MAGA pundit Scott Jennings sparked fury on Wednesday from a talk show segment in which he falsely claimed that left-wing Twitch streamer Hasan Piker advocated for Black lynchings.
Jennings brought it up to discredit the Democratic nominee for Senate in Michigan, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, who campaigned with Piker during the primary.
"We continue today our exploration of the radical socialist streamer Hasan Piker," said Jennings, describing him as El-Sayed's "best friend." "And African-Americans out there within the sound of my voice need to listen up. And you must listen carefully. This is who socialists like Abdul El-Sayed choose to keep for company. Just listen to this."
He played a lengthy supercut of clips in which Piker raged against political critics or sparred with his Twitch chat, in which he sarcastically said things like, "It's because I'm racist, dude," or "back to a better time when lynchings were happening."
In context, Piker was criticizing people who reflexively call the past a better time, because things like lynchings were more commonplace in the past — but Jennings deceptively edited the clips to make it seem as if Piker was seriously calling for a return to lynchings.
"If you look at the Democratic primaries, Black voters have been voting against the socialists, only to be overruled in many cases by young, privileged white commies," said Jennings. "Might these Black voters find a home in the Republican Party this fall? Well, if Democratic campaigns are adopting the Piker plan of returning our country to lynchings, that just might happen."
Piker did not take this lying down, and hit back on X shortly — subtly hinting he could take legal action.
"I've never seen a more clear-cut instance of defamation than this in my entire life. Blatant disregard for the truth," he wrote.
Piker has become a fixation of Republicans in recent months, due to a number of controversial statements he has made, including a 2019 clip in which he facetiously said "America deserved 9/11, dude" in response to a clip of Republicans denying U.S. foreign policy played any role in radicalizing terrorists. He later apologized for this remark, saying he didn't mean it literally.