Did Fox News report that California's Gavin Newsom is the first governor to call for a bill to remove Donald Trump from the ballot in his state? No, that's not true: "The Governor did not say this," Newsom's spokesperson told Lead Stories. And there is no evidence Fox News reported that the Democratic governor was the first to say there should be legislation to remove former President Trump from the ballot in his state.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X, formerly known as Twitter, on August 19, 2023. It opened:
BREAKING NEWS: FOX News reports Ca. Gov. Gavin Newsom is the first Governor to say Donald Trump is not eligible for future presidential elections & has asked the California's State Assembly to pass a bill that will remove Trumps name on any future ballots.
This is what the post looked like on Twitter at the time of writing:
(Source: Twitter screenshot taken on Wed Aug 23 17:24:21 2023 UTC)
The governor's office denied the claim to Lead Stories.
"The Governor did not say this, and it seems that this is just another case of disinformation spreading on Twitter," Brandon Richards, deputy communications director for Newsom, told Lead Stories via email on August 23, 2023.
Had this been a legitimate news story, it would have had national attention, with all the major news outlets reporting the information. However, a Google search using the key words "FOX News Ca. Gov. Gavin Newsom is the first Governor to say Donald Trump is not eligible for future presidential elections" yields zero results.
A search on Foxnews.com with the key words "Gavin Newsom first governor donald trump removed ballots," also yielded zero results on that topic.
