Newsom Sues Fox News for at Least $787 Million Over Trump Phone Call Coverage

The lawsuit, which seeks at least $787 million in damages, comes as the California governor adopts an increasingly combative style with the president and his allies.

Gov. Gavin Newsom of California sued Fox News on Friday, accusing the network of defaming him in its coverage of a phone call he had with President Trump this month.

The suit, filed in Delaware, where Fox News is incorporated, seeks damages of at least $787 million and a court order prohibiting Fox from broadcasting or posting segments that mistakenly say Mr. Newsom lied about his call with Mr. Trump.

Mr. Newsom has adopted an increasingly combative approach with the president since Mr. Trump sent military troops to Los Angeles this month amid his administration’s immigration crackdown. The governor, a Democrat, is taking a page from the president by suing a news media outlet over coverage.

Mr. Newsom’s lawyers also sent Fox News a letter demanding a formal retraction and an on-air apology from Jesse Watters, a host who said on his show that Mr. Newsom had lied about the call with the president. If those conditions are met, the letter states, Mr. Newsom will dismiss the lawsuit.

The punitive damages sought by Mr. Newsom mirror the amount that Fox News agreed to pay in 2023 to settle a lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems that accused the network of publicizing false election conspiracies that damaged the company.

“If Fox News wants to lie to the American people on Donald Trump’s behalf, it should face consequences — just like it did in the Dominion case,” Mr. Newsom said in a statement. “I believe the American people should be able to trust the information they receive from a major news outlet.”

Fox News responded by questioning the sincerity of Mr. Newsom’s lawsuit.

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

The allegations at the heart of the lawsuit stem from volleys between Mr. Newsom and Mr. Trump after the president invoked a rarely used federal statute to seize control of the California National Guard over the governor’s objections to respond to protests against federal immigration raids.

The two leaders spoke by phone late at night on June 6 in California, which was after 1 a.m. June 7 on the East Coast, according to Mr. Newsom and a cellphone record provided by Mr. Trump. The president activated the National Guard less than 24 hours after the call.

On June 8, Mr. Newsom spoke about the phone call on MSNBC.

On June 10, during a White House news conference, a reporter asked Mr. Trump when he last spoke with Mr. Newsom.

“A day ago,” the president said. “Called him to tell him, got to do a better job.”

Mr. Newsom posted a video clip of the comment on social media and said, “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.”

The post, according to the governor’s lawsuit, was written to correct Mr. Trump’s claim that they spoke “a day ago.”

In response, Mr. Trump gave Fox News screenshots of his phone log showing the original call with Mr. Newsom that took place late on June 6 Pacific Daylight Time and early on June 7 Eastern Daylight Time.

In covering the sequence of events, Mr. Newsom alleges, Fox News made deceptive video edits and false statements that concealed that Mr. Trump said the leaders had spoken “a day ago.” Instead, he alleges, the network framed Mr. Trump’s call log as proof that Mr. Newsom had been dishonest when it showed that Mr. Trump was incorrect about when the call took place.

“Why would Newsom lie and claim Trump never called him?” Mr. Watters said on his show, according to the lawsuit, which includes an image of a chyron stating, “Gavin Lied About Trump’s Call.”

The lawsuit claims that Fox News deliberately mischaracterized the disagreement between the governor and the president to harm Mr. Newsom’s political career. It says viewers who saw Fox’s false reports that Mr. Newsom had lied would be less likely to support him in future elections or donate to his campaigns.

It also accuses Fox of engaging in unfair business practices, which is similar to claims that Mr. Trump made in his lawsuits against CBS News and The Des Moines Register.

“I think that the parallels here are very intentional,” said Timothy Zick, a professor at William and Mary Law School who specializes in the First Amendment.

Mr. Zick said that the suit appeared to be a “political document” in the ongoing feud between Mr. Newsom and Mr. Trump, adding that he believed “the point of it is not to get compensation for reputational harm, but to sort of flip the playbook here a little bit.”

Hours after filing the lawsuit, Mr. Newsom highlighted it in an email to supporters that sought donations to his political action committee.

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