Livestreamer Hasan Piker sued political pundit Scott Jennings for defamation, TheWrap has learned.
The lawsuit concerns an Aug. 11 recording in which Jennings “falsely told a nationwide podcast audience that Hasan Piker was ‘out there calling for Black voters to be lynched’” and manipulated footage from one of Piker’s livestreams, according to the complaint.
Piker is seeking at least $27.5 million in compensatory damages and $45 million in punitive damages, according to Bloomberg Law.
“Mr. Jennings did not merely mischaracterize something Mr. Piker said. He took a false, fabricated, and manipulated video of Mr. Piker, added a made-up quotation that Mr. Piker never uttered, and then made accusations that went beyond even what the manipulated footage purported to show,” the lawsuit reads. “Mr. Jennings presented those accusations as fact, telling his viewers to ‘[l]isten for yourself’ about Mr. Piker, knowing that he was playing a falsified video of Mr. Piker for those viewers, and completely disregarding the truth of Mr. Piker’s actual words.”
The Jennings podcast in question sees the CNN pundit call Piker “Abdul El-Sayed’s best friend” before urging, “African-Americans out there within the sound of my voice need to listen up, and you must listen carefully. This is who socialists like Abdul El-Sayed choose to keep for company.” Jennings then runs a clip of a 2024 livestream from Piker, which initially featured the streamer making fun of a conservative Black commentator. However, Jennings’ video omits key words and moments and the lawsuit alleges that Jennings misrepresented Piker’s comments, such as “I want to go back to lynching,” as his own opinion.
“When the conservative commentator blamed ‘woke DAs’ for policies supposedly harming Black Americans, Mr. Piker mocked him by sarcastically portraying that comment as nostalgia for an era before the civil rights movement,” the lawsuit reads. “Laughing, Mr. Piker said: ‘He said, ‘We need more Klansmen, okay? Can we go back to a better time when lynchings were happening? This is what I like as a Black man. Also, there’s no real racism in America.’ My man said, ‘woke DAs,’ dude. What are you saying?’”
After playing the clip, Jennings questions if Black voters will turn to Republicans for the November election if Democrats continue aligning with Piker. Soon after this, he made the comment about Piker “calling for Black voters to be lynched.”
“If Democratic campaigns are adopting the Piker plan of returning our country to lynchings, that just might happen,” Jennings said. You can watch Jennings’ podcast clip below.
