Prominent YouTube podcaster Tim Pool has sued the Kamala Harris presidential campaign for defamation. The complaint was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia on Tuesday. The Harris campaign claimed that Pool is a “Trump operative” and that he advocates the jailing and even execution of those who don’t support Trump.
Pool is claiming that the Harris campaign did harm to him and his podcast when it claimed in an X that he supported a “plan to give [former President] Trump total, unchecked legal powers so they can jail and execute those who don’t support Trump if he wins.” Pool denies the allegation. He is seeking “all cognizable damages,” which he believes are in the millions of dollars; attorney fees; and a prominent retraction of the allegations.
Pool said on his 9/17 podcast:
I am not a Trump operative. I have never received any money from Trump, Trump’s associates or anything do with Donald Trump. I have nothing to do with Project 2025…. I have zero association with anything to do with this.… The closest thing is, they’ve appeared on this show at some point…. I have never called for unchecked legal power for anyone, in fact I’ve argued against it…. I oppose the death penalty in all circumstances.
“To make the claim that I am calling for that is shockingly insane,” he concluded.
Harris’ Accusation
The Harris campaign made the accusation on X on Labor Day weekend. The post has been viewed over 12 million times.
Pool’s lawsuit pointed out:
The Harris Campaign did not hedge this statement or couch it as opinion. To the contrary, to any reasonable reader, the Harris Campaign was saying that Mr. Pool wants to suspend the Constitution, make President Trump dictator, and use state power to imprison and kill … President Trump’s political opponents.
The accusations could not be further from the truth. Pool’s beliefs, as the suit proclaims, “defy simple categorizations.” They range from being pro-abortion to being skeptical of state and corporate power. He voted for Barack Obama in 2008, and was active during the Occupy Wall Street protests. But during this election cycle he has beep pro-Trump, something the Harris campaign and the Left in general cannot abide.
“Trump operatives say their Project 2025 plan is to give Trump total, unchecked legal power so they can jail and execute those who don’t support Trump if he wins,” the post reads. Attached to it is an out-of-context clip from Timcast IRL.
Pool’s Lawsuit
Pool’s lawsuit referred to the tweet as “a lie”:
What the Harris campaign published was and is a lie. Mr Pool has never advocated for the lawless, extrajudicial killing of his (or anyone else’s) political opponents.
On cue, the left-wing media is claiming that Pool is a “Russian asset.” This is largely based upon the burgeoning Tenet Media scandal in which the Department of Justice alleges that Russia has been funding six supposedly right-wing influencers, including Pool, in hopes that they may swing the 2024 presidential election in favor of Donald Trump.
Other influencers accused in the scandal include Lauren Chen, who founded Tenet in 2022 with her husband Liam Donovan; Benny Johnson; and Dave Rubin.
The story is still at the allegation level, but that hasn’t stopped the far-left media from jumping all over it. The communist-inspired New Republic called Pool a “Russian asset” and claimed that he “whines” that Harris is ruining his podcast.
Defamation is difficult to prove, and Pool faces an uphill climb to win this lawsuit. But maybe that’s not the point.
YouTube legal blogger David Freiheit (Viva Frei) had an interesting take.
“Some lawsuits are filed to be won and others are filed to read,” Freiheit said in a recent video:
In this allegation right here, Tim is making a certain allusion to a certain second assassination attempt on Donald Trump, tying a link to the hyperbolic violent rhetoric of the Left and the acts of violence carried out by the … nutbags on the left who buy into this cr*p.
Pool may not necessarily have a great chance at winning his lawsuit. But maybe it’s enough to put his complaint on blast so that violent leftist extremists will think twice prior to attacking his show or “swatting” him, as has been done in the past.
