Hasan Piker Threatens Scott Jennings with Defamation Lawsuit Over ‘Lynchings’ Claim

(Katie Godowski / MediaPunch 2025)(Screengrab via CNN)

Conservative commentator Scott Jennings is reportedly facing the threat of a defamation lawsuit from leftist Twitch star Hasan Piker after accusing the streamer of “calling for Black voters to be lynched” and sharing a heavily edited clip.

Piker told Status that legal proceedings seemed “unavoidable” after Jennings, a CNN contributor who has also been floated as a possible successor to former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, aired an edited compilation of clips during his nationally syndicated radio show last Tuesday.

Tying Piker to Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed, whom he campaigned with, Jennings said: “Now El-Sayed’s best friend is out there calling for Black voters to be lynched.”

“Beneath all the smiles and dancing videos, there’s nothing but hate and violence in the heart of these communists,” he added.

Jennings also later promoted the segment on social media.

But fact-checking site Snopes subsequently wrote that footage circulated by Jennings “presents Piker’s spoken words without full context, and in some cases out of order.”

“A full review of Piker’s unedited remarks confirms Jennings falsely claimed Piker said he was in favor of bringing back lynchings. In the original stream, Piker’s remarks on lynchings were sarcastic reactions to a user’s chat comment and opinions expressed by someone else in a separate video,” Snopes added.

“This kind of defamation is completely unacceptable,” Piker argued to Status, revealing that he and his lawyers were preparing a lawsuit.

“It’s exactly how normal people perceive mainstream media to operate, and it’s a real crisis of credibility,” he said. “I think someone has to push back against it at some point.”

Piker acknowledged that his hours-long livestreams have produced controversial remarks, but argued that clips circulating online are often stripped of crucial context.

“Even like the 10 seconds prior they don’t watch. Or 10 seconds after, from these heavily edited [clips],” he told Status. “I think a lot of people don’t understand the medium, which I don’t even fault them for.”

“I do think there are people who understand the medium and are cynically weaponizing it. I don’t think Scott Jennings knows what Twitch is,” he added. “I don’t think he understands the format that I occupy.”

Piker also told Status that he was weighing legal action against Fox News host Harris Faulkner, who reported on Jennings’ edited clips and said that he had received “death threats” as a result of the claims made about him.

“I am getting inundated with death threats, so much more than ever before,” he said, but added: “It’s nothing I haven’t grown accustomed to.”

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