Cenk Uygur

Cenk Kadir Uygur (born March 21, 1970) is a Turkish-American left-wing political activist, commentator, and media host. 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 to the US in 1978 and studied at the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University. After a brief law practice in 1996, he hosted talk shows for WRKO, WWRC, and WAMI-TV before launching The Young Turks in 2002. Uygur briefly worked as a political commentator for MSNBC in 2011, and appeared on a weeknight commentary show on Current TV from 2011 to 2013. He founded the progressive political action committeesWolf-PAC, Justice Democrats, and Rebellion PAC.

In 2020, Uygur unsuccessfully ran as a Democrat in the special election and the regularly scheduled election for California's 25th congressional district on a platform that advocated for Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, and overturning Citizens United v. FEC. In October 2023, Uygur announced he would run in the 2024 Democratic Party presidential primaries to pressure then-President Joe Biden to withdraw from the election, despite not being a natural-born US citizen as constitutionally required; he suspended his campaign in March 2024.

Uygur is critical of the modern Democratic Party, which he accuses of elitism and straying from populist ideals. He has worked to move the party in a more social democratic or democratic socialist direction. Uygur advocates for campaign finance reform and is highly critical of US support for Israel. He has generated controversy for making offensive comments about women and minority groups, including LGBTQ people, religious Jews, and Muslims, and denying the Armenian genocide during his education; he has apologized for and retracted these remarks.