Gavin Newsom Sues Fox News Over Jesse Watters Calling Newsom a Liar

9:16 AM PT -- A Fox News Spokesperson tells TMZ ... "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.”

Gavin Newsom has gone scorched earth on Fox News, claiming host Jesse Watters intentionally lied to make the California Governor look like a liar in his battle with Donald Trump over activating the military in Los Angeles to quell immigration protests.

Follow us here ... we know Newsom spoke with Trump just after midnight on June 7th EDT, when the Governor told Trump he did not want to activate the military. Trump did it anyway the next day.

Three days later -- June 10th -- Trump told reporters he had spoken with Newsom "a day ago" (June 9th) ... this in connection with activating the Marines. Newsom posted on X that Trump was lying ... that he never spoke with the President on June 9.

Trump then gave Fox News screenshots of his call log showing there was a call June 7th. Obviously, that doesn't support Trump's claim he spoke with Newsom on the 9th.

But in Newsom's defamation lawsuit, he says Fox News made deceptive video edits to make it appear Trump was correct, which he was not. The edit in question is this -- speaking in the Oval Office, Trump said he'd spoken with Newsom "a day ago" which was June 9th ... but Trump's soundbite, as it ran on Fox News, did not mention "a day ago."

Watters ran that clip on his show and said, "Why would Newsom lie and claim Trump never called him?" The chyron at the bottom of the screen read, "Gavin lied about Trump's call."

What's really interesting ... Fox News showed the call log on the screen, which plainly showed June 7th, but Watters never addressed the discrepancy.