Hasan Piker, a progressive political streamer, has filed a $72.5 million defamation lawsuit against conservative commentator Scott Jennings, alleging that Jennings used edited footage and a fabricated quotation to falsely portray him as supporting the lynching of Black Americans.
A 38-page complaint was filed on Oct. 27 in federal court in Washington, D.C., which focuses on an Aug. 11 episode of “The Scott Jennings Show,” during which Jennings aired footage from Piker’s 2024 livestreams and accused him of advocating racial violence, according to Bloomberg Law.
“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.”
During the broadcast, Jennings described Piker as a “radical socialist streamer” and said he had been “calling for Black voters to be lynched.”
Jennings also connected Piker to Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan’s Democratic Senate nominee, describing him as El-Sayed’s “best friend,” according to the complaint.
READ: Twitch streamer Hasan Piker asks Democratic leaders to defend him from Republicans (August 14, 2026)
Jennings shared the disputed video on X with the message: “Listen for yourself and understand what the socialists have in store for the black community.”
Piker’s attorneys argue that the video removed the context necessary to understand his remarks. The complaint also alleges that the footage combined material from three separate Twitch livestreams and rearranged the sequence of his statements.
The lawsuit says Piker was reacting to a YouTube debate held Oct. 29, 2024, between two Black political commentators, one liberal and one conservative.
After the conservative commentator criticized policies associated with so-called woke district attorneys, Piker sarcastically repeated what he understood the argument to imply.
“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,’” Piker said, according to the complaint.
The lawsuit alleges that the edited footage removed the surrounding discussion and displayed the caption: “PIKER: ‘LET’S GO BACK TO A BETTER TIME WHEN LYNCHINGS WERE HAPPENING.’” Piker’s attorneys say the caption incorrectly presented the words as his own position rather than a sarcastic response to another commentator.
READ: FBI Chief Kash Patel sues The Atlantic for defamation (April 20, 2026)
“Mr. Piker was mocking the conservative commentator’s statement,” the complaint states. “Mr. Piker obviously was not expressing support for the Ku Klux Klan, lynching, or racial discrimination.”
Daniel Watkins, an attorney for Piker, also criticized the broadcast in comments to NBC News.
“There is something especially disgraceful about exploiting this country’s history of racial terror to destroy another man’s reputation,” Watkins said. “Scott Jennings has every right to disagree with Hasan Piker. He has no right to invent what Hasan said.”
Piker is seeking $27.5 million in compensatory damages and $45 million in punitive damages, while his legal team says they sent Jennings’ attorneys a written demand for a retraction in August but received no substantive response, according to the complaint.
The filing also alleged that Jennings had professional and political incentives to discredit Piker, citing reports that Jennings was being considered for the position of White House press secretary.