(AFP) – California Governor Gavin Newsom filed a lawsuit Friday against broadcaster Fox News, claiming defamation after alleged purposeful misrepresentation of details of a phone call with US President Donald Trump earlier this month. The suit seeks $787 million in damages and was filed in a Delaware court, where Fox News is registered as a corporation.
Trump and Newsom spoke on the phone in the early hours of June 7 Washington time, but the pair did not address protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids occurring throughout Los Angeles, according to the lawsuit. Later that day, Republican Trump ordered thousands of National Guard troops to deploy to the city in response to the protests, against the wishes of the Democratic governor. Trump said during a June 10 White House press conference that he talked with Newsom “a day ago” — a claim the California politician quickly refuted on social media.
“There was no call. Not even a voicemail,” Newsom wrote on X. In response, Fox News host Jesse Watters claimed Newsom was lying about the call. Another Fox News reporter, John Roberts, said Trump sent him a call log to prove Newsom was lying, but the screenshot he provided showed the call happened on June 7.
“Rather than leave the matter alone, or simply provide the facts, Fox News chose to defame Governor Newsom, branding him a liar,” the lawsuit said. Newsom told broadcaster MeidasTouch he was used to criticism from Fox News, “but this crossed the line — journalistic lines, ethical lines, defamation, malice.”
The lawsuit said Fox News deliberately mislead viewers about the call to harm Newsom’s career, saying those who watched Watters’s report would be less likely to support his future campaigns. Fox News called the lawsuit a “publicity stunt.” It said in a statement to AFP that the legal action “is frivolous and designed to chill free speech critical of him.”
Newsom in a statement compared his case to a 2023 lawsuit against Fox News filed by election technology company Dominion Voting Systems, which said the broadcaster knowingly spread lies that its voting machines swayed the 2020 presidential election against Trump. The amount Newsom’s lawsuit seeks in damages, $787 million, is nearly the same as the amount Fox News paid in a settlement to Dominion.
© 2024 AFP
