Left-wing political commentator Hasan Piker took aim at Ted Cruz on Wednesday after the Republican senator shared allegations similar to the ones that led to conservative commentator Scott Jennings getting sued by the streamer for $72.5 million. Cruz had posted that Piker was “calling for Black people to be lynched,” sharing a clip and a link to footage that Piker alleges was edited to strip his remarks of their original context. It appears to be the same or very similar footage to the video of Piker that featured on the August 11 episode of The Scott Jennings Show.
Newsweek has reached out to Jennings, Cruz and Piker for comment. The filing comes as prominent political figures on both sides of the aisle increasingly turn to the courts to challenge statements they say have damaged their reputations. Piker's complaint, filed in a federal court in Washington, D.C., Tuesday, alleges that Jennings combined footage from three different livestreams, rearranged Piker's comments, and removed the YouTube debate that the streamer had been responding to, in order to remove the context of his remarks and falsely suggest he was advocating racial violence.
Jennings falsely told listeners that the streamer had a “plan of returning our country to lynchings,” while airing the edited video of Piker, according to the filing. Piker argued in his lawsuit that he had been reacting sarcastically to a Black conservative commentator in the debate who blamed “woke DAs” for policies harming Black Americans. The left-wing commentator is seeking $27.5 million in compensatory damages and $45 million in punitive damages from Jennings.
Trump's legal strategy extended beyond news organizations to political adversaries. In 2022, Trump sued Hillary Clinton and others over what he alleged was a conspiracy to undermine his presidential campaign. A federal judge dismissed the case and later ordered Trump and his attorney to pay nearly $1 million in sanctions.
Meanwhile, California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, has brought a separate multimillion-dollar defamation suit against Fox News. Cruz and Piker have clashed publicly in recent weeks. In September, Piker accused the Texas senator and other Republican officials of trying to prevent him from speaking at the University of Texas at Austin, framing their opposition to the event as a threat to his First Amendment rights.
Cruz had called Piker an “America-hating Marxist” and accused him of celebrating political violence against Republicans. Cruz continued his criticism of Piker at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas on September 10, invoking the streamer's past comments about the September 11 attacks while attacking Democrats associated with him. He later questioned why Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed had not disavowed Piker.
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