(CALIFORNIA) — Fox News has moved to dismiss California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s $787 million defamation lawsuit against the network and collect attorney fees, calling the suit a “political stunt” that Newsom filed “to advance his presidential ambitions.”
“The tone and content of Newsom’s complaint and his conduct underscore that the purpose of this lawsuit is to create a press spectacle and harass Fox News, not to remedy any legitimate reputational harm,” the 45-page filing from Fox states.
Newsom’s lawsuit stemmed from the channel’s coverage of a spat that occurred between Newsome and President Donald Trump during the L.A. wildfires. Trump claimed at the time that he had spoken to Newsom “a day ago” to tell Newsome he was doing a “bad job,” but Newsom replied on social media that “there was no call” — prompting Trump to give Fox News a screen shot showing the record of a call that had occurred days earlier.
Fox News host Jesse Watters, that night on his show, accused Newsom of lying, saying, “Why would Newsom lie and claim that Trump never called him?”
Newsom’s attorneys, in a letter to Fox News, said they would proceed with the suit unless Fox News issued a retraction and an on-air apology.
In their court filing, Fox News said that Watters did that on July 17 when he said on the air that Newsome “didn’t deceive anybody on purpose. So I’m sorry, he wasn’t lying. He was just confusing and unclear.”
As a result, Fox News says the case should be dismissed on multiple grounds — including on the merits — writing that what Watters said was “substantially true.”
“At a minimum, Watters’ query about why Newsom would ‘lie’ is an opinion based on disclosed facts that enjoys full First Amendment protection,” the filing states.
Newsom’s $787 million suit seeks the same amount as the 2023 settlement Fox reached with Dominion Voting Systems after the voting machine company accused Fox News of knowingly pushing false conspiracy theories that Dominion rigged the 2020 presidential election in Joe Biden’s favor. In its filing in the Newsome case, Fox News called Newsome’s use of that figure a “headline-grabbing gimmick.”
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