Last month California Gov. Gavin Newsom sued Fox News, alleging host Jesse Watters defamed him by calling the Democrat a liar about the timing of a phone call with President Trump about last month’s L.A. protests over ICE raids and Trump’s deployment of troops to quell the disturbance.

Newsom is seeking $787 million in damages in the Fox News lawsuit, which intentionally is nearly identical to the $787.5 million the network agreed to pay in April 2023 to settle a defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems.

On Watters’ show Thursday evening, the Fox News host attempted to clear the air. Watters acknowledged that Newsom “wasn’t lying” and “didn’t deceive anybody on purpose, so I’m sorry.” But Watters also said the governor “was just confusing and unclear.”

“We thought the dispute was about whether there had been a call at all — not when. We thought that the governor was clear when he said, without qualification, that there was no call,” Watters told viewers on Thursday.

“Now Newsom’s telling us what was in his head when he wrote the tweet. 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 just say what you mean?” Watters also said Newsom declined an invitation to be interviewed as a guest on the show.

Newsom filed suit against Fox News on June 27 in the Superior Court of Delaware. The governor’s lawyers sent Fox News a letter demanding a formal retraction and an on-air apology from Watters and said that if the network complies, the governor would drop the suit.

Evidently, Watters’ comments on the July 17 program did not satisfy that threshold for Newsom. Asked for comment, a spokesman for Newsom sent Variety the following statement from the governor: “Discovery will be fun. See you in court, buddy.”

A rep for Fox News did not respond to a request for comment Friday. When Newsom filed the suit, the network had said in a statement: “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.”

According to Newsom’s lawsuit, the governor last spoke with Trump on June 7 at about 1:23 a.m. ET for approximately 16 minutes by phone, two days before the president (over Newsom’s objections) deployed 2,000 California National Guard troops to Los Angeles.

That, according to the lawsuit, was the last time the two of them spoke.

On June 10, Trump told reporters he had spoken with Newsom “a day ago,” implying the two had spoken on June 9, with the president claiming he “called [Newsom] to tell him, got to do a better job, he’s doing a bad job. Causing a lot of death and a lot of potential death.” Newsom called out Trump’s claim as false in a post on X shortly afterward, writing, “There was no call. Not even a voicemail.”

Watters, on his June 10 primetime show on Fox News, played an edited clip of Trump’s claim about his call with the governor that omitted Trump stating that the president spoke to Newsom “a day ago.”

Watters then asked, “Why would Newsom lie and claim Trump never called him?” The show also featured an on-screen graphic that said “Gavin Lied About Trump’s Call,” according to the lawsuit.

Newsom, at a July 2 press conference, said, “I sued Fox News for defaming me, for knowingly lying, for editing and assaulting truth and trust… So I don’t have a problem holding people to a higher level of ethics and accountability in journalist standards.”

However, at the same event, Newsom characterized Trump’s $16 million lawsuit settlement with Paramount Global — over alleged deceptive editing of a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris — as different.

The governor said the settlement appeared “transactional” given the pending Skydance Media deal. The governor urged media companies facing similar threats to “Do the right thing. You know what the right thing is.”

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