California governor sues Fox News for defamation

By Diyar Guldogan

WASHINGTON (AA) - California Governor Gavin Newsom on Friday filed a $787 million defamation lawsuit against Fox News over its coverage of his phone call with President Donald Trump about the immigration crackdown.

"I just filed a lawsuit against Fox News for lies, for deceit, for misrepresentation. Enough of their lies. We'll see them in court," Newsom said in a video message on X.

Newsom said that host Jesse Watters defamed him when he accused the governor of lying about a call with Trump on the weekend of June 6.

He said that his last conversation with Trump occurred on June 6, while Trump told reporters on June 10 that he had spoken with the California governor "a day ago."

Trump, when asked by a reporter about his most recent conversation with Newsom, said: "A day ago. Called him up to tell him, got to do a better job, he's doing a bad job. Causing a lot of death and potential death."

Fox News said in a statement that Newsom’s "transparent publicity stunt is frivolous and designed to chill free speech critical of him. We will defend this case vigorously and look forward to it being dismissed."

The US assigned roughly 4,000 US National Guardsmen and 700 Marines to the streets of Los Angeles following the eruption of protests on June 6, in defiance of warnings from Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass that the action would only serve to further inflame already-heightened tensions.

Protests erupted after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents raided local businesses and detained hundreds of people suspected of living in the US illegally. The Trump administration has continued to carry out the raids in defiance of the community's opposition.