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Cenk Uygur
American political activist (born 1970)
American political activist (born 1970)
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | Cenk Uygur |
| image | Cenk Uygur (54233799117) (cropped).jpg |
| caption | Uygur speaking at AmericaFest 2024 |
| birth_name | Cenk Kadir Uygur |
| birth_date | |
| birth_place | Istanbul, Turkey |
| education | University of Pennsylvania (BS) |
| Columbia University (JD) | |
| occupation | |
| party | Democratic (since 2007) |
| otherparty | Independent (2000–2007) |
| Republican (until 2000) | |
| spouse | |
| children | 2 |
| relatives | Hasan Piker (nephew) |
| module |
Columbia University (JD) Republican (until 2000)
Cenk Kadir Uygur (born March 21, 1970) is a Turkish-American left-wing political activist, media host, and attorney. He is the co-creator of The Young Turks, a progressive and a left-wing populist sociopolitical news and commentary program.
Born in Istanbul, Uygur moved from Turkey to the United States in 1978 and, in 1996, worked briefly as an associate attorney. He launched and began hosting The Young Turks in 2002. In 2011, he worked briefly for MSNBC as a political commentator (he was replaced by Al Sharpton), and then from 2011 to 2013, he appeared on a weeknight commentary show on Current TV. In 2017, Uygur co-founded the progressive political action committee Justice Democrats.
In 2020, Uygur was a candidate in the Nonpartisan primary for both the special election as well as the regularly scheduled election for California's 25th congressional district. Some considered his candidacy controversial due to his past comments about women and minority groups, including the LGBTQ+ community, religious Jews, and Muslims, which some found offensive but which he said were taken out of context by the media. He lost both elections, placing fourth overall and second among Democrats after receiving six and seven percent of the vote, respectively.
Uygur announced his candidacy in the 2024 Democratic Party presidential primaries in October 2023 to pressure President Biden to withdraw, despite not being a natural-born U.S. citizen as required, claiming that the courts could overturn the requirement. Uygur suspended his campaign on March 6, 2024.
Early life and education
Cenk Uygur was born in Istanbul to a wealthy Turkish family. His mother's maiden name was Yavaşça, and his father, Doğan, started life as a rural olive and grape farmer in Kilis, a city in southern Turkey near the Syrian border, later winning a scholarship to a technical university in Istanbul, becoming a mechanical engineer, and starting a company. The family emigrated to the United States when Cenk was eight years old, and there Doğan worked as a commercial real estate developer. He spent the remainder of his upbringing in East Brunswick, New Jersey, and graduated from East Brunswick High School. Uygur was raised in a secular Muslim household, but became more religious during college. He says that he then became agnostic, and is now a "stone-cold atheist", although he still identifies as a cultural Muslim.
Although a D in high school calculus almost kept Uygur out, he transferred into the undergraduate Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he majored in management and graduated in 1992. There, he wrote a school paper column in 1991 in which he criticized affirmative action for blacks and other minorities. He also criticized campus feminists for "making Anita Hill their patron saint" and made disparaging comments about women and said that the discussion about rape on campus was making men afraid.
Representing the Turkish Students Association on the university's Student Activities Council, Uygur argued against a $228 allocation to the Armenian Club in the council budget; council members overwhelmingly voted against him, and uncharacteristically applauded after his defeat was announced. In November 1991, he wrote an article in The Daily Pennsylvanian titled "Historical Fact or Falsehood?", in which he denied the Armenian genocide and asserted: "The claims of an Armenian genocide are not based on historical facts. If the history of the period is examined it becomes evident that in fact no such genocide took place." He has since recanted these statements and reversed his position. He received a Juris Doctor degree from Columbia Law School.
Career
Early career
Uygur worked briefly in 1996 as an associate attorney. He practiced first at the law firm Drinker Biddle & Reath in Washington, D.C., and then at Hayes & Liebman in New York City.
He then worked in 1996 as a weekend/fill-in radio talk show host on WRKO in Boston, Massachusetts, and also that year in a similar position on WWRC in Washington, D.C. He bought time on a local access channel in Washington, D.C., where he made political commentary on his show called The Young Turk.
In 1999, he wrote for, produced, and appeared on a WAMI-TV news show, The Times in Miami, Florida. He then started The Young Turks (TYT) on Sirius Satellite Radio. That year, Uygur wrote on a blog post on the TYT website: "It seems like there is a sea of tits here, and I am drinking in tiny droplets. Obviously, the genes of women are flawed. They are poorly designed creatures who do not want to have sex nearly as often as needed for the human race to get along peaceably and fruitfully." He also wrote, in a letter to the editor in Salon, that talk of an Armenian genocide was simply propaganda. In the 2000s, Uygur maintained a weekly blog on The Huffington Post and wrote entries that were critical of the 2003 Iraq war.
''The Young Turks''
Main article: The Young Turks

Uygur created the left-wing, progressive talk show The Young Turks with the goal of starting a liberal-leaning political and entertainment show. It launched on the Sirius Satellite Radio network on February 14, 2002, and was also on the Air America radio network between 2006 and 2008. Uygur and his co-host Ana Kasparian applied a populist-left branding and programming strategy that made TYT a global online organization.
Armenian-Americans have criticized the show's name because the original Young Turks political movement in the Ottoman Empire was responsible for the Armenian genocide. Executive Director of the Armenian National Committee of America Aram Hamparian said of Uygur and the show's name: Denying a genocide, belittling its survivors, and then naming your political show after its perpetrators should be troubling not only to Armenian Americans, but anyone concerned about human rights. Cenk Uygur... did just this ....The Young Turks began a daily news video show on YouTube in 2005, and claims to have been the first on the streaming service. Uygur regularly says that The Young Turks is the largest online news show in the world, and has claimed so since at least 2011. It has amassed over 5 billion views on YouTube, and over 5 million subscribers, for a U.S. rank of #5,566. Leveraging the strength of The Young Turks talk show, Uygur expanded it into a network of channels and shows, beginning with Pop Trigger on July 5, 2007. Video of the show is streamed daily on its website, as well as on YouTube, YouTubeTV, via various streaming platforms, broadcast on a handful of local television channels throughout the U.S., and is a podcast.
In September 2011, when Uygur had been seeking a television platform for The Young Turks for years, a weeknight TV edition of the show was announced on fledgling Current TV, which had low ratings, at 7 p.m. EST (M–F) on the network beginning sometime in the fourth quarter of 2011. The show on Current TV began in December 2011, to low viewership, and ended on August 15, 2013, with the end of all live programming on Current TV.
In 2015, Uygur hosted ex-Ku Klux Klan leader and white supremacist neo-Nazi David Duke on the show in an antisemitic segment about "how Jews control everything." Cenk stated on the Lex Friedman show in 2024 he was arguing against David Duke's views. In 2019, he tweeted that Evangelical Christians harbored the worst antisemitism in the world.
In May 2018, The Young Turks launched its own TV-format 24-hour channel on YouTube TV, which includes both live and prerecorded programming.
Uygur hired his nephew, Hasan Piker, to work for the show.
MSNBC
MSNBC hired Uygur as a contributor and substitute anchor for the network on October 21, 2010. On January 21, 2011, Uygur was appointed as the host of the 6 p.m. Eastern slot on MSNBC as the anchor of a new prime time edition of MSNBC Live, resulting in a rearrangement of the time slots of MSNBC's other prime time shows. Uygur filled the time slot for six months, from January through June 2011.
Management saw the style of several hosts, including Uygur, as off-base from MSNBC's branding objectives, resulting in their demotion. According to Uygur, MSNBC President Phil Griffin disliked his "aggressive style" and told him the network's audience "require different manners of speaking". MSNBC denied that the network desired censorship of his anti-corporate stances, and both sides agreed that their main differences of opinion were about the style of communication. His contract ended when he was offered a weekend slot and declined. He was replaced by Al Sharpton, who by September had attracted 4% higher ratings. After leaving cable news, Uygur devoted his attention to TYT. Uygur over time became disillusioned with traditional media establishments.
Wolf-PAC
Main article: Wolf-PAC
Several Supreme Court rulings (1976, 1978, 2010) on campaign finance motivated Uygur during the Occupy Wall Street movement to launch a long-term project, a political action committee named Wolf-PAC, on October 19, 2011, in New York City. Wolf-PAC aims to lobby state legislators to pass resolutions calling for a Convention of the States under Article V of the U.S. Constitution. Its slogan is "A super-PAC to end all super-PACs". The aim of the convention would be to pass an amendment to the United States Constitution that would end corporate personhood and publicly finance all elections in the United States. , five states had passed a resolution calling for such a convention, though not all states used identical language in their convention call.
According to filings with the Federal Election Commission, during the 2016 and 2018 election cycles, Wolf-PAC devoted nearly 80% of its disbursements to salaries and administrative costs. Jonah Bennett quipped in The Daily Caller: "Cenk Uygur is so intent on keeping money out of politics his own PAC spends virtually all its donor money on personnel and operating expenses."
Justice Democrats
Main article: Justice Democrats
On January 23, 2017, Uygur co-founded the Justice Democrats along with Kyle Kulinski, a political commentator who had been affiliated with Uygur's Young Turks network. The group seeks to steer the Democratic Party in the strongly progressive, social democratic or democratic socialist direction espoused by U.S. senator Bernie Sanders. The group has supported progressive candidates in primaries against politicians whom they consider to be moderate and conservative Democrats, such as Joe Manchin, Joe Crowley, and Dianne Feinstein.
Uygur was forced out of the Justice Democrats on December 22, 2017, following the discovery of blog posts that he had written in the early 2000s in which he made statements that were described by Justice Democrats leadership as "sexist and racist". The next day, Uygur apologized and denounced his past statements in a video on The Young Turks channel on YouTube. In an interview with TheWrap, Uygur said he had deleted the "ugly" posts a decade ago, and added: "The stuff I wrote back then was really insensitive and ignorant. If you read that today, what I wrote 18 years ago, and you're offended by it, you're 100 percent right. And anyone who is subjected to that material, I apologize to. And I deeply regret having written that stuff when I was a different guy". Uygur said that he wrote the posts while he was still a conservative, before he underwent a political transformation and became a liberal; he asserted that he "had not yet matured" and "was still a conservative who thought that stuff was politically incorrect and edgy". Uygur added, "If someone said that today, I would heavily criticize them on the show and rightfully so, and I have. I've criticized myself over the years".
Rebellion PAC
In 2020, he co-founded Rebellion PAC, a political action committee with a focus on running advertisements in support of progressive electoral candidates, alongside Brianna Wu.
Political campaigns
2020 U.S. House of Representatives candidacy
In mid-November 2019, Uygur filed to run for Congress in California's 25th district, a seat recently vacated by the resignation of Katie Hill. He did this despite the fact that he did not live in the district. Other candidates included Democratic Assemblywoman Christy Smith and former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos. Uygur ran in two primary elections on March 3, 2020: the special election primary to fill the vacant seat through January 2021 and the Democratic primary for the next full term (decided in the 2020 November election). Uygur raised over $100,000 in small donations in the first three hours after announcing his candidacy. That figure rose to $796,000 in the remainder of the quarter.
Uygur positioned himself as left-wing, supporting single-payer healthcare, raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, and overturning Citizens United v. FEC. In the wake of the 2019 Saugus High School shooting, he supported strict gun control laws. He criticized his Democratic opponent, Christy Smith, for her opposition to Medicare for All. Uygur's primary issue was to get money out of politics. He also opposed war with Iran and supported passing the Green New Deal.
Uygur's candidacy was initially endorsed by U.S. senator Bernie Sanders, then a leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, on December 12, 2019. However, on December 13, 2019, Sanders retracted his support after offensive sexual comments that Uygur had long made about women, demeaning comments that he had made about blacks (using the N-word on his show multiple times), and provocative statements that he had made about fundamentalist Muslims and Jews in years prior were brought to his attention. The same day, Representative Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) withdrew his endorsement of Uygur, saying that Uygur's statements "were wrong and hurtful".
At least a dozen women's, LGBTQ, and Democratic organizations denounced comments he had made as sexist, racist, homophobic, anti-Islam, and antisemitic. Mark Gonzalez, the chairman of the Los Angeles County Democratic Party, said of him: "This man has spent decades, including up until recently, attacking women, the LGBTQ community, Jews, Muslims, Asian-Americans and African Americans. His vulgarity, his hate speech and divisive rhetoric have no place in our party." Will Rodriguez-Kennedy, the chairman of California Young Democrats, said "Cenk has a history of racist and homophobic and misogynistic comments that are inconsistent with the Democratic Party." Uygur claimed that there was a coordinated campaign against him by the media and political establishments.
Uygur ultimately lost both elections, receiving 6% and 7% of the vote, respectively. As no candidate earned 50 percent of the vote or more, the top two vote-earners, Christy Smith and navy officer Mike Garcia, advanced to the runoff, with Garcia eventually winning the election.
2024 presidential campaign
Uygur has said that he will run for president of the United States. As of early December 2023, he has failed in his efforts to be listed on a number of state primary ballots, because he does not meet the U.S. constitutional requirement to be a natural-born citizen in order to serve as president.
In September 2023, Uygur said that he was preparing to launch a potential challenge to President Joe Biden in the 2024 Democratic Party presidential primaries. Asserting that Biden is too old and will be unable to defeat Trump, Uygur has encouraged Biden not to seek re-election. Uygur said that, if no progressive challenger announced a campaign, he would start his own campaign to attempt to encourage other Democrats to challenge Biden.
Uygur would not meet the constitutional requirements to serve as U.S. president under Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution. He is a naturalized U.S. citizen, that is to say, he became a citizen after his birth. Not being a citizen at his birth precludes him from being considered a "natural-born U.S. citizen," which is a requisite for presidential eligibility. Uygur has claimed his eligibility, citing a 2006 UIC law review paper by a law school graduate on a 1964 case entitled Schneider v. Rusk. He claims that he has a "slam dunk" legal case. Writing in The Daily Targum in October 2023, Kiran Subramanian questioned Uygur's ability to make this case and gain popular support, concluding that "his calculations are completely absurd and put his view of the world into question".
On October 11, Uygur officially announced his presidential campaign. He filed for the Nevada ballot that same day, but was not allowed on it after he submitted an altered form. Similarly, Uygur's New Hampshire ballot application was denied by New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan on October 18; Uygur said that he would file lawsuits, but did not specify any jurisdictions. Uygur appealed the New Hampshire decision to the state's Ballot Law Commission, which unanimously rejected his appeal on November 2, noting that the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire has held that because the natural born citizen clause has not been repealed, New Hampshire state laws requiring all presidential candidates to affirm that they are natural born citizens are constitutional." Similarly, Uygur filed, but was not certified, for the South Carolina Democratic Party presidential primary ballot, given that he does not meet constitutional requirements to hold the office of president of the United States. Uygur unsuccessfully sued the South Carolina Election Commission and the South Carolina Democratic Party over his exclusion from the ballot. After Uygur had submitted his paperwork to Arkansas and the Arkansas Democratic Party, the state's election officials denied him ballot access on December 4. On December 18, 2023, Uygur's campaign issued a press release indicating that he was on primary ballots for the following states: Minnesota, Oklahoma, Texas, and Vermont. It was confirmed in January that Uygur was placed on the ballot in Connecticut.
Uygur indicated to The Hill in late November 2023 that his campaign had raised more than $250,000.
On March 6, 2024, Uygur ended his presidential campaign.
Political views
Ideology
Once a Republican, Uygur says that he has "enormous disdain for the Republican Party." At the same time, he said of Barack Obama: "He's conservative in his bones, so I've got no love for Obama whatsoever." Uygur is critical of the New Democrats wing of the Democratic Party, which he regards as the incumbent political establishment. He has called for the Democratic Party to undergo a revitalization process.
Uygur slowly transitioned away from the Republican Party and conservative politics. He has cited the decision to invade Iraq as a "seminal moment" in that transition.
Campaign finance
Uygur has supported the removal of corporate donations from the political system, and he said that "campaign finance reform" is the "only one issue" in the United States. He is known for criticizing both Democratic and Republican politicians, accusing many of them for being influenced by donors.
Israel
Uygur is highly critical of Israel. During the 2008 Gaza War, he criticized Israeli actions in Gaza, particularly an Israeli strike on a UN school that killed 30 Palestinian civilians. In 2011, he criticized the Israel Defense Forces for the 2010 Gaza Freedom Flotilla, which resulted in the IDF killing multiple civilians.
He has strongly opposed the Gaza war, repeatedly citing the high number of civilian deaths and has accused Israel of committing a genocide against the Palestinians. He has also expressed opposition to Hamas and condemned the October 7 attacks. Uygur has supported the implementation of a two-state solution with the 1967 borders.
Presidential elections
In 2000, Uygur voted for John McCain in the Republican primaries; however, he did not vote for McCain in the 2008 United States presidential election due to his perceived proximity to the Christian right and his views on taxes and waterboarding. Uygur supported the presidential campaigns of Bernie Sanders in 2016 and 2020.
Following the 2024 United States presidential election, Uygur has expressed disdain with the Democratic Party, believing that they have strayed from populist ideals and become more elitist than the Republican Party, specifically citing Elon Musk's reception to criticism.
Awards
In 2010, along with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Uygur accepted the "Emperor Has No Clothes Award" from the Freedom From Religion Foundation and later the Humanist Media Award from the American Humanist Association.
Controversies
Comments about women
In the early 2000s, Uygur posted a series of blog posts that were described as sexist. One post said, "I had one of the best nights of my life at Mardi Gras. I kissed over 23 different women, saw and felt countless breasts, and was in a wonderful drunken stupor thanks to my friend John Daniels." Another post said, "It seems like there is a sea of tits here, and I am drinking in tiny droplets. I want to dive into the whole god damn ocean." Uygur would delete and later apologize for his comments.
In a 2011 episode of The Young Turks, Uygur and his cohost Ana Kasparian dismissed actress Olivia Munn's sexual harassment allegations against director Brett Ratner, and Uygur defended Ratner bragging about having sex with Munn, saying that she likely "drove him crazy". Uygur would later apologize for his comments. In one episode in 2013, Uygur ranked women on a scale of 1-to-10 on how likely men would be to let them perform oral sex on them. That same year, Uygur said a model looked "like she'd just come out of a [concentration] camp."
In 2013, Uygur made lewd remarks about women's physical appearances in Miami, saying "the women on this island are outrageously, almost unacceptably, hot". In 2017, an unnamed TYT employee told TheWrap that Uygur spoke inappropriately about women.
In 2016, Uygur defended the Harvard University men's soccer team for ranking the sexual appeal of female students on a scale of 1-to-10 on a widely shared "scouting report", including explicit descriptions of potential sex acts with the women. Uygur defended his comments, telling The Los Angeles Times that he should not be criticized for having "frank conversations about sex".
Armenian Genocide denialism and TYT name controversy
The show's name Young Turks has been criticized and called for change due to the original Young Turks political movement in the Ottoman Empire being responsible for committing the Armenian genocide, the Assyrian genocide, and the Greek genocide. Alex Galitsky, who works for the Armenian National Committee of America, stated "If a group decided to call themselves 'the Young Nazis', and pitched themselves as a disruptor or anti-establishment news outlet, people would be rightly outraged".
In 1991, Cenk Uygur wrote an article in The Daily Pennsylvanian, the student newspaper of the University of Pennsylvania, in which he promoted Armenian genocide denial. In 2016, Cenk Uygur posted a statement on TYT's website in which he rescinded his Armenian Genocide denial statements, arguing: "My mistake at the time was confusing myself for a scholar of history, which I most certainly am not. I don't want to make the same mistake again, so I am going to refrain from commenting on the topic of the Armenian Genocide, which I do not know nearly enough about." In response to the criticism he has explained that the name of the show was chosen because it is a popular colloquialism traditionally meaning a young radical who fights the status quo.
Response to unionization of TYT staff
In February 2020, when the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees sought to unionize The Young Turks, Uygur controversially urged his employees not to do so. Uygur allegedly fired employee Jacorey Palmer for his pro-union activities, and, according to an anonymous TYT employee, Uygur allegedly withheld bonuses and increases from employees who were involved in the union drive. Uygur denied the charges. Uygur's position toward the union was criticized as hypocritical by The New Republic due to his claims of support for unions and progressive causes.
Electoral history
Personal life
Uygur is Turkish-American and is fluent both in Turkish, his native language, and in English. In 2008, he married Wendy Lang—a marriage and family therapist who is the founder of Beverly Hills Child and Family Counseling—and they have two children.
Notes
References
References
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- (August 30, 2024). "Transcript for Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism {{pipe}} Lex Fridman Podcast #441".
- link. (September 5, 2024)
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- Uygur, Cenk. (2021). "Cenk says he is a Muslim".
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- Cenk Uygur. (October 18, 1991). "Where are the White Christians?". [[The Daily Pennsylvanian]].
- Amanda Whiting. (September 12, 2018). "Cenk Uygur Just Might Be the Future of Liberal Media". Washingtonian.
- Cenk Uygur. (October 18, 1991). "Column: Where are the White Christians?".
- Homan, Timothy R.. (December 3, 2019). "Young Turks founder: Past remarks on women were attempt 'to be a stupid, politically incorrect Republican'".
- Zoller, Drew W.. (April 25, 1991). "Turk, Armenian dispute raised at SAC". The Daily Pennsylvanian.
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- Cenk Uygur. (November 22, 1991). "Historical Fact or Falsehood?".
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- {{harvnb. Grigoryan. Suetzl. 2019
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- {{harvnb. Peck. 2019
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- David French. (March 22, 2019). "The Real Reasons American Evangelicals Support Israel".
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- Stelter, Brian. (July 21, 2011). "Sharpton Appears to Win Anchor Spot on MSNBC". The New York Times.
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- Stelter, Brian. (July 20, 2011). "Sharpton Appears to Win Anchor Spot on MSNBC". [[The New York Times]].
- Lucas Shaw. (July 20, 2011). "Cenk Uygur, host of "MSNBC Live" since January, will be leaving MSNBC after declining a shift to another timeslot". [[Reuters]].
- Peck, Reece. (2019). "Fox populism: Branding conservatism as working class". [[Cambridge University Press]].
- "In Supreme Court Ruling on Campaign Finance, the Public Dissents". ABC News.
- Uygur, Cenk. (February 26, 2017). "Politics and Populism: Interview with Cenk Uygur". Harvard University.
- (October 20, 2011). "Cenk Uygur Launches New Effort To Separate Money And Politics". The Huffington Post.
- Wieciech, Tomasz. (2018). "An Article V Convention of States as a Constitutional Initiative at the Federal Level". TEKA of Political Science and International Relations.
- "The Plan". Wolf PAC.
- (June 20, 2016). "At R.I. State House, Wolf PAC lobbyists made late push". Providence Journal.
- Steve Warner. (November 1, 2018). "The Young Turks: Regressive Bad Faith".
- Wiegel, David. (January 23, 2017). "Progressives launch 'Justice Democrats' to counter party's 'corporate' legislators". [[The Washington Post]].
- Haines, Tim. (January 24, 2017). "Cenk Uygur Launches A "New Wing" Of Democratic Party: Justice Democrats".
- Wiegel, David. (September 29, 2017). "Four Reasons Democrats Aren't Facing Rebellions in Primaries". [[The Washington Post]].
- (2019). "Alternative Media Meets Mainstream Politics: Activist Nation Rising". Rowman & Littlefield.
- "Joe Manchin".
- (June 26, 2018). "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Defeats Joseph Crowley in Major Democratic House Upset". The New York Times.
- "HUGE Dianne Feinstein Challenger Announcement Thursday, November 2nd".
- Brittany Martin. (November 19, 2019). "Cenk Uygur Is out for Katie Hill's Seat. When it Comes to Republicans, He's Ready to 'Rip Their Face Off'". LA Magazine.
- Justice Democrats. (December 22, 2017). "We are deeply disturbed by recent news regarding @cenkuygur & David Koller. Their language and conduct is horrifying and does not reflect our values at Justice Democrats. We would be hypocrites to not act immediately and ask for their resignation. Here is our official statement".
- Marans, Daniel. (December 23, 2017). "Progressive Group Ousts Cenk Uygur Over Past Sexist Writing".
- Hellinger, Daniel C.. (2018). "Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theories in the Age of Trump". Springer.
- Levin, Jon. (December 21, 2017). "'Young Turks' Founder Cenk Uygur Apologizes for 'Ugly,' 'Insensitive' Old Blog Posts (Exclusive)".
- Chasmar, Jessica. (December 22, 2017). "Cenk Uygur, 'Young Turks' founder, apologizes for 'insensitive and ignorant' posts about women". [[The Washington Times]].
- Weigel, David. (August 13, 2020). "The Trailer: The path ahead for Kamala Harris". [[The Washington Post]].
- Ecarma. (November 13, 2019). "Cenk Uygur Files to Run For Congress in Katie Hill's District".
- Malaea, Marika. (November 13, 2019). "Cenk Uygur of 'The Young Turks' files to run for Congresswoman Katie Hill's seat one day after endorsing Sanders".
- Wulfsohn, Joseph. (November 13, 2019). "Liberal host Cenk Uygur files for congressional run in Katie Hill's former district".
- Johnson, Jake. (November 15, 2019). "Vowing to take on the 'greedy corrupt donor class', Young Turks founder Cenk Uygur announces congressional bid". Common Dreams.
- Montellaro, Zach. (January 6, 2020). "The TV ad crush coming to the early states". Politico.
- Martin Macias Jr.. (February 13, 2020). "Voters Set for Turbulent Primary in California's 25th Congressional District".
- Schulberg, Jessica. (December 18, 2019). "How Cenk Uygur Threw The Race To Replace Katie Hill Into Chaos". The Huffington Post.
- Murga, Tammy. (December 12, 2019). "Cenk Uygur on why he's running for 25th Congressional District". Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
- Blazej, Adam. (January 10, 2020). "Political games and names". Simi Valley Acorn.
- Ecarma, Caleb. (January 9, 2020). "Tucker receives bipartisan praise after report Trump took Iran cues from him". Mediaite.
- Stecker, Tiffany. (January 14, 2020). "Where green issues could matter on congressional campaign trail". Bloomberg Environment.
- (February 8, 2019). "Cenk Uygur: Pelosi Will Fight "Tooth And Nail" To Kill Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal".
- Jaffe, Alexandra. (December 16, 2019). "Bernie Sanders retracts endorsement for candidate who demeaned women, minorities". [[The Times of Israel]].
- "Final Official Election Results – Congressional District 25 {{pipe}} California Secretary of State".
- (March 3, 2020). "Live: California State Primary Election Results 2020".
- (March 3, 2020). "Live: California State Primary Election Results 2020". The New York Times.
- (2023). "Progressive pundit Cenk Uygur won't appear on NV primary ballot after altering form". [[The Nevada Independent]].
- (2024). "Federal District Court Issues Order Explaining Why South Carolina and the SC Democratic Party Did Not Violate Cenk Uygur's Rights in Keeping Him Off Presidential Primary Ballot". Election Law Blog.
- Howe, Caleb. (September 28, 2023). "Cenk Uygur is So Frustrated By Biden's Lagging Poll Numbers That He's Staffing Up for a 2024 Run".
- Kennedy, Kaitlyn. (September 29, 2023). "Cenk Uygur, creator of The Young Turks, drops big 2024 bombshell".
- Uygur, Cenk. (September 22, 2023). "Mr. President—You're Going to Lose to Trump. We're Begging You: Step Down".
- (March 2015). "On the Meaning of "Natural Born Citizen"". [[Harvard Law Review]].
- (October 11, 2023). "Case law is clear. Naturalized citizens can run for President: "Schneider is clear that treating natural born citizens and naturalized citizens differently is contrary to the Fifth Amendment. Forbidding naturalized citizens from being president or vice president is a form of discrimination that limits their options and treats them as secondclass citizens."".
- Phillips, Aleks. (October 12, 2023). "Cenk Uygur's Presidential Run Sparks Avalanche of Jokes, Mockery". [[Newsweek]].
- (2006). "Limiting the Presidency to Natural Born Citizens Violates Due Process". [[John Marshall Law Review]].
- Weigel, Dave. (October 11, 2023). "Cenk Uygur running for president as Democrat". [[Semafor (website).
- Timotija, Filip. (October 12, 2023). "'Young Turks' host Cenk Uygur announces primary bid against Biden". [[The Hill (newspaper).
- Subramanian, Kiran. (October 18, 2023). "Cenk Uygur's run for presidency is deeply flawed".
- Falconer, Rebecca. (October 11, 2023). "Young Turks founder Cenk Uygur to run for president in 2024 as Democrat".
- Porter, Steven. (October 27, 2023). "Candidate blocked from N.H. presidential primary ballot".
- [https://www.sos.nh.gov/sites/g/files/ehbemt561/files/inline-documents/sonh/decision-cenk-uygur.pdf "STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE BALLOT LAW COMMISSION; Decision BLC2023-4; Appeal of Cenk Uygur,"] {{Webarchive. link. (November 15, 2023 November 2, 2023.)
- Rogers, Josh. (November 2, 2023). "State Ballot Law Commission upholds barring Cenk Uygur from NH Primary ballot".
- (November 13, 2023). "Official List of Candidates for 2024 South Carolina Democratic Party Presidential Primary".
- (December 29, 2023). "Turkey-born pundit sues SC Democrats over 'natural-born citizen' primary exclusion". [[The Post and Courier]].
- (January 10, 2024). "Federal judge rejects Turkey-born pundit's bid to get on SC presidential ballot". [[The Post and Courier]].
- Morrissey, Ellen. (November 16, 2023). "Seven candidates have filed to appear on Arkansas' Democratic presidential primary ballot". Ballotpedia.
- Demillo, Andrew. (December 5, 2023). "Arkansas rules online news personality Cenk Uygur won't qualify for Democratic presidential primary". [[ABC News (United States).
- "Cenk for America".
- (December 13, 2023). "DFL Submits Candidates for Inclusion on Presidential Primary Ballot". Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.
- (January 13, 2024). "OK Candidate Filing". Oklahoma State Election Board.
- "Candidate Information".
- "Qualified Candidates for the Vermont Presidential Primary, March 5, 2024".
- Putterman, Alex. (January 19, 2024). "Who is on CT's presidential primary ballot? Four Dems and four Republicans qualify". [[Stamford Advocate]].
- Timotija, Filip. (November 25, 2023). "Democratic presidential candidate Cenk Uygur raises more than $250K since campaign launch". [[The Hill (newspaper).
- (March 6, 2024). "Cenk Uygur drops long-shot presidential bid". [[The Hill (newspaper).
- Marmura, Stephen M. E.. (2018). "The WikiLeaks Paradigm: Paradoxes and Revelations". Springer.
- {{harvnb. Marmura. 2018
- Rudow, Bryce. (January 30, 2014). "Cenk Uygur Finally Opens Up About Keith Olbermann: "He's Clearly Got Clinical Issues"".
- Lessig, Lawrence. (2011). "Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress-and a Plan to Stop It". Hachette UK.
- Solaiman, Barry. (2017). "Evaluating Lobbying in the United Kingdom: Moving from a Corruption Framework to 'Institutional Diversion'". University of Cambridge.
- Kolehmainen, Pekka. (2017). "Social media narratives as political fan fiction in the 2016 US presidential election". European Journal of American Studies.
- Uygur, Cenk. (2009-02-06). "What Was Israel Supposed to Do?".
- (2010-06-02). "Israel Must Release the Full Raid Tapes".
- (2024-09-10). "Cenk Uygur says 'unfortunately' both Trump & Harris agree they 'should serve Israel'".
- Isaacson, Gila. (2025-06-26). "Cenk Uygur Loses The Plot {{!}} WATCH".
- Hains, Tim. (July 16, 2025). "Cenk Uygur: You Guys Are Way Too Polite To Israel, This Is A Genocidal Terrorist State That Thinks It Owns America".
- Gilmour, David. (2023-10-24). "'End It Today!': Cenk Uygur's Fiery Plea To Israel".
- Uygur, Cenk. (March 12, 2008). "Not the candidate he used to be".
- Bee, Vanessa A.. (December 20, 2019). "I Like Cenk Uygur, but Bernie Was Right to Retract His Endorsement".
- Hellinger, Daniel C.. (September 20, 2018). "Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theories in the Age of Trump". Springer.
- ""When I became a Democrat, it was the more tolerant party. Republicans were run by religious nut jobs and corporate robots. Now, the Democrats are in a lot of ways the less tolerant party. The least tolerant part is actually the establishment wing of the party that says anyone opposing their anointed leaders is committing heresy. If you try to give constructive criticism of the party to improve it, they drive you from the party while screaming, "He's not a real Democrat!!" They hate populists. They have become the corporate robots I couldn't stand. They hate their base. They insult our intelligence by pretending that the donors are not in charge. They think we should be controlled and learn how to follow orders. And they have no idea how elitist they sound. Predictably, their unironic reaction to this post will be, "Heretic!!""".
- ""I asked @elonmusk to put me in charge of cutting the Pentagon. And he said – what are your suggestions? I run the largest left-wing network online and a Democratic leader has NEVER asked me that question. The idea that they would take advice from a populist is disdainful to them."".
- (September 21, 2010). "Truth-tellers Hirsi Ali, Uygur are FFRF's 'Emperor' awardees". Freedom From Religion Foundation.
- (October 18, 2012). "It Can't All Be True". [[American Humanist Association]].
- Bonk, Lawrence. (November 1, 2017). "Young Turks Dismissed 'Classless' Olivia Munn's 2010 Harassment Allegation Against Brett Ratner".
- McLaughlin, Aidan. (November 2, 2017). "The Young Turks Responds to 'Classless' Olivia Munn Comments: 'We Had The Wrong Facts'".
- (December 13, 2019). "Sen. Sanders Endorses 'Young Turks' Founder Who Defends Crude Sex Rating of Women to Fill Rep. Katie Hill's Seat".
- Villiers, James de. (December 13, 2019). "Bernie Sanders endorsed a congressional candidate who once regularly used the N-word and repeatedly made crude comments about women".
- "@cenkuygur".
- Axelrod, Tal. (December 13, 2019). "Sanders revokes congressional endorsement for Young Turks founder Cenk Uygur". The Hill.
- Zoledziowski, Anya. (October 21, 2020). "The Young Turks Led the Armenian Genocide. But the Progressive Show 'The Young Turks' Won't Change Name". Vice.
- Uygur, Cenk. (Nov 20, 1991). "Column: Historical Fact or Falsehood?".
- (April 22, 2016). "Rescinding Daily Pennsylvanian Article". TYT Network.
- (May 17, 2019). "Cenk Uygur recognizing Armenian Genocide". Haypress News.
- Jamieson, Dave. (February 24, 2020). "The Young Turks' Progressive Founder Urged His Staff Not To Unionize".
- Nolan, Hamilton. (March 5, 2020). "The Young Turks Union Fight Gets Nastier With Charges of Retaliatory Firing, Withholding Raises".
- Kelly, Kim. (March 5, 2020). "The Myth of the Progressive Boss".
- "STATEMENT OF VOTE PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY ELECTION MARCH 3, 2020". [[California Secretary of State]] [[Alex Padilla]].
- "U.S. House of Representatives Results of All Districts".
- "Wendy Lang & Cenk Uygur registered their honeymoon at Traveler's Joy. What a great idea!".
- "Wendy Lang {{pipe}} Child & Family Counseling {{pipe}} Beverly Hills, CA".
- (October 15, 2012). "Congratulations to Cenk and family on the birth of their new daughter, Joy – but TYT crew still keeping it real". The Young Turks.
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