Piker Seeks $72.5 Million in Defamation Suit Against Jennings
The streamer claims the CNN commentator edited a sarcastic remark about lynchings to present it as a sincere personal belief.
By Sarah Ross ·
Hasan Piker filed a lawsuit on Tuesday in the US district court for the District of Columbia, seeking $72.5 million in damages from Scott Jennings. The complaint alleges that the conservative commentator misrepresented Piker's words to portray him as a violent racist who supported the lynching of Black people.
Piker is a California-based socialist commentator who streams on Twitch. Jennings, a political commentator for CNN, hosts an independent podcast. The lawsuit states that Jennings deliberately twisted Piker's remarks during a podcast episode and a subsequent social media post in August 2024. The filing argues that these actions made Piker's words appear as sincere views rather than ridicule.
The legal dispute centers on a 42-second video that the complaint describes as cropped, shortened, and rearranged. This clip originated from a Twitch broadcast where Piker was mocking a commentator who argued that woke district attorneys harmed Black Americans. Piker summarized that guest's stance by saying, 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.
Jennings played a manipulated version of this clip on his show on August 11. The lawsuit claims the edit removed the phrase he said and other cues indicating sarcasm. Jennings added a caption presented as a direct quote from Piker: Let's go back to a better time when lynchings were happening. The complaint asserts that Piker never used those exact words and that the original broadcast does not contain them.
The filing notes that Jennings was reportedly in the running to become Donald Trump's White House press secretary at the time. It suggests this status gave Jennings an additional reason to attack a prominent left-wing figure who had previously been criticized by the president. Jennings shared the video on X on August 11, linking Piker's alleged comments to his support for Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic candidate for a US Senate seat in Michigan.
Piker is requesting a jury trial and is seeking $27.5 million in compensatory damages and $45 million in punitive damages. Jennings has not issued a public statement regarding the lawsuit. The Guardian contacted Jennings for comment on the filing.
The case is now pending in the federal court in Washington, D.C.
Source: The Guardian
