of lawsuits from Trump against major media and other companies that resulted in multi-million dollar settlements.

“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.”

As we've seen many times before, defamation is very hard to prove where a public figure is involved. Newsom will have to prove that Fox News had actual malice, i.e. knew they were lying and made the claim anyway, in order to win here. Fox News called it a publicity stunt:

Fox News, in a statement, said, “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.”

Newsom on the other hand isn't determined to go to court. He promised to dismiss the lawsuit in exchange for an apology.

Mr. Newsom’s lawyers also sent Fox News a letter demanding a formal retraction and an on-air apology from Jesse Watters, a host who said on his show that Mr. Newsom had lied about the call with the president. If those conditions are met, the letter states, Mr. Newsom will dismiss the lawsuit.

So does Newsom have any sort of case here? Let's dive into the underlying details. 

About three weeks ago, President Trump called Gov. Newsom about the riots in Los Angeles. The call was placed on July 7 at 1:23 am (early Saturday morning) from the White House. However, because of the three hour time difference to California, Newsom was taking the call late Friday night at 10:23 pm. The call lasted about 16 minutes. President Trump activated the National Guard on July 7, i.e. later the same day.

A few days later on July 10 (Tuesday around noon) a reporter asked Trump in the Oval Office when he had last spoke to Gov. Newsom. Trump hesitated and then replied "A day ago." He added, "Called him up to tell him, got to do a better job, he's doing a bad job."

Reporter: When is last time you spoke with Governor Newsom?

President Trump: A day ago. Called him up to tell him, got to do a better job, he's doing a bad job. Causing a lot of death and potential death pic.twitter.com/BXa7PUUZCk

— Acyn (@Acyn) June 10, 2025

Gov. Newsom responded on X, essentially calling Trump a liar. But notice the language he's using.

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. https://t.co/y7TJUhUZGI

— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) June 10, 2025

"There was no call. Not even a voicemail," makes it sound like Newsom is denying he and Trump spoke at all. So does Newsom's insinuation that Trump is too out of it to know who he's spoken to. Trump himself called in to Fox News to dispute Newsom's claim and the White House released a call log backing up the fact that a call had taken place on July 7.

Newsom busted in yet another lie