California Governor Gavin Newsom is suing Fox News for defamation in its coverage of a phone call between him and President Trump amid the Los Angeles riots over ICE raids. Newsom is suing the network personally, and not through his role as the California governor, for nearly $800 million. 

The lawsuit states that Fox News disregarded “basic journalistic ethics in favor of malicious propaganda.”

The incidents leading Newsom to sue the network occurred in John Roberts’ coverage of the story, and on the show “Jesse Watters Primetime.” Both personalities claimed that Newsom lied about the time in which he last talked with President Trump about the ICE riots in Los Angeles.

Instead, Newsom argues that the network and President Trump are lying. According to the California governor, they last spoke on June 7, before the LA ICE riots escalated. Newsom claims Trump was wrong in saying they spoke “a day ago,” on June 10, after deploying the National Guard to the city of Los Angeles. 

“On the evening of June 10, on his show Jesse Watters Primetime, Mr. Watters played an edited clip of President Trump’s Oval Office statement. Mr. Watters removed President Trump’s statement that he last spoke to Governor Newsom ‘a day ago,’” the suit alleges. “Instead, Mr. Watters presented President Trump as stating: ‘Called him up to tell him, got to do a better job, he’s doing a bad job, causing a lot of death and a lot a potential death.” 

The lawsuit describes the areas in which Fox misrepresented what happened. 

“Fox knew the falsity of the lies its agents were promoting about Governor Newsom. Fox’s statements are reasonably understood to be statements of fact about Governor Newsom, and were understood by people who saw, heard, and read them to be statements of fact about Governor Newsom.” 

In Newsom’s prayer for relief, he is seeking compensatory damages in an amount to be established at trial for economic, reputational, and other injuries,” along with “additional punitive damages in the amount of $787 million.” 

Fox News calls the lawsuit a publicity stunt and an effort to stifle free speech. In a statement sent to CBS News, the network wrote:

“Gov. 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.”