Fox News host Jesse Watters reluctantly apologized to California Governor Gavin Newsom amid their escalating legal battle during Thursday’s episode of his show.
The host walked back accusations that the governor lied about a phone call with President Donald Trump during the anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles.
“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?” the MAGA-favorite said.
Last month, the governor filed a $787 million defamation lawsuit against Watters and Fox News, accusing Primetime of misleadingly editing a video of Trump to support the claim.
Newsom’s attorneys said Watters aired a deceptively edited clip of Trump suggesting he spoke with the governor just before the president mobilized the U.S. Marines on June 9, when, in fact, records show the call occurred days earlier.
Newsom’s lawyers argued in the complaint that by making the call appear more recent, Trump could falsely imply he and the governor discussed the troop deployment to LA.
The governor, however, had already said publicly that he spoke to Trump after midnight on June 7, and the military was not discussed.
Trump sent Fox News anchor John Roberts a screenshot showing the June 7 date of the phone call, but the image used on the show omitted the timestamp.
“Gavin lied about Trump’s call,” the Fox News banner blared.
Newsom said they did not speak after June 7 and refuted the claim in a post on X.
“There was no call,” Newsom tweeted on June 10. “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.”
After filing the lawsuit on June 28 in a Delaware court, Newsom’s lawyers said they would drop the case if the governor received a retraction and a formal on-air apology.
During his grudging apology Thursday, Watters told viewers he believed Newsom’s X post asserted that the two had not spoken at all.
“We thought the dispute was about whether there was a phone call at all when he said without qualification that there was no call,” he said. “Now Newsom’s telling us what was in his head when he wrote the tweet.”
After Watters’s concession, Newsom showed little sign of remorse or backing down.
“Discovery will be fun,” he said in a statement to the Los Angeles Times. “See you in court, buddy.”
