Newsom ready to pursue lawsuit against Fox News host despite on-air apology

The California governor, Gavin Newsom, and Fox News host Jesse Watters have locked into a political tit-for-tat after the network figure admitted to mistakenly claiming that Newsom lied about a phone call with Donald Trump during June’s anti-immigration enforcement protests in the state.

On Thursday, Watters issued an apology on his program stemming from a $787m defamation lawsuit filed by Newsom against the host and Fox News, as the Los Angeles Times and other outlets reported. Newsom’s lawsuit claimed that Watters lied on air about the timeline of the governor’s conversations with the president during the peak of the anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) protests across Los Angeles.

Newsom contended that Watters intentionally manipulated his reporting to make it seem as though the governor had lied about a phone call he had with Trump.

On 10 June, Trump publicly said that he had spoken to Newsom “a day ago”, adding that he had called the governor to tell him “you’ve got to do a better job, you’re doing a bad job”. Trump’s comments implied that the two leaders had spoken to each other on the same day that the president ordered several hundred US marines to be deployed to Los Angeles – a decision that was met with widespread opposition from California leaders.

After Trump’s comments, Newsom pushed back on social media against the president’s narrative. Newsom had publicly said that he spoke to Trump after midnight on 7 June, during which there was no discussion of deploying any marines.

In a post on X, Newsom wrote: “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.”

Trump in response sent a screenshot of his 7 June call log to the Fox News anchor John Roberts. Watters then proceeded to show the screenshot on his program, as well as a video clip of Trump’s comments on 10 June about his call with Newsom. In the video clip, the part where Trump said he had spoken to Newsom “a day ago” was omitted, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The outlet, which reviewed the clip, further added that the bottom of the screen said: “Gavin lied about Trump’s call.”

Jesse Watters. Photograph: Charles Sykes/Invision/AP

As part of the defamation suit Newsom subsequently filed against the network, the governor’s lawyers said that they would dismiss the case if Fox admitted to falsely misrepresenting the timeline of the phone call with Trump.

“We expect that you will give the same airtime in retracting these falsehoods as you spent presenting and amplifying them,” Newsom’s lawyers said in a letter to Fox, which the Los Angeles Times reviewed. “Further, Mr Watters and Fox News must issue a formal on-air apology for the lie you have spread about Governor Newsom.”

On Thursday, Watters issued a lukewarm apology on air, saying: “‘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 when he said without qualification that there was no call.

“Now Newsom’s telling us what was in his head when he wrote the tweet,” Watters added. “He didn’t deceive anybody on purpose, so I’m sorry, he wasn’t lying. He was just confusing and unclear. Next time, governor, why don’t you say what you mean.”

In response to Watters’s comments on air, Newsom provided a statement to the Los Angeles Times suggesting he would forge on with his lawsuit.

“Discovery will be fun,” the statement reportedly said. “See you in court, buddy.”