Fox News is headed back to court for another massive defamation lawsuit.
California Gavin Newsom announced Friday that he is suing the conservative media behemoth for $787 million after host Jesse Watters claimed that Newsom had lied about a call he had with Donald Trump during the Los Angeles anti-ICE protests.
Newsom accused Watters’s show of lying to viewers about the phone call by airing a misleadingly edited video of Trump to make their point.
“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.”
The sum that Newsom is seeking is nearly identical to the amount that the network paid Dominion Voting Systems when they settled their lawsuit in 2023. Dominion had sued Fox for defamation after Fox accused the electronic voting machine company of stealing the election from Trump.
The California governor is suing in his personal capacity, using funds from his campaign account to cover any fines or possible penalties. He has also said that he’s willing to drop the lawsuit if Fox issues a correction and forces Watters to apologize on air—which doesn’t seem likely. A spokesperson for Fox News told The New Republic that the company was looking “forward to” the case “being dismissed.”
“Gov. Newsom’s transparent publicity stunt is frivolous and designed to chill free speech critical of him,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
In the event that the case settles or goes to trial, Newsom has pledged that all proceeds from the lawsuit will go toward anti-Trump legal causes.
Newsom spoke earlier this month with the president for nearly 20 minutes on the phone after the protests had started, but according to Newsom, the protests “barely” came up, despite his attempts to veer the conversation toward Los Angeles.
“He wanted to talk about all these other issues,” Newsom said of the phone call. “He never once brought up the National Guard. He’s a stone cold liar, he said he did.”
Despite the high bar required for a public official to prove defamation, the governor’s lawyers argued that Fox’s coverage of the call met the legal standard for defamation, potentially harming his reputation with voters for future elections.
The Democrat’s suit holds similarities to another case from the MAGA side, in which Trump sued CBS’s 60 Minutes over what he claimed was a deceptively edited interview with then–Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris. That suit, which the network settled, has so far resulted in the exit of two executives from CBS as the suit has become a cornerstone issue in the pending sale of Paramount.
This story has been updated.
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