Gavin Newsom is taking legal action against Fox News.
California’s governor has filed a $787 million defamation lawsuit against the conservative media outlet, alleging that Fox—as well as anchor Jesse Watters—had misrepresented him in its reporting of a phone call he had with President Donald Trump in early June over the deployment of the National Guard to Los Angeles.
“If Fox News wants to lie to the American people on Donald Trump’s behalf, it should face consequences,” Newsom said in a statement to NBC News June 27. “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.”
The lawsuit—filed in Delaware, where Fox News is incorporated, and obtained by NBC News—addresses the timeline of the call between Newsom and Trump, which Newsom has stated took place in the early hours of June 7, before Trump sent the military to Los Angeles.
During Watters’ June 10 broadcast, he alleged that Newsom had lied about the call.
Newsom focuses on comments made by Watters, and alleged that the outlet was motivated to “lie and distort on behalf of the president,” amid his feud with Trump regarding California National Guard troops and Marines being sent to Los Angeles in response to protests of the president’s immigration policies.
Before Trump deployed troops to Los Angeles June 10, he alleged to Fox News reporters that he had spoken to Newsom “a day ago,” but the Democratic governor refuted the claim in a post on X.
“There was no call,” he wrote in the social media statement June 10. “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.”
Now, Newsom’s requested dollar amount in the lawsuit mimics the number Fox News paid in damages to Dominion Voting Systems in 2023 in a defamation suit over false election claims.
“By disregarding basic journalistic ethics in favor of malicious propaganda, Fox continues to play a major role in the further erosion of the bedrock principles of informed representative government,” the lawsuit alleges. “Setting the record straight and confronting Fox’s dishonest practices are critical to protecting democracy from being overrun by disinformation and lies.”
In response to the lawsuit, Fox News told E! News, “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.”
