He also admitted that it’s personal. “First and foremost, [the lawsuit is] for me.” He cited what he alleges is “reputational harm,” “emotional harm,” and “financial damages,” sharing that the lynching comment had spurred someone to “stalk a public event [he] was at.”
“When is the last time you experienced eight consistent months of [mainstream media] having one primary villain?” Piker asked. “It’s not fun at all. It sucks.”
Discussing the Michigan race where the controversy with Jennings began, Piker noted El-Sayed’s primary opponent Haley Stevens’s surprising Sunday endorsement of Republican nominee Mike Rogers. Explaining her party defection, Stevens made specific reference to Piker, criticizing El-Sayed for associating with him.
Piker believes Stevens’s statements will backfire in El-Sayed’s favor as the votes are tallied in Michigan.
“Okay, a Twitch streamer is the reason why you’re endorsing ICE raids in every city?” Piker said, referencing Rogers’s platform. “That’s ridiculous.”
Piker maintains, as he has since July, that his political interventions do more good than harm—for everyone except him. In the case of his surrogacy for El-Sayed, he said, “The only person who got attacked in the process was me. I was the one who had his reputation destroyed in the process.”
As for Piker’s own relationship with El-Sayed, he admits it’s not quite as buddy-buddy as Jennings suggested. Piker stumped for the Michigander in the primaries before receding somewhat. “My relationship with him has always been one of…a transactional nature,” he said.
Piker will spend election night streaming live from his home in LA and checking in periodically with candidates. When the midterms are over, he seems prepared to continue delivering comeuppance to those he feels have unfairly represented him during this election cycle.
So who else can expect to get hit with a lawsuit?
Piker didn’t say, exactly, but he did note that Ronna McDaniel, the former chair of the RNC, who, on C-Span last week, repeated the claim that Piker supports reinstating lynchings. He also pointed to Sen. Ted Cruz, who re-shared the clip from Jennings on X. Last week, Piker responded to the X post with a link to the news of his lawsuit against Jennings and wrote, “hey ted you seen this ?” (Cruz and McDaniel did not respond to a request for comment.)
When asked if Piker’s post on X was a clue as to a future lawsuit against Cruz, Watkins answered: “Buckle up.”
Piker did not disclose other specifics regarding future litigation, saying only this: “if you felt as though you could outright fabricate quotes and make up totally ridiculous claims about me, you should probably work on your retractions immediately.”
English (US) ·