A lesson from this lawsuit filed by lefty streamer Hasan Piker against podcaster and CNN contributor Scott Jennings: Never be sarcastic. Never use hyperbole. It will always come back to bite you.

I happen to like hyperbole and sarcasm, though. So, I'm sympathetic to Piker's plight. Still, I'm not 100 percent certain he will—or should—win this case.

Two years ago, Piker, reacting to a debate in which a black conservative commentator complained about "woke" district attorneys, sarcastically summarized the commentator's argument during a Twitch broadcast:

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?

That doesn't seem like the most charitable way to describe the dude's comments. Perhaps Piker has some problems with overreaction. But in any event, it's clear that Piker himself was not professing a yearning to don a white robe.

But context collapse is the internet's love language. And so we got this.

How does Abdul El-Sayed's campaign surrogate Hasan Piker feel about Black Americans?

Watch for yourself. pic.twitter.com/icGiXek7Ok

— Senate Republicans (@NRSC) August 6, 2026

Weaving together fragments of Piker's above comments and several other out-of-context clips, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) made it appear as if Piker was himself advocating in favor of the lynching of black people.

Later, Scott Jennings aired the clip on his podcast/syndicated radio show, saying that Piker was "out there calling for Black voters to be lynched." A caption on the video said "PIKER: 'LET'S GO BACK TO A BETTER TIME WHEN LYNCHINGS WERE HAPPENING,'" per Piker's complaint.

Piker certainly has justification to be outraged and to push back against this false characterization. But…is it defamation?

Legally speaking, maybe not. To prove defamation against a public figure, you have to show not only that a harm-causing false statement was publicized but that it was done with "actual malice."

In this case, showing that Jennings acted with actual malice could prove a hard task. To have acted with actual malice, he would have to have had "knowledge that [his statement] was false" or to have acted with "reckless disregard of whether it was false or not."

Even if Jennings did deliberately lie from the get-go, good luck proving that. The clip was circulating already when Jennings aired it, shared by not just some random account but the NRSC. It features real footage of Piker, not an AI-generated deepfake. And it features real statements that Piker made, albeit taken out of context. There's plenty of room for plausible deniability.

But whether Jennings was "reckless" in running with the story will be a thornier question. Given the video's source and it actually featuring Piker talking, Jennings might have good grounds to argue that in the beginning he was not. But Snopes did a debunking, and Piker's people emailed Jennings explaining the true context. Still, Jennings left it up.

That complicates things. Even if Jennings didn't understand originally that the clip was misleading, the full clips should have helped him wise up. And if Jennings was pointed to them and didn't watch them, that would seem to at least constitute recklessness—though of course we haven't heard Jennings' side of the story yet.

Whatever happens, the case highlights how tricky defamation law is. People will always argue that it should be easier to win defamation cases, at least when the defamed party is on their side. But the upshot of that is that journalists and news outlets—and perhaps everyone who ever got fooled by and shared a misleading video clip—would be screwed.

The same rationale that could possibly protect Jennings in this case also allows journalists to publish important stories about people in power even if the people in power dispute the facts or the interpretation of them. It also helps ensure that making honest mistakes won't mean their financial downfall.

In this case, Piker is seeking $72.5 million in damages. "You have to remember, this is not just about Scott Jennings, although he certainly messed up," Piker told his audience on Twitch Tuesday. "This is about truth in the media, OK? I think for far too long we have allowed Republicans to get away with saying whatever they want."

But while defamation law that errs in favor of free speech can seem unfair when it lets someone falsely portray someone else as pro-lynching, the underlying structure actually shields press, podcasters, Twitch streamers, and anyone else who wants to write and talk publicly about politicians, celebrities, and other public figures. That's not to say Jennings shouldn't have, at bare minimum, been more careful. Or that Piker won't win—who knows? But if he loses, believers in free press and free speech should think twice before using this as a jumping-off point to call for changes to defamation law.

The post Hasan Piker's Defamation Suit Against Scott Jennings Isn't As Simple as It Seems appeared first on Reason Magazine.

You may have heard that Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed is “having a lot of trouble putting [the Democratic] coalition back together,” or that “Democrats [are] struggling to unite behind El-Sayed,” or that “Democrats are still struggling to unite behind El-Sayed,” or that “El-Sayed faces resistance ⁠from some voters who would ordinarily be inclined to support a Democrat,” or that “Democratic divisions could hurt El-Sayed.” It’s a prominent narrative that is driving political discourse in the closing weeks of the tight Michigan Senate race. 

There’s only one problem with this narrative: It has zero empirical basis. It’s a total confection of US media and the pro-Israel lobby that isn’t supported by any data whatsoever. Two recent polls, one from Marist and one from RedBox Research, make it clear that El-Sayed’s support among Democratic voters in Michigan is both extremely high (95%) and the exact same percentage as Republican candidate Mike Rogers’ support with Republicans. And a new poll from Mitchell Research CBS complicates the narrative even further, finding that support for El-Sayed among Democrats is, in fact, 3 points higher than Rogers is among Republicans, at 94% versus 91%, respectively. 

If El-Sayed and Rogers have the exact same percent of party dissent—or, as is the case in the CBS Detroit poll, Rogers has more—then why are there countless stories highlighting, handwringing, and scandalizing the trivially small dissent for only one of the candidates? Where are the breathless profiles of Republicans refusing to vote for Rogers? Where are the NPR and CNN segments focusing on “Republican divisions”? 

There, of course, aren’t any, because this narrative wouldn’t advance an ideological agenda. 

The “Michigan Democrats are divided” narrative has been pushed by local and national media alike, from Bridge Michigan to Reuters to Michigan Advocate to the New York Times, who reported Thursday (again, falsely), “Democrats in Michigan… remain far more divided than party leaders had hoped to be going into the election.” The Bulwark’s Sarah Longwell said on Wednesday that El-Sayed is “having a lot of trouble putting [the Democratic] coalition back together again” after his defeat of Hayley Stevens in the Democratic primary in August. The AP insisted that “Democrats are still struggling to unite behind El-Sayed” which, again, is outright false: El-Sayed has the support of 95%of Democrats. 

An April IMEU poll found that Michigan Democrats think Israel is committing genocide in Gaza 66%to 14%, at a ratio of almost 5-to-1.  Does this seem like an issue Michigan democrats are “divided” over?

For another point of reference, El-Sayed’s support among Democrats of 95% is higher than other high-profile centrist Democrats, including Roy Cooper of North Carolina (94%), Sherrod Brown of Ohio (93%), Kathy Hochul of New York (85%), and even with Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania. El-Sayed is even doing better with top Democrats in his own state, with Michigan gubernatorial candidate Jocelyn Benson winning only 91.8% of Democrats versus El-Sayed’s 93.1%, according to a Michigan State Department of Political Science survey published on Thursday. Yet one is hard pressed to find any “divided Democrats” stories about any of these candidates. 

The theme of “Democratic divisions” in Michigan, like the attendant assertion that Israel is “dividing Demcorats” more broadly, is a wholly concocted media narrative, pushed by the pro-Israel lobby and its media allies to create tensions and the appearance of a meaningful split where none exists. As I noted in the Intercept in June, the percentage of Democrats who have a positive view of Israel, 13%, is lower than the percent of Democrats who believe in young earth creationism or those who back a full abortion ban or Christian prayer in public schools. Yet these traditionally right-wing views are never said to be “dividing Democrats” because, by and large, they clearly are not. 

Just the same, Israel doesn’t really “divide” Michigan Democrats either. An April IMEU poll found that Michigan Democrats think Israel is committing genocide in Gaza 66%to 14%, at a ratio of almost 5-to-1. Does this seem like an issue Michigan democrats are “divided” over? If it is, there are dozens of other traditionally 5-to-1 issues—from marriage equality to climate change to prayer in school—that they are also technically “divided” over, but they are never discussed in these terms because they are fringe opinions among liberals. 

The myth of widespread liberal zionism among Democrats is too big to fail, so it continues in zombie form, propped up by an elite liberal class that simply needs it to exist.

That’s because it’s a playbook––a PR tactic––not an actual reflection of political reality. In this playbook, our media obsesses over a trivially small percent of anti-El-Sayed Democrats in Michigan while never mentioning Republicans disillusioned with Rogers despite their polls being statistically equal. As Michael Arria at Mondowiess notes in his analysis of this manufactured “division,” polls consistently “upend the narrative that Democratic voters are split on El-Sayed.” So why does it persist? 

It persists because the myth of widespread liberal zionism among Democrats is too big to fail, so it continues in zombie form, propped up by an elite liberal class that simply needs it to exist so they can appear humanitarian, worldly, and sophisticated while continuing to back—albeit with the occasional wristslap—a genocidal state currently experiencing political paralysis because their nominal liberal wing is simply too racist to give Arab parties any power whatsoever. 

The rebellion against El-Sayed in Michigan, such as it exists in reality, is largely driven by ideologically motivated donors and party elites, namely those whose primary issue is bipartisan support for Israel. But it’s tacky to point this out, to note that this opposition is largely coming from a small number of actual voters and is being amplified way beyond its objective news value because influential zionist advocacy groups are pushing it to media organizations and their internal allies. This is awkward and uncomfortable to discuss, so, like with the nonexistent “Democratic divisions over Israel,” it has to be reframed as some organic dissent among “voters” or “Democrats” when, in reality, the number of El-Sayed holdouts is statistically trivial. This isn’t to say media cannot focus on issues that matter to a small number of voters. What gives the game away is that this is literally not being done for Rogers, or other high-profile centrist Democrats, despite party dissent for these candidates being greater or roughly the same. 

So where are the articles profiling angry Republicans refusing to vote for Rogers? Where are the countless CNN and PBS segments detailing their grievances and pundits demanding Rogers “reach out” to them? Where are the glib, unsourced throwaway lines in the New York Times about how “Republicans in Michigan remain far more divided than party leaders had hoped to be going into the election”—since, again, this is statistically just as true for the GOP as it is for El-Sayed? There aren’t any, because this angle doesn’t discipline Israel critics and drive up the negatives on a candidate most media elites clearly want to see underperform or, if at all possible, outright lose. 

h/t Brian Tashman for exquisite poll watching.