Twitch streamer Hasan Piker has mounted a defamation lawsuit against GOP flak and CNN contributor Scott Jennings over a “manipulated video” that was allegedly edited to make the leftist sound like he was calling for the lynching of Black Americans. The complaint was filed this week in federal court and seeks over $72 million in damages.
“Mr. Jennings did not merely mischaracterize something Mr. Piker said,” the complaint reads. “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 42-second clip in question from Jennings’s show in August 2026 was partially drawn from things Piker said during a 2024 Twitch broadcast in which the streamer was commenting on a debate between two Black pundits, one liberal and the other conservative. The original excerpt was:
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?
Piker’s lawsuit accuses Jennings of intentionally cutting out the parts that made it clear the streamer was quoting someone else’s sentiment and sarcastically ridiculing it to portray him as deeply racist. Mr. Jennings then went even further.
Abdul El-Sayed’s best pal and campaign partner says the USA should resume lynchings against black people.
Listen for yourself and understand what the socialists have in store for the black community pic.twitter.com/N3ntbIHefw
— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) August 12, 2026
“After warning Black listeners to pay particular attention, Mr. Jennings accused Mr. Piker of ‘calling for Black voters to be lynched’ and referred to ‘the Piker plan of returning our country to lynchings,'” the lawsuit reads. “Later that day, Mr. Jennings published the same false accusation on social media, telling his followers that Mr. Piker believed the United States ‘should resume lynchings against black people.'”
Piker’s lawyers say that Jennings refused to take the clip down from his online show or X account when requests were made back in August.
Jennings’s video was shown in the context of the Michigan senate race in which Republican surrogates used Piker’s visible proximity to and support for Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed to attack the latter’s campaign. He has yet to publicly address the lawsuit.
A longtime right-wing political operative, Jennings worked on multiple high-profile campaigns, including those for George W. Bush and Mitch McConnell. He has since segued into cable TV political commentary, and has acted as a surrogate for the Trump administration in his role as a current CNN contributor.
The clip he’s now being sued over was posted on his online talk show The Scott Jennings Show on YouTube. The channel has 16,500 subscribers.
