What to know about Democratic presidential candidate Cenk Uygur
Cenk Uygur is a political commentator known for co-creating "The Young Turks."
This is part of a series on the 2024 presidential candidates.
Cenk Uygur was born on March 21, 1970, in Istanbul, Turkey.
Uygur is a progressive political commentator and known for co-creating "The Young Turks," an online news show that touts it is the "largest online progressive news show in the world."
Uyguy worked as an attorney in Washington, D.C., and New York before beginning his career as a political commentator. Uygur first appeared on MSNBC as a political commentator in 2010, and then hosted a commentary show. Later, he moved to Current TV to do a show that aired from 2011 until 2013.
In January 2017 he launched what he called a new wing of the Democratic Party, the Justice Democrats, to execute, in his words, a "hostile takeover" of the party establishment.
In 2020, Uygur had a failed bid to represent California's 25th congressional district.
Uygur was in hot water during the California congressional campaign for demeaning and controversial comments he had made about women, Muslims and African Americans resurfaced.
The political commentator announced his White House run in October 2023.
His candidacy has raised legal questions about the constitutional requirement that a president must be a natural-born citizen of the United States. Uygur is a naturalized U.S. citizen who immigrated from Turkey to the U.S. in 1978 with his parents when he was 8.
Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution explicitly states that "no person except a natural born citizen" can be president, meaning Uygur's citizenship status seemingly does not fit under the constitutional requirement.
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