Leftist “The Young Turks” co-host and longtime anti-Trumper Cenk Uygur admitted that President-elect Donald Trump’s victory earlier this month brings him “optimistic.”
Uygur, who routinely railed against Trump for years on his progressive online talk show, posted to his X account on Friday that he had accepted Trump’s win because it meant that “the establishment” had been defeated.
“I’ve been trying to figure out why I’m more optimistic now than I was before the election, even though I was so against the guy who won. I know now. MAGA is not my mortal enemy (and neither is the extreme left). My mortal enemy is the establishment. And they have been defeated!” he wrote.
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The point represents a notable turnaround for the progressive host who, just weeks before the election, was calling Trump an “unstable madman” during an episode of “Piers Morgan Uncensored.”
During the British journalist’s popular web show, Uygur trotted out various anti-Trump talking points. “He thinks we should terminate our Constitution. He had no problem trampling our democracy. I’m not letting that clown come in here and destroy this country,” he told Morgan and his guest panel.
But on Friday, Uygur seemed pleased that not only the “establishment candidate” was beaten, but that the mainstream media suffered a major blow as well.
In a follow-up X post he added, “It’s not just that the establishment candidate lost, it’s that their media is mortally wounded. The source of their strength was not insipid politicians like Mitch McConnell and Joe Biden. The source of their strength was their propaganda machine – the mainstream media.”
He continued, noting that independent media is now freer following Trump’s win.
“Now, online media is strong enough that their oppressive monopoly on the American mind has been broken. Now, we’re in the jungle. They hate that! I love it! This uncontrolled marketplace of ideas is where I’m home. I’d rather be in the populist woods than an establishment prison.”
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Various commentators and the Trump campaign itself have credited independent media for the president-elect’s victory on Election Day. Ahead of the vote, then-candidate Trump chose to appear on popular podcasts and take interviews with major influencers, including Joe Rogan, The Nelk Boys, and others.
Trump leaning into podcasts this election cycle, as opposed to traditional media interviews, paid off among Gen Z men and millennials. The Fox News Voter Survey published earlier this month found that men aged 18-44 supported Trump at 53% compared to Vice President Kamala Harris’ 45%.
Ex-Young Turks alum Jimmy Dore wasn’t convinced of his former colleague’s new stance, posting on X, “Cenk is a phony & a willing propagandist who is a cancer on the political discourse in America.”
Uygur made headlines earlier this month for calling out presidential historian Allan Lichtman on Morgan’s talk show for getting his 2024 election prediction wrong with his famous “Key to the White House” prediction model.
The historian had predicted that Harris would win.
“Look, I debated Professor Lichtman before. I told him his theories about the keys are absurd. I was right. He was wrong. I said he’d lose his keys,” Uygur told the panel about Lichtman, who was present as well.
Lichtman fired back, “No, you were not right, and I was not wrong!” Lichtman interrupted. “And that’s a cheap shot. And I will not stand for it.”
Fox News Digital’s Emma Colton contributed to this report.
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