When President Donald Trump said he'd spoken to Gavin Newsom about deploying the National Guard and Marines to help keep the federal buildings safe from left wing rioters, the California governor responded unequivocally: "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." Newsom's X message was interpreted that there was no phone call. Ever.
It's that exchange that is at the heart of the troll defamation lawsuit filed by the usual lawfare-left lawyers on behalf of Newsom in his personal capacity, and in service of his presidential aspirations.
The lawsuit asks for $787 million in damages, but Newsom has indicated that he'll drop the case if Fox News apologizes. The $787 million refers to the settlement Fox News agreed to pay Dominion voting machines instead of going to trial. Fox News dismissed the announcement of the lawsuit as a "transparent publicity stunt..." that is “frivolous and designed to chill free speech critical of him.” The Fox News statement also said it looked forward to the lawsuit's dismissal.
The lawsuit against Fox News centered on the question of why Newsom would apparently lie about talking with the president. In the lawsuit, Newsom admits that he talked to the president for "20 minutes," but that it wasn't the day the president said it was, which is not what he communicated in his X post.
BREAKING: New phone logs dispute Gavin Newsom's lie that President Trump never called him.
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) June 10, 2025
This was obtained by @johnrobertsFox, directly from President Trump's phone.
"There was no call. Not even a voicemail," Newsom said.
The log shows the date and time. pic.twitter.com/MAwWwt6jVY
Newsom's Democrat attorneys claim that Fox host John Roberts's show edited out the reporter's question and the first part of Trump's answer, which, "Instead of accurately presenting President Trump’s words—that he had spoken to Governor Newsom 'a day ago'—Mr. Roberts told viewers that President Trump had said that he spoke to Governor Newsom 'yesterday or the other day.'” They don't say that Roberts indicated that the dates of the call appeared to be different from what the president indicated. Strike One.
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Then the lawsuit keys in on Jesse Watters' presentation of the conflict, claiming that he chose "to curry favor with the President," and so Fox News "willfully distorted the facts." The "facts" to which the lawsuit refers is the date. The lawsuit states, "Fox’s statements about Governor Newsom are false. Governor Newsom was not lying when he stated on June 10, 2025 that he had not spoken to President Trump 'a day ago.'"
Newsom did not explicitly state that the president had not called "a day ago," which is what prompted the news stories. No distinction was made in the governor's social media message on X. He said "There was no call. Not even a voicemail." He then alerted Americans that the president was turning into a man with Joe Biden's brain by alleging, "Americans should be alarmed that a President deploying Marines onto our streets doesn’t even know who he’s talking to." We're pretty sure that Trump knew he was talking to Newsom, just not "a day ago."
After Newsom said President Trump was lying about talking to him, the president supplied Roberts with a reputed screenshot of his phone, showing he'd made two phone calls to Newsom. However, those phone calls were not on the day intimated by the president, but earlier. In fact, Watters mentions that the call occurred on "Friday night," and not "a day ago." Strike Two for the lawsuit.
Watters also reported on the contradiction in Newsom's story the lawsuit claims was defamatory.
Here's the key part of Watters's statements and what the chyron — the bullet-pointed sub-headlines shown on the lower third of the TV screen — read:
Watters: Newsom responded saying, there wasn't a phone call and said Trump never called him; not even a voicemail, he said.
Chyron: Newsom Hits Back at Trump
Watters: But John Roberts got a hold of Trump's call logs and it showed Trump called him Friday night and it shows they talked for 16 minutes
Chyron "Gavin lied about Trump's call"
Watters: Why would Newsom lie and claim Trump never called him? Why would he do that? Gavin could have called out the Guard Friday night and could have stopped the violence and stopped millions of dollars in damages.
Chyron: Newsom could have prevented the riots
Watters: But we're now on our fifth day of mayhem and Newsom is suing Trump to send the guard home.
Chyron: Newsom sues to send the guards home
Watters: And California congressmen? They're telling the National Guard to disobey orders.
[plays soundbite of Congressman Ted Lieu]
Chyron: Dems want National Guard to go rogue
Watters: Ted Lieu's a lawyer and he doesn't even know what the law is
Chyron: Trump wields the power the country gave him
The chyron makes the assertion that Newsom lied, but it was based on Newsom's own assertion that no phone call or voice mail had ever been made. For his part, Watters asked a question: "Why would Newsom lie and claim Trump never called him?" Strike Three for the defamation lawsuit. He was asking, not asserting.
The lawsuit reads:
On June 10, 2025, President Trump conducted a press briefing in the Oval Office of the White House in which he discussed the events which had taken place in Los Angeles over the past several days, his plan to use federal troops, andhis criticisms of Governor Newsom. During the briefing, a reporter asked President Trump, “When was the last time you spoke to Governor Newsom?”
President Trump wanted reporters to believe that he had spoken to Newsom more recently than he actually had. In claiming that he had spoken to Newsom “a day ago,” rather than several days ago, Trump could suggest that they spoke about the events in Los Angeles on June 7-9 which had become international news, as well as Trump’s plan to deploy federal troops. That suggestion was false.
The lawsuit claims that Fox News edited out the part where the reporter asks and Trump responds offhandedly, "a day ago." Fair point for the lawsuit, but it may be immaterial. Indeed, Newsom is a public figure, which makes defamation lawsuits especially difficult. Newsom's attorneys, while skilled, must prove that the network, though clarifying the dates, maliciously edited the video to make Newsom look bad. That dog won't hunt, considering the clarifications on the timing of the call, which both reporters stated.
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In the throw-everything-against-the-wall-effort, the lawsuit took issue with Roberts' X post with the screenshot of the president's phone, by saying, "Importantly, Mr. Roberts’ post did not provide the critical fact that on June 10, President Trump had stated that he had spoken to Governor Newsom “a day ago.” Nor did Mr. Roberts note that June 6—or June 7 at 1:23am—is not “a day ago” when one is speaking on June 10.
Though Newsom had spoken with a lefty news outlet right after he'd spoken to Trump on the phone, and acknowledged that the call had occurred, that issue was lost in the fog of the riot coverage in the media—and, indeed, apparently by Newsom himself, who wrote in his X post stating unequivocally that he hadn't spoken to Trump. Also, in the fast-moving L.A. riot news, Newsom also deflected attention by suing the Trump Administration (again) over using executive authority to federalize the National Guard and later sending in the Marines. Newsom has so far lost at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled that the president has legal authority over command of the military.
Now Newsom, in his private capacity—not as governor—is suing because even though both John Roberts and Jesse Watters clarified the day in their reporting, it made him look bad.
Here's a look at Watters' alleged "defamatory" statements:
JUST IN: California Governor Gavin Newsom sues Fox News for $787M, accusing Fox and specifically Jesse Watters of lying about his call with President Trump during the LA riots.
— Thorexis (@thor_exis) June 27, 2025
Watters and Newsom have some history when Newsom previously criticized Watters, notably in 2022,… pic.twitter.com/KSb53ZBTlF
Even Politico admits this is a face-saving effort by the guy who wants to run for president in 2028:
Newsom’s lawyers argue the incident meets the legal standard for defamation and potentially harmed the governor’s standing with voters in future elections. Additionally, they claimed it violated California’s Unfair Competition Law, which outlaws “deceptive and unfair business practices.” Mark Bankston and another private lawyer representing Newsom, Michael Teter, summarized their case in a five-page letter to Fox on Friday littered with biting insults of the network’s credibility and sarcastic jabs at Trump’s mental acuity. “It is perhaps unsurprising that a near-octogenarian with a history of delusionary public statements and unhinged late-night social media screeds might confuse the dates,” the lawyers wrote. “But Fox’s decision to cover up for President Trump’s error cannot be so easily dismissed.”
To help you understand what's going on here, you should probably have a little background. As I've reported multiple times, most recently in A Little Sweet Revenge Against Democrats Threatening to Kill Careers of Trump Lawyers, Newsom's lawyers have made going after conservative media, President Trump, and his 2020 election lawyers a mission.
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One of Newsom's lawyers, Michael Teter, is the head of the anti-Trump lawfare group, "65 Project," which ran a campaign to disbar attorneys who worked on behalf of President Trump following the 2020 election. Teter also represented Ray Epps in a defamation lawsuit against Fox News and Tucker Carlson. That case was dismissed.
Epps is the man who appeared on Jan. 5 and 6 video attempting to start unrest at the Capitol. He pleaded guilty to a belated charge of misdemeanor disorderly conduct for his role in fomenting the unrest. Read more about this in my story Well, Well, Well, Look at the 'Conspiracy Theory' the J6 Cat Finally Dragged in. Why Now?
I wrote about the confluence of Epps's cases in this story: Ray Epps' Attorney Says His January 6 Charge Actually Helps Him.
The lawyer working with Teter, Brian Farnan, works in Delaware, where the lawsuit was filed. Farnan worked on the defamation lawsuit against Fox News on behalf of Dominion voting machines. That lawsuit against the news channel was settled before it went to court for the above-mentioned $787 million. He also worked on the Ray Epps case and sued the Wall Street Journal, owned by the Rupert Murdoch family, for defamation. The Murdochs run the most powerful more conservative news enterprises in the United States. These properties include the New York Post, Wall Street Journal, and Fox News.
Sensing a pattern here?
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