(NewsNation) — Progressive media host Cenk Uygur is running for president as a Democrat in the 2024 election, challenging incumbent President Joe Biden in the upcoming primaries. Here’s what we know about Uygur.
Uygur is the co-creator of “The Young Turks” show who thinks Biden is “too weak a candidate to come back.” He predicts the president will lose to former President Donald Trump.
“This race is already over if Joe Biden is our candidate. Help me push him out,” Uygur said in a video posted to YouTube.
The commentator is also taking on author Marianne Williamson and U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota. Aside from facing other presidential contenders, Uygur is battling for ballot access in states.
Uygur is a naturalized citizen who immigrated from Turkey to the U.S. in 1978 with his parents when he was 8.
He previously proclaimed he had become the first naturalized citizen on a presidential ballot after filing paperwork with Arkansas, but Arkansas election officials later determined he can’t appear on the state’s Democratic presidential primary ballot.
“My office has received your candidate filing paperwork,” Arkansas Secretary of State John Thurston said in a letter to Uygur. “However, based on your own proclamation, you are not qualified to hold the elected office for which you filed. Therefore, I cannot, in good faith, certify your name to the ballot.”
Other states, including New Hampshire and Nevada, have also denied Uygur’s application to appear on their ballots. Uygur maintains this is officials treating naturalized citizens as “second-class.”
The Constitution sets these requirements for president; A candidate must be at least 35 years old and a “natural born citizen.” Uygur argues the 14th Amendment makes him eligible to run.
“This is the last form of acceptable bigotry in American society and I’m going to fight it with every fiber of my being,” Uygur said in a statement to The Associated Press. “I’m not going to accept that I don’t belong in my own country.”
Uygur announced his White House run in October 2023, urging Democrats to “change course” and support someone other than Biden.
“(Biden) is not going to win,” Uygur said during the announcement. “It should not have been me, it should have been somebody else, but unfortunately it was not anyone else. There’s only four months left. We must change course. He has at best a 10% chance of winning. I’m running as a proxy. I am running to win. But I am also running as a proxy for any other candidate.”
Uygur said since lawmakers like Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and California Gov. Gavin Newsom haven’t stepped up to the plate, he’s switching gears.
“Their lack of courage is stunning. Since they haven’t come in yet, because apparently the Democratic party is the authoritarian one now and the boss man told them ‘sit down,’ so they all sat down like good boys and girls … Now my job has switched to just knock Biden out. Those governors will all come in the minute Biden steps down,” Uygur told C-SPAN.
Uygur has been called a long-shot candidate. He previously made a failed bid for a California congressional seat. In the race for California 25th District, Uygur came up with 6.6% of the vote and finished fourth in the field of 12 candidates.
He also formerly served as one of the founding board members of Justice Democrats. The board ended up urging Uygur to resign after archived blogposts involving Uygur with disparaging remarks about women were unearthed. Uygur said in 2017 he doesn’t stand by the “ugly” posts.
“The stuff I wrote back then was really insensitive and ignorant,” Uygur told The Wrap. “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 graduated from the Wharton School of Business at University of Pennsylvania and from Columbia Law School. He worked as an attorney, writer and TV host before co-founding “The Young Turks.”
NewsNation will host a 2024 Democratic presidential candidate forum with Marianne Williamson, Cenk Uygur and Dean Phillips Friday, Jan. 12 at 9/8. Submit your questions here.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.