(DELAWARE) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom is suing Fox News for $787 million for defamation.
Newsom’s allegations stem from Fox News host Jesse Watters’ coverage of the battle between the governor and President Donald Trump when the Trump administration sent the California National Guard to Los Angeles earlier this month.
Watters allegedly reported on Fox News that Newsom lied about a phone call with Trump, and the governor claims in his lawsuit that Watters’ show misleadingly edited a video of Trump to support the claim.
Trump, asked by a reporter on June 10 when was the last time he had spoken to Newsom, replied, “A day ago. Called him to tell him, got to do a better job, he’s doing a bad job” — even though, according to Newsom, the last time they had spoken was three days prior to that, at 1:28 a.m. ET on June 7, and Newsom said they had not discussed the riots in question.
After Newsom asserted on X that the two had not spoken on June 9 as Trump appeared to have said, Watters, according to the lawsuit, accused Newsom of lying and played the video clip of Trump telling the reporter the two had spoken — but edited out the start of the clip where Trump said “a day ago.”
“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 Friday, referring to the 2023 settlement Fox reached with Dominion Voting Systems — also for $787 million — after the voting machine company accused Fox News of knowingly pushing false conspiracy theories that Dominion rigged the 2020 presidential election in Joe Biden’s favor.
“I believe the American people should be able to trust the information they receive from a major news outlet,” Newsom said in his statement. “Until Fox is willing to be truthful, I will keep fighting against their propaganda machine.”
In a letter sent to Fox, Newsom’s attorneys said that unless Fox News issues a retraction and an on-air apology, “we will proceed with the lawsuit so that a jury can determine Fox News’s culpability and assign a monetary value to its ‘blatantly unethical’ conduct.”
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.”
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