Fox News host Jesse Watters aired a deceptively edited clip of Donald Trump this week, using it to falsely accuse California Governor Gavin Newsom of lying about a phone call that never happened.
The controversy began after ICE raids in Los Angeles triggered widespread protests. In response, Trump ordered 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 active-duty Marines into the city. He then launched into a public feud with Newsom, blaming him for chaos on the ground.
At a press event Tuesday, Trump claimed he had spoken to Newsom “a day ago,” saying, “Called him up to tell him, got to do a better job. He’s done a bad job, causing a lot of death and a lot of potential death. If we didn’t send out the National Guard… Los Angeles would be burning right now.”
Newsom quickly pushed back, saying no such call happened the day before. In response, Trump’s team turned to Fox News for backup. Anchor John Roberts produced what they called a “receipt” — a screenshot showing a 16-minute phone call between Trump and Newsom. But as Roberts himself pointed out, the call took place at 1:22 a.m. Eastern — 10:22 p.m. Friday night in California — not Monday, as Trump claimed.
Newsom had already acknowledged that Friday call. What he denied was Trump’s claim that a separate call took place on Monday.
Rather than clarify the timeline, Watters presented a heavily edited version of Trump’s original remarks on his Tuesday night show. The part where Trump said the call happened “a day ago” — referring to Monday — was removed. Instead, viewers saw Trump say he “called him up to tell him, got to do a better job.” Trump continued, “He’s doing a bad job, causing a lot of death and a lot of potential death. If we didn’t send out the National Guard, and last time we gave a little additional help, you would have — Los Angeles would be burning right now.”
After airing the cut version, Watters falsely claimed Newsom had denied the Friday call, saying, “Newsom responded, and he said there wasn’t a phone call. He said Trump never called him. Not even a voicemail, he said.” He then added, “But John Roberts got Trump’s call logs, and it shows Trump called him late Friday night and they talked for 16 minutes. Why would Newsom lie and claim Trump never called him? Why would he do that?”
The problem: Newsom never denied the Friday night call. He denied a Monday call — exactly the one Trump said happened, and which never did. The call logs confirmed Trump’s call was Friday, not Monday. Instead of correcting Trump’s timeline, Fox News edited out the mistake and framed Newsom as dishonest.
In the end, the only lie was the one Fox News tried to sell to its audience.
Watch the clip below from Fox News.
Watters plays a clip that’s been edited to exclude the part where Trump says he called Newsom “a day ago” and then shows Trump call log showing that that spoke on Friday. “Why would Newsom lie…” pic.twitter.com/Y1t0tBTF43
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 11, 2025
