Cenk Uygur is host of The Young Turks, the first ever live, daily web television talk show. The Young Turks are on XM Satellite Radio 8-9PM ET (XM 167, America Left) and on Sirius Left 146. The Young Turks is one of the Top 100 You Tube Partners, with over 13 million views a month on their You Tube Channel.

The Young Turks recently won the Best Political Podcast 2009 at the Podcast Awards and Best Political News Site 2009 at the Mashable Awards.

The Young Turks premiered on Sirius Satellite Radio in the first quarter of 2002 as the platform’s first original program before moving to XM Satellite Radio in 2006. The show was also the first nationwide progressive radio show during its tenure at Sirius.

Cenk Uygur is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania - Wharton School of Business and Columbia University Law School. He worked as a lawyer, television writer and television host before starting The Young Turks. Cenk also blogs on Huffington Post, Daily Kos, ABC News and Politico.

Described by the Pittsburgh City Paper as “Part Howard Stern, Part Howard Dean,” The Young Turks presents a smart, funny and irreverent take on politics, pop culture and news.

A sampling of recent guests include Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, President Jimmy Carter, Presidential Candidate Ralph Nader, DNC Chair Howard Dean, Porn Star Mary Carey, Presidential Candidate Pat Buchanan, Actor Matt Dillon, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Supreme Allied Commander General Wesley Clark, Actor Mel Brooks, Brian Williams of NBC News, Sam Donaldson of ABC News, Professor of Linguistics at MIT Noam Chomsky, Actor Richard Dreyfuss, Political Commentator Mary Matalin, Political Commentator Arianna Huffington, among numerous others.


Blog Entries by Cenk Uygur

Why Jane Hamsher and Howard Dean Can't Be Wrong

8 Comments | Posted December 30, 2009 | 09:14 AM (EST)


Can Jane Hamsher or Howard Dean be wrong on the substance of policy issues? Of course!!! I don't think they often are, but recently there have been many progressives who have thought so. These were reasonable disagreements and everyone was within their full right to think Dean or Hamsher might...

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How Progressives Can Move Obama to the Left

498 Comments | Posted December 24, 2009 | 05:31 AM (EST)


There are many debates among progressives now on the true nature of Barack Obama. Did he mean anything he said on the campaign trail? Is he really a progressive? Did he ever mean to challenge the status quo or was he using the word "change" as a campaign gimmick? Is...

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What the Media and Obama Never Understood About the Public Option

233 Comments | Posted December 21, 2009 | 04:33 PM (EST)


People who support the latest version of the health care reform bill can't understand why progressives have been flipping out over the public option. By the end, it was so compromised that it covered a minuscule portion of the population, its cost controls were significantly reduced and it was a...

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Radical New Idea: Medicare Buy-In For Everyone

322 Comments | Posted December 18, 2009 | 03:58 AM (EST)


You only need 51 senators to pass a bill through reconciliation. But theoretically the main problem with reconciliation is that it can only be used for legislation that affects the budget. So, a public option or Medicare buy-in would definitely affect the budget, but getting rid of insurance practices like...

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Barack Obama, Inc.

302 Comments | Posted December 16, 2009 | 12:18 PM (EST)


The man who said he was going to challenge the system, fight corporate lobbyists and change the system now appears to be fighting for the status quo and corporate America at every turn. I call the Republican Party a wholly owned subsidiary of corporate America, but now Barack Obama is...

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The Irrefutable Stupidity of Sarah Palin

949 Comments | Posted December 7, 2009 | 03:48 AM (EST)


From time to time, I'll get into a debate with a right-winger about whether Sarah Palin is actually stupid or if liberals are just hopelessly biased against her. They claim this bias comes from the fact that liberals are scared of her electability, her charm, her looks, her femininity,...

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Hell No on Bernanke!

73 Comments | Posted December 3, 2009 | 05:34 PM (EST)


I had large misgivings about Ben Bernanke before his hearings began. He's given credit for steering our economy to safe shores after we hit an enormous economic iceberg. First, I would argue we are nowhere near safe shores. Second, why are we rehiring the guy who steered the Titanic into...

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Why I Changed My Mind On Afghanistan

305 Comments | Posted December 1, 2009 | 05:41 AM (EST)


Until about a month ago, I agreed with Barack Obama's strategy in Afghanistan. I thought we should have concentrated on Afghanistan from the beginning. We should have brought in so many more troops. We owed it to the Afghan people to do the best we could for them since we...

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Knocking Down The Biggest Excuse For The Bailout

116 Comments | Posted November 24, 2009 | 05:00 AM (EST)


Everyone's heard it a hundred times by now. Joe Biden said it when he was on The Daily Show last week. Tim Geithner says it every time he's on television or in a congressional hearing or in the car talking to himself. "We had to do the bailout. We didn't...

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Gross Failure of the Media

206 Comments | Posted November 20, 2009 | 03:07 AM (EST)


A new poll by Public Policy Polling shows that 52% of Republicans believe that Obama did not really win the 2008 election. You think that's absurd, get a load of why -- ACORN stole it for him. Yes, a majority of Republicans in the country believe ACORN flat out...

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Imagine if the Today's Right-Wing Were Around for Nuremberg

35 Comments | Posted November 17, 2009 | 04:16 PM (EST)


I was talking to Frank Mankiewicz recently (he was the press secretary for Bobby Kennedy and campaign manager for George McGovern) and I asked him what's the difference between the right-wing in this country back in the 60s and 70s and right now. Certainly there were crazed conservatives back then,...

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No One Is More American Than I Am

390 Comments | Posted November 10, 2009 | 01:14 PM (EST)


Predictably, after the Ft. Hood shooting some idiot conservatives are suggesting that we do some sort of loyalty exam for Muslim-Americans before allowing them into the US military. Who is "we"? Who gets to do this exam? What, presumably more American people like whites or Christians?

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Obama: The Central Question of Our Time

31 Comments | Posted November 3, 2009 | 12:02 PM (EST)


To paraphrase Eminem, "Will the real Barack Obama please stand up? Please stand up?" That is the central question of our time -- who is the real Barack Obama?

If he's the guy who got us all excited that anyone could become president, that anything was possible, that real change...

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The Trigger is a Lie

21 Comments | Posted October 26, 2009 | 04:02 PM (EST)


The trigger is a lie. And anyone who advocates the trigger is a liar.

Did you know that the 2003 Medicare prescription drug legislation had a trigger? Well, drug costs have continued to rise significantly ever since then - and guess what, it turns out the public provision in there...

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Democrats Should Stay Off Fox Until It Confesses

185 Comments | Posted October 23, 2009 | 05:15 AM (EST)


Is there really any doubt in anyone's mind that Fox has been attacking Obama from day one? Can anyone really be that misinformed or disingenuous? Well, if you are, this video from Media Matters will disabuse you of that notion:

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Why the White House Is 100% Right to Challenge Fox News

264 Comments | Posted October 19, 2009 | 12:49 PM (EST)


There are three categories of news media:

1. Opinion Outlets

•Keith Olbermann
•Bill O'Reilly
•The Young Turks
Wall Street Journal Editorial Side

2. Partisan Press (Ideologically Driven Press)

The Nation
•Fox News Channel
National Review
•Mother Jones
•Drudge Report

3. Straight News

...
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Did Bush Screw Up Afghanistan Worse Than Iraq?

35 Comments | Posted October 14, 2009 | 12:27 PM (EST)


Right now, there is a debate as to what President Obama should do in Afghanistan. As there should be. Should he send in more troops? Does it make sense to escalate the war without a viable partner in the Afghan government? Will this be his Vietnam? Woh, woh, woh...

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The Anti-Bush Nobel Peace Prize

89 Comments | Posted October 9, 2009 | 04:09 PM (EST)


I think they gave this Nobel peace prize to Obama less because of what he's done so far and more for not being Bush. And it's well deserved.

Conservatives seemed to be outraged that this is partly a snub of Bush. Yes, it is. And well deserved.

Bush was a...

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How Alan Grayson and Michael Moore Changed the Conversation

239 Comments | Posted October 8, 2009 | 11:43 AM (EST)


It's not the answer that matters, it's the question. So when Alan Grayson suggested that the Republican's health care plan was for people to die quickly, he began a conversation that the Democratic Party couldn't lose and the Republicans couldn't win. Because then the question being debated was: Do Republicans...

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Howard Dean vs. Rahm Emanuel

217 Comments | Posted September 30, 2009 | 04:50 AM (EST)


It has always been thus. Now comes round two.

In the first round, Rahm Emanuel and Howard Dean butted heads on what strategy was best in regaining House seats in 2006 (also to some degree in 2008). Emanuel was chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and Howard Dean...

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