California Governor Gavin Newsom is not backing down. Even after Fox News host Jesse Watters apologized on-air for falsely accusing him of lying, Newsom is moving full steam ahead with his $787 million defamation lawsuit against the conservative network.
The controversy centers on a phone call between Newsom and President Donald Trump during anti-immigration enforcement protests in Los Angeles. On June 10, Trump claimed he had spoken to Newsom “a day ago” and told him, “you’ve got to do a better job, you’re doing a bad job.” That timing would have placed the call right before Trump ordered U.S. Marines into the city—a move that outraged California leaders.
But Newsom says that’s not how it happened.
He publicly stated that the call happened just after midnight on June 7, and that there was no discussion of military deployment. To back that up, Newsom wrote on X: “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.”
Fox News ran with the story anyway. Watters aired a clip of Trump’s June 10 comments, but left out the part where Trump said the call happened “a day ago.” The segment ran with a bold headline: “Gavin lied about Trump’s call.” Watters also showed a screenshot of Trump’s call log, but it didn’t include a timestamp—just the date, June 7.
Newsom’s legal team called this blatant manipulation.
According to the lawsuit, Watters “deceptively edited” the footage to support a false narrative—that Newsom lied about when the call happened, and possibly about its contents. Newsom’s lawyers say that falsely linking him to the controversial troop deployment damaged his reputation and misled the public.
They made it clear: if Fox issued a full retraction and a real on-air apology, the lawsuit would go away. Instead, Watters offered a half-hearted walk-back on his Thursday broadcast.
“Not even a voicemail – we took that to mean there was no call ever … We thought the dispute was about whether there was a phone call at all,” Watters said. Then, in a condescending jab, he added: “Next time, governor, why don’t you say what you mean.”
That wasn’t good enough for Newsom.
He fired back with a short, pointed statement to the Los Angeles Times: “Discovery will be fun. See you in court, buddy.”
The lawsuit, filed in late June in Delaware, marks one of the most aggressive legal challenges by a sitting governor against a major media outlet in recent memory. Newsom is accusing Fox News and Watters of knowingly spreading false information that fueled political division and harmed public trust.
And with Watters now backpedaling on-air—“I’m sorry, he wasn’t lying”—the stakes are even higher. The apology, while rare, won’t be enough to stop what’s shaping up to be a legal showdown with national implications.
Governor Newsom isn’t looking for airtime. He’s looking for accountability.
