Hasan Piker Prepares to Sue CNN’s Scott Jennings Over Phony Video

Left-wing Twitch streamer Hasan Piker appears to be gearing up to sue conservative commentator Scott Jennings for defamation. 

Jennings, a CNN contributor, went viral last week after posting a heavily edited, intentionally misleading video of what looked like Piker expressing extreme hostility towards Black voters and calling for lynchings. With the full context, it is obvious that Piker was being sarcastic. 

“Black voters have been voting against the socialists, only to be ruled in many cases by privileged white commies,” Jennings claimed, using Black identity as a bludgeon against the Democratic left. “Did you ever notice, by the way, how violent these people are? … Now [Abdul] 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.”

As Snopes reported, Jennings lied when he claimed that Piker wanted to bringing back lynchings, as “Piker’s remarks on lynchings were sarcastic reactions to a user’s chat comment and opinions expressed by someone else in a separate video.”

Jennings’s video was widely panned, with many calling for Piker to sue. The streamer called Jennings’s video “the worst instance of defamation” he’d seen. On Sunday, Piker confirmed that his team is preparing a defamation lawsuit, saying it seemed “unavoidable,” and that it might include Fox News.

“This kind of defamation is completely unacceptable,” Piker told Status. “It’s exactly how normal people perceive mainstream media to operate, and it’s a real crisis of credibility. I think someone has to push back against it at some point.”

“In Trump 2.0, we now traffic in lies all the time. Just because the Republicans are trafficking in lies with regular frequency doesn’t mean that you can’t uphold some kind of editorial standard,” he continued. “CNN can put whoever they want to on a panel at the end of the day, but it just signals to me, and I think a lot of other people, that some of their panelists are just going to be liars.”

Piker has been a boogeyman for right-wingers like Jennings and centrist liberals for some time, as they choose to focus their slander on him rather than constructing any kind of tangible, positive political message. And Jennings is perhaps the last person anyone should be listening to in regards to Black politics in America.  

Surprise! President Donald Trump is the real National Mall vandal.

The president took to Truth Social Sunday to blame vandals for a large area of dead grass on the National Mall—that happened to be on the same spot where he built a massive stage for his Fourth of July celebrations.

“Look what VANDALS did to the grass connecting the vandalized World War II Monument and the vandalized Reflecting Pool, which will be opened again, and better than ever, shortly,” Trump wrote. “Anybody who thinks the Reflecting Pool wasn’t vandalized should go back to Law School!”

Last week, Trump sounded the alarm again after the World War II Memorial was covered in red and green graffiti and soapy bubbles. U.S. Attorney Jeannine Pirro said felony charges are being brought against Melissa L. Farris, but the charging documents made no mention of the patch of dead grass on the lawn.

Regardless of Trump’s apparent outrage, the president has demonstrated that he couldn’t care less about protecting national landmarks—he’s the one destroying them.

The president who cried vandalism has been behind a lot of the destruction at the National Mall. The Department of Justice concluded that Trump and his hand-picked contractors were responsible for the damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool that left the monument drained and surrounded by chain-link fences. Trump’s federal contractors were also also responsible for cracking the fountain at the German-American Friendship Garden. Not to mention that across the country Trump is actively bulldozing Big Bend National Park in order to build his border wall.

On the day the ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran is scheduled to expire, President Trump threatened to bomb a different country.

Fox News’s Trey Yingst reported on the network Monday that Trump claimed there is a backchannel with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard officials, but that he is in “no hurry” and, “if Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the shit out of them.”

It’s not a reassuring statement, especially considering that Iranian Army chief Amir Hatami on Sunday announced bounties for the death or capture of U.S. troops. The sums start at $30,000 and double if a woman completes the mission. Hatami said the plan came after a “large number of requests” to support the war.

“Anyone who kills or captures and hands over invading American military personnel will receive a reward equivalent to $30,000,” Hatami said. “Courageous Iranian women who carry out such an action will receive double the reward.”

Any weapon captured in such an operation would be bought by the Iranian Army for twice its market value and displayed in a museum, according to Iranian state media.

Trump has alternatively threatened to escalate the bombing campaign against Iran while claiming that a peace deal is imminent. Usually, at the last minute, Trump claims he has pulled back from bombing for one reason or another, such as U.S. allies in the region warning against escalation or U.S. military leaders warning of declining missile stockpiles.

On Friday, Trump said that he planned to declare the Strait of Hormuz as U.S. territory, even as Iran continues to throttle maritime traffic through the critical waterway. The area is split between Omani and Iranian territory, and oil and gas from Persian Gulf countries are exported to the world from there. As this war stretches on without Trump sticking to a deal, the global economy continues to suffer, with civilians in Iran and around the Middle East praying that they don’t fall victim to a bomb or airstrike.

President Trump’s last desperate attempt to avoid paying E. Jean Carroll has just been shut down by the Supreme Court.

Trump sought to overturn a 2023 jury verdict awarding $5 million to Carroll for defamation and alleged sexual abuse. The Supreme Court rejected an earlier appeal from Trump in June, and Trump wanted them to take the rare step of rehearing the case, which the court unceremoniously denied Monday.

Carroll accused Trump of sexually assaulting her in a New York City department store in 1996, which Trump denied, attacking her on social media and accusing her of “a complete con job” and a “Hoax and a lie.” She sued him in 2022, and a jury ruled against him, leading to a series of appeals by Trump.

The president eventually paid the cash to Carroll through a fund set up during the appeals process, which grew to $5.8 million after interest. He continues to insist that he didn’t know Carroll and accuses her of making up the story for political and financial reasons, even as he lost another defamation lawsuit to Carroll for $88.3 million, which he also appealing.

Trump is likely to throw a tantrum over the ruling, just as he did when the Supreme Court turned him down in June. He hates having to pay money that he owes, despite the fact that he’s financially better than ever thanks to using the presidency to enrich himself. This time, though, Trump is out of excuses to evade paying Carroll.

This story has been updated.

President Trump on Sunday said he ordered the Pentagon to “significantly” reduce the amount of joint military exercises with South Korea, due to his “very good relationship” with North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un.

“Based on my very good relationship with Kim Jong Un, of North Korea, I am not happy with the fact that the United States has, long ago, agreed to participate in Joint Military Exercises with South Korea. These exercises are not only costly, with much of these costs paid for by the United States of America (as usual!), but send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile, to a Country that, as long as Donald J. Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful,” he wrote Sunday evening on Truth Social.

“I have instructed Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to substantially reduce the Joint Military Exercises!” he continued, attributing his decision to South Korea’s position on the Iran war.

“While somewhat unrelated (?), I recently asked the President of South Korea if they would like to join us in the Denuclearization of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and they said, ‘No thanks!’”

It’s unclear how the U.S. plans to reduce the exercises. The annual Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise already proceeded as planned on Monday, the South Korean Defense Ministry confirmed—with 18,000 South Korean forces and 28,500 American ones.

Nonetheless, Trump is spiting South Korea, a longtime ally, for not helping bail him out in Iran while also making a clear overture to the one country it has the most hostile and adversarial relationship with.

“Trump’s description of the D.P.R.K. as ‘unthreatening and respectful’ is alarming to allies, who have watched the regime steadily improve its missile and nuclear capabilities, while also gaining an additional patron in Russia for its support in the war on Ukraine,” Asia Society Policy Institute Deputy Director Emma Chanlett-Avery told The New York Times.

This is just the latest example of the deteriorating U.S.-South Korea relationship under Trump. South Korea has been hit by U.S. tariffs, had hundreds of its citizens (with valid work visas) detained in an immigration raid, and now has lost access to joint military exercizes—all while Trump praises Kim Jong Un and North Korea continues to expand its military capabilities.

“For 70 years, America has held these joint exercises to train AND reassure its Asia-Pacific allies. Furthermore, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un is NOT respectful of the USA, now or ever. In the past few months, he has blatantly said NoKo is and always will be a nuclear power, specifically to ward off any hostile action, like America and Israel’s war on Iran,” CNN’s Christiane Amanpour mused Monday on X.

“He already has dozens of nukes, and in June, called for an ‘exponential’ expansion of Pyongyang’s arsenal. They’d already ramped up dramatically since Trump’s failed Hanoi summit with Kim in 2019, which I covered,” she continued. “Since then, Kim has ramped up missile testing, while his soldiers now have real battlefield experience since fighting for Russia against Ukraine. Respectful?”