President Donald Trump attempted to use Fox News for a dramatic gotcha moment in his escalating battle with California Governor Gavin Newsom—only to discover that the screenshot from his phone proved that he was in the wrong.
Trump and Newsom made contrasting claims about whether they spoke over the phone on Monday amid their ongoing war of words over the protests against immigration raids in Los Angeles.
On Tuesday afternoon, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that the last time he spoke to Newsom was “a day ago.”
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“Called him up to tell him, ‘Gotta do a better job.’ He’s doing a bad job,” he said. “If we didn’t send out the National Guard… Los Angeles would be burning right now.”
But Newsom quickly countered Trump in a post on X: “There was no call. 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.”
Trump responded by sending a screenshot of his call log with Newsom to Fox News anchor John Roberts, who flashed the receipts on America Reports.
The call log showed that he did indeed call Newsom twice but it was on June 7, not Monday.
“First call was not picked up. Second call, Gavin picked up, we spoke for 16 minutes,” Trump told Roberts. “I told him to, essentially, ‘Get his ass in gear’ and stop the riots, which were out of control. More than anything else, this shows what a liar he is—Said I never called. Here is the evidence.”
But even Roberts acknowledged that the calls were not made “a day ago,” as Trump claimed.
“This was June the 7th. Now, granted, this was on Saturday,” the Fox anchor said. “So Governor—over to you… It’s all about the receipts.”
Newsom hit back in a brief response on X: “If only he had shown the right ones... Trump doesn’t even know what day it is.”
It’s not the first spat Trump and Newsom have had over a phone call.
Over the weekend, Newsom called the president a “liar” for not bringing up his intention to deploy the National Guard during their June 7 phone call.
“We talked for almost 20 minutes and this issue never came up,” he told MSNBC. “He never once brought up the National Guard. He’s a stone-cold liar.”
Trump has so far mobilized 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 active-duty Marines to Los Angeles to quell protests sparked by Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in the city last week.
Tensions between law enforcement and protesters dragged on to their fifth day on Tuesday as Trump issued a warning to anyone who plans to follow in the footsteps of Los Angeles demonstrators.
“I can inform the rest of the country that when they do it, if they do it, they’re going to be met with equal or greater force than we met right here,” he said.
