The California governor argued that he was defamed by the network’s coverage of a June 6 conversation with the president.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) is suing Fox News for defamation. (Sandy Huffaker/For The Washington Post)

Describing himself as “an articulate voice fighting the radical Fox News agenda,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom — in his individual capacity — sued the network for defamation Friday, arguing that its coverage of a call he had with President Donald Trump earlier this month was designed to damage his reputation.

Filed in Delaware Superior Court, the lawsuit reads as a broader indictment of the network’s role in the conservative media ecosystem. It asks for punitive damages of $787 million, just shy of the $787.5 million the network paid in April 2023 to settle a defamation lawsuit filed by voting technology company Dominion Voting Systems.

“Unfortunately, the past two years have shown that the Dominion settlement did not serve as the deterrent many had predicted, as Fox has continued to launder the stream of false information flowing out of the White House,” Newsom’s suit says. “Now, Governor Gavin Newsom has become the latest target of Fox’s continuing efforts to lie and distort on behalf of the President.”

The case stems from the way that Fox characterized the timing of a 16-minute-long call that Newsom had with Trump late on the night of June 6, Pacific time (it was after midnight in Washington). During a news conference on June 10, Trump said he spoke with Newsom — about the burgeoning protests in Los Angeles — “a day ago.” In a post on social media, Newsom denied that they had spoken on that timeline and said on MSNBC that the call wasn’t about the protests.

John Roberts, an anchor for Fox News, published a photo of Trump’s call log with Newsom, which was seen as an attempt to buttress the president’s case, even though it did not conflict with Newsom’s assertion that he had not spoken with Trump at the time Trump claimed.

Later that night, on his prime-time show, Fox News host Jesse Watters played a clip of Trump’s comments at the news conference and asked, “Why would Newsom lie and claim Trump never called him? Why would he do that?” During the segment, an on-screen graphic told viewers that “Gavin Lied About Trump’s Call.”

Newsom claims in the lawsuit that Watters and Fox knew that Trump had not told the truth but “distorted the facts” in an effort to protect the president and tarnish the governor’s future electoral prospects.

“Governor Newsom is a stalwart defender of freedom of speech and the right to express honestly held views and opinions without restraint, yet freedom of speech does not grant the right to knowingly fabricate false statements and intentionally poison our democratic processes,” Newsom’s suit says.

In an accompanying demand letter, Newsom’s lawyers wrote that he will drop the lawsuit if Watters apologizes to him on air.

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

Because Newsom is a public figure, to win the case, he would have to prove that someone at Fox who had oversight over Watters’s show was aware that he had not “lied” and chose to air the suggestion anyway, a high bar to reach.

In the lawsuit, Newsom alleges a violation of a California law prohibiting false advertising and fraudulent business practices. That strategy mirrors one taken by Trump himself, who last fall charged CBS with violating a similar law in Texas when it edited a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris.