Cenk Uygur [00:00:00] 

Like some folks are so proud of never changing their mind Why is that a thing you're proud of? What you you were born with a perfect ideology That somehow you got into your head through your parents or media or some whatever it was And it's just so golden that no fact ever disputed any part of your ideology. That's crazy

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Mo Dhaliwal [00:00:24] 

Welcome to High Agency, igniting conversations with inspiring people, leading transformative change. Relationship between media control and political power continues to be fundamentally reshaped before our eyes. For decades, a handful of corporations determined which stories reached mass audiences, effectively gatekeeping democratic discourse. Now, independent creators with minimal resources are bypassing these traditional filters entirely, directly challenging both media monopolies and the political establishments that they've historically protected. So this isn't merely about audience migration, from traditional to modern or analog to digital. It's about power redistribution. When grassroots organizers can mobilize millions without corporate media validation, when crowdfunded campaigns compete with billionaire backed candidates, and when citizen journalists can expose stories that mainstream outlets ignore, the entire architecture of influence shifts. Yet this democratization creates new vulnerabilities. Echo chambers and competing truth narratives aren't just fragmenting public opinion, they're actually undermining the shared reality that's necessary for democratic governance. So the stakes extend far beyond media metrics to the foundations of institutional legitimacy itself. And today's guest actually pioneered this revolution. He built a media empire that directly challenged established power structures. Cenk Uygur is the founder and host of The Young Turks. It's the largest online news show in the world with over 27 million subscribers and 29 billion views. Born in Istanbul and immigrating to America at the age of 8, Cenk graduated from Wharton before launching The Young Turks in 2002. Where he pioneered independent digital political commentary, he co-founded Just as Democrats Thanks. Helping to elect progressive candidates like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. And he's run for both Congress and president while advocating for campaign finance reform and media independence.

Cenk Uygur [00:02:40] 

Thank you appreciate it.

Mo Dhaliwal [00:02:42] 

Yeah, it's um, you're in Vancouver for for web summit and we came from there ourselves And it's an interesting time to be actually talking about technology Because my day job is actually in a technology company where we work with digital and marketing and media is obviously in the forefront of Our minds and how that intersects with culture But I'm always really interested to hear about a sort of Entrepreneurial life journey and how somebody gets to this position of creating change the way that you have So I'd love to learn about why media, having a voice, these narratives have been so important to you and for such a long time and how you kind of got started there. Like I understand that family's Turkish and you all immigrated from Turkey many years ago. You came here when you were eight. Yep. And so life kind of started, I assume, as it does for so many immigrants on a real path of sink or swim, rapid adaptation. And trying to understand what the sort of cultural currents are that you can latch onto and understand how to how to make it go in a in a new world.

Cenk Uygur [00:03:50] 

Yeah. You know, I, uh, realized recently, uh that being an immigrant had a more profound impact on me than I realized earlier in life. So when we moved, you know, we were, um, at that point, probably upper middle class in Istanbul and, uh I never thought about my status, but I mean, I was a good student. I was strong kid liked by the family. So like everything's hunky dory. You come to America and, And I don't want people to get me wrong. I love America and I, and I loved the big open green fields and the amazing opportunities, et cetera, that I, that, uh, found in America. But what happens to an immigrant like me, especially at such a young age is you get dropped all the way to the bottom of the social status ladder. Right? And so all of a sudden I'm illegitimate by definition. I'm a, I'm a person they don't know or not familiar with, like. From Turkey, right? In third grade, you're mainly going to get gobble gobble jokes, right. Do you eat your family Thanksgiving, that type of stuff, right, so I'm a tough kid overall to begin with even back then. And so that doesn't bother me too much, but what I didn't realize that I think kind of, um, dug into my brain was I all of a sudden got to a point where I was the outsider. I was a foreigner. I the one with, uh, no credibility. You don't know anything and when you think like what but what does an eight-year-old know or not know right? Like how does what does that even mean? Right? Well, I don't the right brands and and me being by my nature I don't care about brands, right? So like I'd go back to Turkey and I wouldn't have Levi's or Nike on and it'd be in the summers And they'd be like, what are you doing? You live in America and you don't even have Levi's. Like, I actually have irregular genes from marshals. And so like, and so, but that did put me in this role that maybe ironically was helpful in the long run, which is that of being an outsider and someone who starts with no credibility or legitimacy, et cetera. And I've been treated that way my whole life, by the way, in America, right? So in, and it's interesting because it's it differs by circles that you're in. So in the business circles, I am not treated that way because so many immigrants have gone to Ivy league schools, et cetera, that in the world, that's perfectly normal. So you're Turkish, you're Muslim, whatever you are, like no one's- It's quite diverse there. Yeah. So in a media world, that is not the case. In the media world white folks that are you know just standard ethnicity. Anderson Cooper is a great example, right? Heir to the Vanderbilt fortune. Tucker Carlson was the heir to the Swanson fortune, right. So these guys are what people expected in media. Now, was it the American people that expected it? Maybe, it was mainly executives who expected it, right, so if you're Cenk Uygur with a name that is super hard to pronounce, nearly impossible to pronounce. And and you're different in so many ways it's much much harder right and then in politics also harder and uh again not because of the voters the voters elected barack hussein obama and had him at an 83 approval rating right but the assumptions within the elites within the higher uh classes etc you start out at the bottom and you've got to really earn your way up And as you're doing that though, everything you do is viewed through the lens of illegitimate, right? So, and then I happen to feed into that because I'm a rebel. So I do things that are against the grain. So now if it's your, you know, Tom Smith and you're a six foot one and you are a male that came from Indiana and you went to Notre Dame. Well then you know Tom is a, wow, what a rebel! What an interesting entrepreneur, you know, that guy's a firecracker. When Cenk Uygur did from Turkey does it, that guy doesn't know what he's talking. He doesn't do anything. That's not how it's done around here. And so that's a lot of hurdles to overcome, but I'm not a guy who believes in a victim mindset, right? Like, so it is what it is. That those are the hurdles I had, but then I had other great advantages that in a lot ways, non-immigrants didn't have, right. And so. And I don't mean to insult non-immigrants, right? Everybody grows up in a different way, everybody's got a different family, but the upside of the immigrant community is, you know, warm, believes in hard work, believes and loyalty. There's a lot of great upsides to being an immigrant. Yeah, there's certain assumptions you start with, right.

Mo Dhaliwal [00:08:44] 

But you assume it's gonna be hard. So that's status quo. And then you move on to the next thing.

Cenk Uygur [00:08:48] 

Yeah, I've seen a lot of people start companies that are similar to ours, but they weren't used to, um, adversity. And so when they run into it, they don't know how to adjust. Whereas I grew up with adversity. I swam in adversity. I lived in adversity, right? So to me, that's Tuesday. That's the most normal.

Mo Dhaliwal [00:09:09] 

Thing in the world. That was actually just the word that I was about to reference because Malcolm Gladwell has this great sort of analysis he does of you know people that are in positions of success. I think you would agree you might be too humble to admit that you've attained quite a bit of success in what you've done. And what he actually says is that you know the hero's journey and the narrative that people like hearing is that oh my god I achieved all of in spite of everything that I came across. And he's got this really interesting perspective where he actually talks about the fact that, you know, the human being needs friction actually. And in many of those instances, it might not have been that they became successful in spite of what they went through, but actually because of, right? Adversity is a type of medicine. It's a type actually nourishment that if it's administered in the right doses at the right times, can actually surface incredible superpowers in people, right? And this is part of why I love origin stories because what you're describing as that eight-year-old That's... Know even at that age sure maybe people weren't coming to you for political perspectives at that time and you were left out of those circles but we're still aware of in-groups and out-group and those are little scars that sometimes we carry because we understand that there was an in- group and that was an out- group but it seems to me like from that age that there was a certain comfort maybe that was established at that age of just being in the margins and if you're already, quote unquote, told you're irrelevant, then there's a certain freedom to that.

Cenk Uygur [00:10:39] 

Yeah, I think you're enormously right about that. So, I mean, let's just look at, there's so many angles to it, but look at one that is so clear and one you might not necessarily expect. You use the interesting words there, in-group out-group, right? So, if I was part of the in- group my whole life, would I have known what it feels to be an outsider? And so, and this is in politics and in media, I explain to people, and I have to explain it because almost everybody else in media is insiders. And so they don't, they have, and politics too. So they have trouble wrapping their minds around it. I got to take them out of their bubble and into a different perspective. Whereas I grew up in that perspective. So, so what do I explain to them? I said, look guys, how many, especially in politics, how many people are insiders? What percentage of the population is insider? What percentage is outsiders? Maximum, maximum, 2% are insiders. 98% are outsiders. So which one do you think you should lean into? And so, and for a lot of times I would deal with Democrats, democratic politicians, even when you explain it that clearly, they're like, what? I don't get it. Right. Stop talking like an elitist. Stop talking, like an insider, stop using SAT words. When you're talking to real people, stop thinking that the status quo is great because it has you at the top. You don't realize that that's an assumption you're making. Because you're already an insider, right? But for those of us on the outside, we're not already at the top. We don't like the status quo. We think there needs to be a significant, massive change. So that point of view I got just as an outsider, let alone the adversity, let alone all the things that I had to get used to, has made an enormous difference and has been a giant gift to me. So I would much rather be out in the woods with the outsiders. Yeah, then then the insiders in their You know castles that have done so much damage

Mo Dhaliwal [00:12:44] 

No, there's a lot of power and freedom there. And I suppose it's, again, that comfort of working in spaces where others aren't comfortable, where you're not kind of trapped by the same conformities, right? Especially with media. Because when I was kind of like, you know, digging through your background and kind of learning about your life, it was really interesting to me actually just how early you were to everything, right. Like, you now, not to date you here, but like, serious radio in 2002, right, YouTube, I think 2005, right? And I mean, this is like, we're talking bleeding, bleeding edge. I mean now it's ubiquitous and we sometimes can't even imagine life before this world and what that was like. But that is such a really odd and interesting time to lean into technology. But what did you see then that, well, frankly, everybody else missed, right, because it took, you know, a decade. And some would say, even now, a lot of media just still hasn't got the picture of, you know where things need to go. But what do you think you saw then? That pretty much the rest of the world missed.

Cenk Uygur [00:13:48] 

Yeah, first, let me just thank you for saying that, because you might look at my track record in my history and think, oh yeah, that's clear, right? But you'd be shocked at how little people recognize that. So we were, Young Turks was the first original talk show for Sirius Satellite Radio. We're the longest running show in internet history. We were the first partner for YouTube so that I'm literally the original YouTuber, okay? And... And we've been, and Bernie, I'll give you one more example. There's many others, but, and there's two explanations which I'll get to in a sec. Bernie Sanders in 2013 was pulling in around 1%. And I did a video saying, no, he has a real shot at beating Hillary Clinton. And he climbed from 1% in 2013 to about 48% in 2016, right? So and I tell you all that because mo you'd be shocked that other people in media are like Yeah, I don't see it Like what's the big deal? Okay, you all saw that youtube was going to be the number one media company Okay, if you saw it you didn't do anything. I don't know why you didn't do anything but Okay, like there's something about me that insiders despise And so they won't even acknowledge things that are obvious Like, Hey brother, I'm the original YouTuber. Maybe I had something figured out. No way. No, it must've been some other answer. You got lucky. You got this. You got that. You didn't know what you were doing. I'm like, okay. And I didn't again and again and again and, again, okay, so, all right. So why, um, so later on it got way easier. So by the time I'm making the Bernie prediction, Bill de Blasio is in third place in running for mayor of New York. I say he's going to win. He wins, right? I'm getting all these things right. Why? Because by that time I have two enormous advantages, okay? One is we have an umbilical cord to the audience. So the audience is telling us which direction they're going. But no one else is listening to the audiences. Wolf Blitzer has never listened to the audiance. No executive at MSNBC, CNN, or New York Times has been like, hey, you know what, let's try to figure out what people actually think. They think they have. But they haven't like if the New York times goes to do that, and they're the most likely out of the three that I just named, they will commission a study to find to find real people and to like almost in an anthropological sense. I have run into a real person here and we're going to analyze them. Yeah. And they, they didn't even go to Dartmouth. Okay. So, so that's part of it. Whereas we believe in the audience. We, the audience helped Create the young turks and the audience is us right there. They subscribe to us. There are You know our source of financing, etc, etc So by the time I see bernie rising I already know that there's a massive progressive wave coming But when I tell people there's an massive progressive way of coming in 2013 their reaction is Get a hold of that guy! The YouTube guy thinks he knows what's happening.

Cenk Uygur [00:17:04] 

YouTube guy thinks Bernie's going to rise. And then they're always condescending like, did you know Bernie is like a radical Senator who's really on the fringes? Oh, thank you. Professional white man. I, and I don't mean to get into race. I don't like, I hate talking about race, but generally it's a guy like Jake Tapper who's looking down his nose at you and going, did you not? Yeah, I know that that's elementary, right? But did you, you know, the wave is coming? No way. And then after the wave comes, Okay. Now can you see that we were right? Nope. Nope. I'm not going to adjust. Hillary Clinton definitely would have won. Joe Biden is young and dynamic. Kamala Harris is definitely going to win. They never adjust. They can't get outside their bubble. So we have an unfair advantage because we actually listen. And there are other advantages too, but back then, why did I think that online video was gonna win? And in 1998, so geez, that's 27 years ago, I wrote an email to my friends saying, online video is going to be larger than TV. And they're like, you're mental. That's the craziest thing anybody's ever heard. Online video barely exists. And at that point it's like an AOL dial up and you get the scratchy, you know, modem thing. It's like a 320 pixel box that people are looking at and be like, what, this? Yeah, and so why did I think that? Because I pride myself on logic and the democratization of media was instantly clear the minute the internet began. Okay, now that you start putting up content at the time there was like a radio station that had started online and there was some video that was online. And I'm like, Oh my God, they're removing the gatekeepers. It's over. It's this, this side's going to win. Gatekeepers have a terrible track record. They're the worst track record in history. So like in the old days in TV, back in 98, when I'm making this prediction, they would commission 10 pilots for a TV show. They would scrap nine of them and then go with one. And that show most of the time would only last six or 13 weeks. And then they would cancel 90% of those. So wait, your track record is 10% of 10%. You get it wrong 99% of the time. Of course, that's not the right way to do it. And second thing was they designed shows for advertisers. Whereas online, since you start with nothing, you have to design the show for people, for humans. And that's a giant advantage. I remember being in a TV meeting later and the first question they asked about the show pitch was. What will Walmart think of it? And I thought other shows doomed Walmart wants you to do the most boring vanilla show

Mo Dhaliwal [00:19:51] 

There is well, that was the origin of soap operas, right? It's like they had to create a drama around the ad which was to sell soap exactly and so

Cenk Uygur [00:19:59] 

But don't, especially in politics, don't say anything interesting. If you say anything interested, there's no way Walmart's gonna advertise. So you're gonna have dispassionate people in news, right, with no emotions, reading a teleprompter, and not saying anything interesting, and online, me and everyone else is gonna get to say whatever we want, as passionately as we want as authentically as we wanted, without any gatekeepers. And by definition, whoever rises up has risen up out of the crowd. And so you add in the wisdom of the crowd and it becomes inevitable. It doesn't matter how small online video was and how gigantic TV was. It was only a matter of time before our side one. And one other thing I thought as a business person is if I, I'm an immigrant, I barely have any money, right? So if I want to start a media company, uh, back in 98, or eventually when we started in 2002, Well, I need billions of dollars to start a TV company, right? I don't have billions of dollars, but I could borrow 25,000 from a friend and start an online video company, and then I could catch them because I know the wave is coming towards me, so that's exactly what we did and right now we're catching them.

Mo Dhaliwal [00:21:19] 

That's a ton of foresight and again, especially for that period because We forget the world that we lived in previously, right? And it's almost hard to take your mind back to that point. Like as you were mentioning, I'm trying to think of 1998 and I'm like, oh shit, like it is wild to even think about online video at that time of what was I doing and what was going on around us. And timing is such a big part of your story because the intersection of the passion you brought to political discourse and the timing and the intersection of that with technology, it was kind of a perfect storm, right? Because you obviously had a lot of political interest coming into that, both from your background and the fascinating thing that I found is you assume that somebody that's working with digital and technology platforms, you're already in a fast moving sort of culture of adaptation and you're moving and you are evolving. And that kind of seems to be like your vibe in every space, because even politically, you know, you leaned in a different direction, but kind of not afraid to change your mind. And could you talk about that? Because it's pretty wild to me to, you know, be sitting across from someone that has such passionate views politically, is also super adept at online and digital channels, but also went through the sort of transition of like Republican, you know, independent Democrat, and then. You know, quite critical of the democratic establishment. Would you talk about like what happened that created that shift?

Cenk Uygur [00:22:48] 

You know, the more we talk the more I think that this theme of being an outsider has been even more helpful to me than I realized because so why are some of the mainstream media guys blinded by their bias and they can't see straight and whereas we see it well as an outsider, I, in a sense I'm outside of every bubble, right? So when I don't, Joe Biden's not my uncle. I'm not emotionally, psychologically, financially invested. In Joe Biden winning and listening to democratic leadership etc. So I can not only see that he's old two years earlier right and we started a petition in 2023 to get Biden out of the race I run as a protest candidate etc. But I can also see the polling it's amazing when you're in a bubble what you cannot see. So the polling has him in the mid 30s an incumbent in the 40s never won. An incumbent in the 30s has no chance whatsoever. Anyone who knows politics knows this brother has zero percent chance of winning, right? Nope, nope, nope. Nope. Nope all the insiders. I know love joe biden. We all listen to joe biden he is young and dynamic right peak form peak form right so So, as you're going forward there, shoot, I forgot the question you asked, Mo, I was gonna relate it back to it. It was really just about the transition, right? Oh, the transition. Republican, independent. So as you look at me coming into the country, I'm not on any team, right. Our family didn't grow up Republicans, we didn't grew up Democrats. My dad comes, he's a small business owner, Republicans talk about helping small business owners, too much regulation, too much taxes, remember taxes at that time. In America are at 70% for the top bracket. Not that we were in the top-bracket, but that's where they were, right? And so, so we, and we watch mainstream media, and they tell us that Ronald Reagan is the cowboy that's gonna save the shining city on a hill, right. So we buy into that and we're Republicans. And so why did I change? Well, facts, right, because I didn't start on a team. I wasn't an insider. So then when I see they keep saying they're going to balance the budget, but the Republicans never balanced the budget. They say that their real goal isn't tax cuts for the rich, but the only thing they ever pass is tax cuts. Right. They say peace through strength, but we never get to peace. We have nonstop wars always started by Republicans. So then you begin to piece it together and you go, wait a minute, Bill Clinton balanced the, but the republicans never did. And you know, they say over regulation, but What are we regulating? Doesn't it depend, right? So can you have over-regulation? Of course you can, right. Can you have under-regulational Wall Street, as we found out in 2008? Yes, you could have under regulation, right, so the question is how? So you begin to see all these things, and here's what I changed my mind on on policy. So I don't know that this speaks well of me, especially in Vancouver where it's very liberal, but I was pro-death penalty. And so I thought, you know, justice is you take someone I love, sorry, brother, but you got to go. Okay. So why did I change my mind on that? Becoming became a nicer person? No. I wish I could say I did, but I didn't. Uh, no, I saw the innocence project showed that dozens of people on death row were actually innocent. They didn't do it. It's one thing to kill the right guy. It's a totally different thing to killed the wrong guy. Right. So once I saw that fact, I'm like, I don't understand how anyone can stay pro death penalty. You're really OK with killing the wrong guy every once in a while. That's crazy. Right. Before it was theoretical doubt was real. Those were 24 people we were going to kill and they didn't do it. The DNA proved that someone else did it. Right? No, I'm done with the death penalty and if you're not, then like if you like, some folks are so proud of never changing their mind. Why is that a thing you're proud of? You were born with a perfect ideology that somehow you got into your head through your parents or media or whatever it was, and it's just so golden that no fact ever disputed any part of your ideology. That's crazy to me. And I can't believe that we think like that. And a lot of people do, whether you're on the left or the right. And I know that now because we've now taken on the Left in a lot a ways. We're the largest network on the Lef. But we've got people that are radicals that are attacking us 24 7 and their number one complaint is You are not following a preset ideology 100 You're only following it 94 That means you're a heretic and that means you are a right winger. That means. You support donald trump Well, if you're an idiot, that's the conclusion you would draw from agreeing with someone else 94 Right That's what radicals do. You have to be pure. You have be ideologically pure. If you're on that radical on the right, you have to racially pure. If you are a radical in religious circles, you have be religiously pure, et cetera. I hate radicalism, despise it. So, anyways, switch from Republican to Democrat, and then, but within the Democratic Party, they kept wanting us to support our worst possible candidates. I'm like, why does that make sense? Like, so here, here's another thing of inside the bubble versus outside the bubble. So in 2016, every poll showed that Bernie Sanders did better against Donald Trump than Hillary Clinton. Every liar in mainstream media would say the opposite. Yeah, but he has no chance. Yeah, he has no chance and then if you pick Bernie Sanders,

Mo Dhaliwal [00:28:36] 

young people don't vote, it's going to collapse.

Cenk Uygur [00:28:39] 

And I would say, look, it's your own poll. CNN, you just did a poll. And it said that Bernie has a better chance of winning than Hillary. And they're like, no, we don't believe our lying eyes. Because in their cocktail circuit, and I said liars, to be fair, they're not really liars. They really believe it. In their cocktail party circuit, everyone loved Hillary Clinton, and everyone hated Bernie Sanders. Why? He's an outsider. He's gonna bring us change. If you're at the very top, you don't want any change, but they don't realize that because they're in that bubble. So they would see their own poll, Bernie doing six points better, and they would say, he's doing worse. It was unbelievable, it was grating on the nerves. Even if I didn't agree with Bernie politically, which I do ideologically, I still would have been in favor of Bernie because I wanted to beat Trump, I wanted a win. And so they'd inverted logic and truth and facts on its head. And they do it all the time. And, and one more thing about that. So as we're so old, we were around before the Iraq war, right? So at that time, my co-host is Ben Mankiewicz. He's now the host of Turner classic movies. So Ben and I, uh, we're the only two shows nationally saying, don't go into Iraq, us and democracy now. Okay. So, we're screaming. Don't go in. They didn't attack us. They didn't. Attack us right and mainstream media is like well you know it came from the general region as al-qaeda i'm like saddam murderers al-Qaeda saddam is totally opposed to al- qaeda and so when we attacked uh iraq at that date 69 percent of america seven out of ten americans believed that saddam hussein had personally attacked us on 9 11. Why? Because mainstream media, consciously or subconsciously, lied to the American people and told them, these are bad guys, they're Muslims, they are a real problem over there, they're from the same region, who cares? Who cares that we're attacking the exact wrong people who are also opposed to al-Qaeda, right? Who care? They're all savage Muslims, let's just attack them. But the Anderson Coopers of the world, they have no idea that they actually think that. It's subconscious, right? And to be fair, I don't think Anderson Cooper was around at that time. But the people that were on air were just despicable in that. But again, it's because I'm open to change. My whole life changed. If I wasn't open to changing, I wouldn't have survived. I'm opened to the idea that outsiders might be right. They're not open to any of that. And they really, one last thing about it, they truly believe in their elitism. They really believe we have gone to the best schools. We are professionals. We know what we're doing and you don't, right? Well, I mean, how many times are you gonna get it wrong before you realize, no, just because you have a nice suit and you went to the right schools doesn't mean you know what you're doing. You've never even analyzed your own opinions and beliefs. How could you possibly be sure you're right when you never even thought about it? Whereas I was forced to think about my beliefs over and over and over again. Wait, I'm in a whole new culture in America. I got to adjust. Yeah. You're continually tested against that. Exactly. Oh, wait a minute. The things that Republicans said they were turns out they're not. I got it. Just, Hey, wait, a minute, the powerful people in the democratic party that we're all told that we have to bow our heads to and obey don't seem to know what they're doing. I've got to adjust. But the Jake Tappers of the world have never had to adjust for a day of their lives. So that's why they're always wrong.

Mo Dhaliwal [00:32:31] 

So I kind of said this in my lead up here as well, that these echo chambers, the great democratization of media, the massive double-edged sword that it is, right? Because there was very old philosophies that with information and higher education that we're gonna be entering some sort of egalitarian utopia and life would be better. And what we found instead is that it's actually just amplified perhaps the best and worst parts of human nature. And part of what you're describing, whether it's Republican, Democrat, but anybody that's a part of these systems and that in-crowd is that media is kind of allowing them to actually get like even deeper and more reinforced in their opinions. And it's kind of creating a membrane of like hyper-identification, right? Like, you know, Republicans hate identity politics, but that in itself is an identity that they hold, right. It's we're against identity politics and they stick to it so hard without ever having any empathy to think beyond that. And what you're describing on the left as well, is like this hyper identification. There's this actually pretty jarring graph I saw recently where it was kind of a data plot showing Republican and Democrat sort of where the people intersected in the States over the past 50 years. I'm not sure if you've seen this, but basically back casting like 50 years ago, it showed, you know, family relationships, like marriages and places of work. And you had these sort of, you two polls, it was Democrats, Republicans. And then this kind of area where they bled together. And there was cases where you'd have workplaces, families, even some marriages where there was a lot of intersection of Democrats and Republicans. And that was kind of normal. Like you could in one family have both. You could be running a business and have both and in the last 50 years it's gotten to this place where there's like such a severe separation, right? That there's entire workplaces that will be ideologically one way or the other, right. There's families where you might be ostracized if you're not identifying the right way. Um, so when we're living in an environment where frankly, you know, we're ruled by algorithms, right? And this is the, the negative side of the technology and democratization. I'm talking about these algorithms will actually make us feel good. It'll reinforce our opinion, right. Because who wants to destroy their ego really, right, I mean, it feels good. It feels good when we feel like we're right. We're in the, in the right space. We've got the right message. Um, and our entire like sycophant sort of technological environment has been built and engineered. To reinforce that? How do you counter that? Right? How do you, how do you cut through that and say, actually, even the young Turks isn't just another one of those, but it's something that might be a bit of an antidote to that hyper identification?

Cenk Uygur [00:35:09] 

We definitely are the antidote, but you know, you take the antidotes after you've been poisoned. And so this one is the hardest one. So like taking on the establishment is easy compared to this, okay? So there's two problems that you're identifying. One is, you know the issue of identity, the other is the issue with the algorithms. And they're interrelated. So on identity, So I hate identity politics. That's not to say that your identity is irrelevant. We just had a long conversation about how my identity informed my perspective, right? So it is definitely not irrelevant. At the same time, it is not determinative. So when people judge purely based on identity, that is obviously a mistake. Even within any identity, there will be a massive range of human beings. Why? Because we're all human so oh Turks are this way no they're not there's a giant spectrum and some Turks are super friendly some are super mean because they're human right so is there some cultural norms and values and expectations sure of course right but you can't ever look at someone and go because they are black white Turkish Jewish Canadian American etc. I know who they are. No you don't. No, you don t, okay? And if you do politics based on that, you were excluding by definition. So when the Republicans did it, uh, with the Southern strategy, that was, I don't know if it was the beginning historically, but certainly in modern history, the beginning of identity politics, what the Republicans did was, Oh, the Democrats used to be for lack of a more sophisticated way, I'll do you'd be a blunt instrument. The Democrats used to be the racist party. They had what was called the Dixie crats. Those were the Democrats in the South who believed in segregation and that white people were superior to black people. So that was not like theoretical. That was not subconscious. That was very overt, overt, right? This is 1950s and sixties. So Lyndon Johnson passed the civil rights act, the voting rights act and the Democrats flip and they become the party of civil rights. The Republicans sense, Richard Nixon does, Patrick Buchanan does, and I talked to Buchanan about this on my show on MSNBC. And they decide, oh, let's go pick up those racist voters in the South and we'll call that the Southern strategy. And so there are more white people in the country than minorities. So we'll have, we'll dominate for a long time. When I asked Buchanan about this, he was one of the Nixon aides who came up with the Southern. Strategy at the time, he said, yeah, we had a good 40 year run. Okay. And so, so they did identity politics ad infinitum. Okay. So then the Democrats come back. And they start doing identity politics. Now, minorities are gaining in America. You have a certain percentage of white people that are going to vote for Democrats. If you get all the minorities to vote for Democrats, you get more women to vote for Democrats we're got the numbers, right? So they start leaning into identity politics, okay? And it starts out subtle and it starts out very legitimate, which is, hey, wait a minute. Why shouldn't we be involved in politics to why shouldn't our voices matter? That's as legitimate as it gets That's not identity policy that's fighting back against identity politics. And so but then eventually it starts to get further down the spectrum Okay, we need representation in these fields Wait, which fields are we talking about and we're talking about longshoremen and all the jobs Which are really high-paying blue-collar jobs in America and at the time they were all white And they wanted to pass them on to their sons because they you know, uh, they were really good jobs Okay. No black folks need representation. They're latinos need representation that is true and accurate and really important But most of the time when they said representation especially in the later years like pretty recently Democrats meant I'm a black female and I need to be an anchor on this station or I need To be the candidate instead of the white guy, right? So we need representation in Congress on television, et cetera. In other words, I'm already rich, elite minority, and I want that job. And so the white guy, okay. All right, now we watered it down to the point where you're playing identity politics, right? And you could tell why. So when it's a black candidate, like Nina Turner, who was one of the co-chairs of the Bernie Sanders campaign, nobody talks about representation. Like nobody mentions that she's a black female, they just savage her, right? They tear into her, they lie about her, et cetera. The minute you have Kamala Harris, well, wait a minute, wait, wait. We need representation. Because that is a cover story. They want the corporate politician. They happen to find a black female that was a corporate politician, and they're hiding behind that. Now they've weaponized identity politics from the left, and I hate that, okay? So here's an easy example to understand. Dr. Oz is Turkish like I am, Turkish-American. He's running in Pennsylvania against Federman. Now Federman turned into a disaster, but we didn't know that at the time, right? And Dr. Oz is supporting Donald Trump, saying crazy things, lying, et cetera. So according to the identity politics model, I should have been like, Turkish Americans need representation. We should go with Dr. Oz. No, no, I don't care about representation in Congress, especially if that brother isn't actually representing us. So did the minorities in Congress like James Clyburn ever represent black voters? No, he represented corporate donors again and again and Again. So don't hide behind your identity brother. I'm not gonna give you a pass on And then it became, lately, the last couple of years, and this is what the revolt was about, and part of why Trump won in 2024. It got to that absurd point where some DEI programs, some DEA programs were great. Some DEI program got so over the top that we were reporting on these cases. There was a DEI officer who was an Asian woman. A white woman says in a meeting, hey, you know, I'm a little afraid to speak out here, And is it okay if I say something? And another participant says no shut your mouth you're a white woman your role here is to listen okay the asian person in charge of dei says to the company i don't think that's right i think that we should if we're going to do inclusivity right and and equity and diversity obviously we should let everyone speak including white people right she gets fired no no that's insanity no And we're not going to tell white people to shut up. That's crazy talk. We're not gonna tell women to shut up, that's crazy talk. No, I won't stand for it. That's now injustice from our side. So that's partly what America rebelled against.

Mo Dhaliwal [00:42:13] 

The, so, you know, it seemed like the pendulum was kind of swinging in, again, as a Canadian observer, what seemed like that, quote unquote, right direction. Because, you know, a lot of energy around Bernie, obviously, for a period of time. I believe he started something called Justice Democrats, you this movement, and that actually caused AOC to get elected. And there seemed to be a real kind of progressive swing happening in the right direction. And what we witnessed, I think was, you know, speaking on behalf of all Canadians apparently, was that there was like a bit of a overcorrection maybe on that side, but also this massive backlash, right? Like, you president Barack Obama gets elected. And again, it's feeling like America's kind of heading in some sort of progressive direction. But in hindsight, it almost looks like it was kind of getting spring loaded, right. That there was something getting repressed in attitudes and maybe there was. You know, some amount of privilege that was getting compromised now. You know, I'm very much a believer that equity sometimes to their privilege will feel like oppression. And so the sort of racism, the sort of like, you know hateful attitudes were kind of getting spring loaded during that eight year period and then really kind of unleashed afterwards. Right. Yeah. So what were you trying to do with just as Democrats at the time? And what are you trying to do the Democratic Party now? Because. Like from a values perspective, I understand, you're way more aligned on the progressive side of things, aside from some of the hyper identification that you pointed out, but you're also the most critical of that side right now. And so how does that square with what you were trying to do with Justice Democrats then, and what are you doing now?

Cenk Uygur [00:43:53] 

Yeah, great question. Trump wins in 2016. We're on the air on election night and we're pretty distraught. In fact, there's a very famous video that somebody does of edited mashup video of young Turks on 2016 election night. And that is one of the favorite videos for MAGA of all time. And they love to see us distrawn and et cetera. Right. But that video is actually misleading because and by the way, Trump retweeted it, that he loved it, et cetera, right. But because I was not, first of all, they say, ha ha, you got it wrong. No, he didn't. I was on ABC in that election cycle. I was the only one on their panel to predict that Trump would win, right? And on election day, with Hillary Clinton still having a significant lead in the polls, then you say, well, the numbers look like she's gonna win, but both Ben and I said, the very first thing we said on election day in 2016 was brace for impact. Because even if he's got only a 35% chance of winning, you know what that means? That means 35% of the time he's gonna win and as gamblers we know That happens. Yeah, okay So this idea the Huffington Post had it Hillary's chance of wining at 98 percent. We're like that is nonsense utter nonsense Even if her polling is correct, that's not a large enough lead for you to guarantee that she's going to win, right? But more importantly, after he won that night, I was not sad, I was mad. And when one of my co-hosts, Ida Rodriguez asked Cenk, what are we going to do now? I said, now we fight. Okay. So I was mad, not at Trump. I know who Trump is. Right? And I've been fighting from for now over a decade, right? I was mad at the Democratic Party. We were right all along. Hillary Clinton was a terrible candidate and America didn't want the establishment. They wanted populism. And they were even willing to vote for a fake populist like Donald Trump, right? Just to get to change. And so I said, okay, that's it. Let's take this into our own hands. Democratic Party's never gonna fix itself, right. So let's fix it, let's take action. So, you know, look, in my lifetime, Everybody tells me things are impossible and then we do it and then and by the way, they never learn, right? So i've been told things are possible like at every step in my life. In fact, i'll tell you things now and people will tell Me that's impossible, right so we'll get to that. That'll be fun. Okay, so So I decide that i'm going to go on a search and find out who is primarying democrats Uh democratic incumbents. Why? This Democratic Party is too weak. We need to create a party that's stronger. We need a create a part that's more progressive. And if we get enough people in and we win a couple of important races and we open the gates from the inside of Congress, oh my God, we could just flood progressives in. Look at how well Bernie did. And we take over the party. So how does it go? It goes amazing. So I started with three co-founders. They brought the organization, I brought the media, I named it Justice Democrats, because I'm obsessed with justice. The name of my book is Justice is Coming, right? So, and we picked 78 candidates and I asked reporters at the time, how many do you think we're gonna get into Congress? They universally said zero, but some said, well, you might win one, get lucky somewhere, right. At the peak, Just Democrats had 11 people in Congress. So we thought AOC was our best chance, and that was mainly the other co-founders, Shortcut, Chuck Abartie, who's now running against Nancy Pelosi, and then Zach Exley, and then Corbin Trent was critical in the organization, and they all said, let's lean into AOC. So I said, okay, great, we did 34 videos about AOC before her primary. Now remember at the time, she's running against the fourth most powerful Democrat in Congress. They're from Queens District of New York, and he was known as the King of Queens, and the conventional wisdom was that he was going to be the next speaker of the House after Nancy Pelosi. And at the same time, AOC is a bartender, literally. Her brother submitted an application saying I think she'd be really good at politics. So again, that's not me. The staff picks her. They do an amazing job. The other guys lean in, they run her campaign, amazing job, and oh my god, we did it. And AOC topples Crowley, right? So now everything's going along great. Meanwhile, mainstream media, they're like, oh my God, how did we miss the AOC victory? We can't believe we didn't see it coming. So I'm like, okay, well, now let me tell you, other just Democrats are going to win. And so they're, like, Oh, that's crazy. That's never going to happen. You just said it was crazy that AOC would win and she did win. And now the same guy is telling you other Justice Democrats are going to win. And we're going to take over the party. No, there's no way. I'm not going to write that. That's ridiculous. Okay. Still happening today. I got a story about it today. Okay. So, but then where do we go wrong? Because just Democrats did not take over cars. So this is painful. And, and when I say it, people think I'm attacking people. I am not. I'm just being honest and sharing what actually happened. Okay? So, uh, They were supposed to do two things. Uh, the people that got it in the beginning, they were supposed to open the gates. What does open the Gates mean? That means you support other progressives, primary incumbent Democrats, but that is the third rail in Washington. So as soon as they got to Washington, first of all, they offered them money. Uh, and I remember having lunch with AOC when she told me Nancy Pelosi called and she's offering this kind of money. And she said, no. Okay. And I loved it. I'm like, there we go. Then AOC does a sit-in in Pelosi's office and puts Green New Deal on the map. There we go, perfectly, running perfectly. But then the colleagues got in our ear. Oh, we're your precious colleagues. Are you going to be so mean and support primaries? We thought you were better than that, AOC. That is very disappointing. You're a very rude, terrible, mean person. Oh no, I don't want to be mean. Okay, I'm going to nice to my colleagues. No, but that wasn't. No that wasn't the plan the plan was to open the gates and yes support progressives in all of these primaries running against all of those incumbents right so no one opened the gates and that was a giant problem okay so the second problem was if you run on if you focus on economic populism the core of bernie's message in 2016 higher wages corporations hated paid family leave corporations hated Enormously popular with the American people paid family leave for example is that 84% even 74% of Republicans want it Anybody that wants to pass paid family. Leave can pass it tomorrow But no Politician in America is willing to propose it and pass it because they're all owned by their donors owned Completely if you can't pass a bill that that's at 84% popularity That means you're the world's worst politician. You should retire immediately right but they're crooks they're corrupt they don't want to pass these bills and but if you say that your colleagues are crooks oh my god you're gonna get pilloried so i get it i understand why they hesitated and mainstream media is just toxic and they would have destroyed AOC and Talib and Omar and Presley and all of those folks i get but that's why we sent you in there To take on that fight if you don't take on you're not going to do so but something unexpected happened that made it even worse since all of the economic issues are not doable because almost all the democrats are also corrupt like drug prices are you kidding me negotiating drug prices is over ninety percent in approval and yet you didn't fight like hell for that because eighty percent of the democrats in congress take money from drug companies They're crooks! They're corrupt! But they didn't have the nerve to say that. So what do they do instead? But they've got to prove their progressive bona fides, right? I'm a progressive and et cetera. So I'm going to lean into identity politics. Oh no. And now the establishment loves that. Why? Because now you're going to split all Americans fighting over their identities, black, white, Latino, this, that, men, women, gay, straight. And now you are all fighting each other. And that doesn't hurt us economically at all no and the policy conversations gone policy conversations done economics is gone and you're all in a food fight over your identity okay so instead of it being productive it became counterproductive so now half the justice democrats won't stop doing culture wars and i'm like get out of there get out of there do the economic stuff and since people hate identity politics it made progressives less popular i'm like oh my god we took a movement that was enormously popular and let it down the wrong direction until it became unpopular oh that's so frustrating but when you say that instant heretic right so look not only do we not get credit for helping aoc win we raised two and a half million young turks raised two have a million dollars for just Democrats. Featured her in 34 videos, which is more than the rest of the media combined, right? Et cetera, et cetera. But now we get discredit for disagreeing with AOC later now that she has status. And she's, so now she's an elite, she's privileged. So when the young Turks say, hey, I think she's going in the wrong direction, they're like, how dare you? She's the true progressive because she's a congresswoman with status. You, you're back to outsider. Off you go, right? Well, who was right and who was wrong? So now AOC is going around saying, oh, no more culture wars, no culture wars. We're doing economic populism and I'm rallying with Bernie. By the way, I'm a guy who doesn't care about the past. You attacked me or you said this or that. Who cares? Join the crowd, you're late to the party, right. So now, AOC's back on the right track. Great, I am super happy to have her. In fact, I've desperate for her to run. Against Chuck Schumer in New York for the Senate seat, Schumer would retire, she would definitely win it. There's no way Schumer's gonna risk losing, and right now she's at 55%. Schumer will definitely lose, right? So that's, now that she's back on the right path, to have a powerful New York Senator who's doing economic populism versus Schumer who protected the donors above all, that would be amazing. So don't, like, this isn't personal, it isn't personally. So super happy to have AOC back on the right track and let's get around the Senate.

Mo Dhaliwal [00:55:17] 

So in light of all that though and especially the tensions and what you're describing for what happens with even Justice Democrats of once they're in the seat things change you know they're in a different culture and they start owing people favors and things like that. The perspective that you shared in your book do you still believe that America is headed for a progressive future do you still think it's inevitable?

Cenk Uygur [00:55:39] 

Okay, so good news. Now we finally get to it. So what's on the rise now is populism. And so these words are important and interesting. And, so let me explain why I think that that's going to sync up with progressivism and what the intersecting circles are, etc. So Does, do Americans hate the establishment as I suspect? Yes, overwhelmingly. So if the Democrats are still that blindingly stupid and biased, I don't mean the voters, I love the voters. I mean the leadership and the politicians, right? So if they come in there and they're like okay here's a lesson we learned we need a corporate robot like Pete Buttigieg to be uh to have new talking points all right feed the robot new talking points I guarantee you're going to see Buttigie in a flannel shirt soon okay so we're going get back to faux populism right they're like well you know what really went one was fake populism from the right from Trump so we should do fake populist from the left no you should do real populism from the Left that's what you should do And why did the Democrats lose favor? So some of the identity politics hurt, but that was secondary. The number one reason was because every time they got in office, they never did anything. So that's why I actually disagree with one thing you said earlier. It wasn't that hey, Obama, et cetera, was an aberration and we were actually trending towards the right. No, no, we were definitely trending to the left, and Obama was not an aberation, and when he, at his inauguration, and he was polling at 83%. That is unbelievable. Nobody's ever seen a number like that and certainly not seen it since, right? So they were ready. And what did Obama do? Delivered no change and delivered no hope. All big Obama care. Yeah, it was marginally better than the earlier disastrous healthcare plan that we had in America, which is no plan at all. But it was originally called Romneycare. It was cooked up by the Heritage Foundation, the same group that did Project 2025. And if you're on the left, you have to be thinking, there's no way that's true. Go look it up. Heritage foundation. Why? And that's why it mandated that you buy from private health insurance. It kept drug prices, non-negotiable. It was a right wing plan that was just slightly better than the awful healthcare situation we were on. Right. And it was meant to release the pressure, but not actually solve the problem. So Obama gives a warmed over Heritage Foundation plan and then brags about it like, oh, I'm good for eight years. I passed Heritage Foundation's healthcare plan. I don't need to do anything else. He barely tried. Barely tried. Come on, brother. He didn't raise the minimum wage at all in the eight years, the minimum wages is $7.25. If you work every day, 40 hours a week, No vacation, you'll make $15,000 a year on minimum wage in America. Nobody can survive on $15000. What did Obama do about that? Nothing. Paid family leave. What did Obamacare do about it? Nothing. Now, if you criticize Obama, that's a third rail. That's where both democratic voters get really mad because that's their hero. And then the establishment loves that they get mad and they use that against you. They're like, did you know, and New York Times literally did this to me, did you know that Jake Uygur criticizes Barack Obama? And they made it seem like I'm on the right. No, I'm criticizing them from the left, right? But they leave that out on purpose. So I mean, we can get into like New York Times says, some of their investigative stories are amazing. So it's not an easy, simple binary answer, but some of the political reporting is the worst in the world. They're so deeply biased in favor of the establishment and they will literally lie about you. It is what they did to me to try to get to Bernie was unreal. Okay, so we'll get back to that but Then you're going to have to go populist. They tried populism from the right or at least they think they did with trump, right and that's going to fail. It's guaranteed trump's Barely 70 iq right? Like why does he do? 145 tariff what a ridiculous Nonsensical thing because by the way, I don't I think the tariffs could work if they're super limited to a specific industry and you stick with them for 10 years and you rebuild it takes three to four years to build a plant or a factory what are we talking about here no 245 you can't sell anything if there's a hundred and forty-five percent tariff on it so the guy he's going to crash things and once he what's he doing again his number one priority is four trillion dollar tax cut for the rich right at some point they're going to catch on this brother's not a populist right and they're gonna and they We're already starting to get mad at him. Independence are already mad at him and even some of the right is beginning to get mad at them So what's the one thing we haven't tried in America? We tried established run, right? We try to establish from left We tried populist, right the only thing left is populist left ding ding ding. We have the right answer What is left progressive? What is populists populist? Right? So you take the two things that I've been talking about the entire time progressivism I can which is economic populism You put those two things together Oh my god, you put chocolate in my peanut butter. You put peanut butter in my chocolate. What a great combo, right? So so is this where rebellion pack comes in then exactly. So so I did justice democrats after the 2016 win uh, and then you know, uh Basically that went awry at one point in the way that I described So after the 2024 trump win, uh, I revitalized rebellion pack. Okay and relaunched so rebellion pack is all the things that I've been describing, and the core of it is six intensely popular policy proposals. They're democratic proposals but independents love them and tons of the right-wing voters love them. Number one, anti-war. The whole country is anti- war now. The only people who want more left are supporters of Israel that wants us to fight all their wars for them. That's really the only reason we fight these wars, okay? And military industrial complex that makes money for more and everyone in the establishment that is paid off by those two lobbies Okay So for the outsiders for the average americans like no more wars. Come on for god's sake The right hates wars left hates wars the middle hates wars. So this is not a hard policy. Okay now We'll see if trump meant it or not in a minute, but the democrats never mean it So that's a long story, but that's easy. Okay next uh money out of politics of course republicans democrats need that the politicians the voters love it it's at over ninety percent that's anti-corruption uh... Higher minimum wage which pushes up all wages those are all know that's a great inflation no it keeps up with inflation whenever can actually give it to the average guys to the top on a little bit what will drive up inflation is we get four trillion to the rich and then eventually they'll trickle all over you yet no thank you no thank you we tried that a hundred times It's a trick. It's not to help you. It's to rob you right so now Higher lower drug prices all you have to do is get Medicare to negotiate in America The fact that Medicare can't negotiate drug prices is the most anti capitalist anti free market thing I have ever seen and when you explain it to that way to the right wing They already hated it that the fact that we couldn't negotiate then it makes them furious They're like this is a drug companies destroying capitalism by buying off our politicians hugely popular lower housing prices by making sure that private equity bankers can't buy residential homes people love it

Mo Dhaliwal [01:04:00] 

And that's an epidemic that's like sweeping across the states.

Cenk Uygur [01:04:03] 

100% right again even Charlie Kirk came on our show and agreed with us right wing agrees left wing agrees Paid family leave. We all agree. So you see these are built to be super popular They are our proposals meaning Democrats and left-wingers. We should be super proud that our policy proposals are Loved by the American people. So I have a simple idea Why don't we run? On our most popular proposals. Oh, shocking, crazy, oh my God. And really, no one does. So I'm like, okay, get out the way, yo, get outta the way. We're doing rebellion packs. So who signs on first? Ro Khanna, also the first guy to sign on to Just Democrats. He's, him and Nina Turner are the economically populist wing of the Bernie movement. They've always been on the right side. They never played identity politics. They never got into the culture wars. Always about. Let's fight for the average guy, no matter what their race is, no matter their gender is, et cetera, right? So then we go and sign up a 24-year veteran, Richard Ojeda in North Carolina, nine. I mean, this guy's as popular as you'll ever meet. So I love, he has this one idea that I love so much. He thinks that lobbyists should be forced to wear body cams, like us. Okay, so he's in an R plus 10 district. That means Republicans have a 10-point advantage. So when I talk to reporters, guess what they tell me about his chance of winning? Impossible. Okay, later when he wins, they'll say, well, it doesn't really count. It was inevitable. That's what they'll see. I guarantee it. You'll see it. Uh, and then we got, uh, Randy Bryce running in Wisconsin one and another Republican district. We think we can win. He's an iron worker. He ran once before he was known as iron stash. Okay. These are some real populous guys. Okay. So if we win in, forget blue districts, forget purple districts. If we went in red districts. Then we go into 2028, and we say, the establishment guys told you they knew how to win, and it led to nothing but nonstop losses, right? How many times did they lose to Donald Trump, right. We told you we could win, and we won in red districts, in Republican districts. So now, when we tell you our candidate has the better chance of winning, which is the number one talking point we have to defeat. That oh no you outsiders you don't know anything the country loves insiders you guys can't win only we can win right once we defeat that talking point then they're toast they're toast we find a great candidate but now here one last thing because it's so important because brother once you win the 2028 primary you've got the democratic party you have the candidate. You could remake the DNC. You can remake the Democratic Party. And then people hilariously say, they still say it. They're like, oh no, you can't remake the whole party. We just saw Trump do it. I mean, how blind are you? How blind are you?

Mo Dhaliwal [01:07:05] 

Utterly changed the DNA of the Republican Party, and it'll be generations before it changes again.

Cenk Uygur [01:07:09] 

Yes, and we could do the same for the Democratic Party and bring it back to what it was under FDR under JFK under LBJ Economic populism when we created social security medicare medicaid, by the way, the three most popular government programs in american history We did that the democratic party did that we can go back to that. We can be proud to be democrats again but on rebellion pack And for any presidential candidate we support two rules number one You're not allowed to take corporate PAC money. If you take corporate pack money, we can't trust you. So you have to be clean. So all three of those candidates are clean. We'll add more clean candidates going forward. Number two is you have actually do it. If you get into Congress or you're the president and you don't do it, we're gonna turn on you. And I'm telling you ahead of time. Perfect. Okay? Because the number one problem with the Democratic Party is that they never deliver on their promises. We're gonna deliver. Any enforcer. If you want, I'll do it. Okay? Just go up there. Here's how I'd get paid family leave passed. We can get it passed in two weeks. I'm not kidding, I'm not exaggerating. We just go up, new press conference, president, steward president, Kana, whoever it is, has said we're going to pass paid family leave. Now here's what I'm daring Congress to do. Whether you're a Democrat or Republican, I dare you to vote against it. Good news, we're gonna make you famous. Whoever votes against this We're going to put your picture up in the next press conference at the White House and we're going show all the donor money that you take and why you voted against American moms. They're just asking for 12 weeks off after they have a baby. Right now in America they're the only country that doesn't have paid family leave. Every other developed nation has it. Almost every other nation on earth has it and we're the richest nation and we can't afford it. No, you hate American moms. And we're going to tell everyone you hate american moms and be the last god damn vote you ever take so go ahead i dare you to vote against it it'll pass immediately and it might be unanimous no one's ever tried so if rebellion pack wins we're gonna try

Mo Dhaliwal [01:09:23] 

I want to operationalize this a little bit. It's gonna be a little, I think, perhaps mundane a conversation to have after sharing a perspective about, you know, reforming the American political system. But like you've been so far ahead of the curve in terms of like how you use media, how you used technology, how you kind of operationalize these things. So you've described what you're gonna do differently or what you want to see the Democrats do differently with this sort of populism. What is the Young Turks gonna do different? What are you gonna do difference? What do you see coming? That you're alive to and you think that whether it's media or other politicians just from a tools and technology perspective that they haven't caught up to yet that they're not using.

Cenk Uygur [01:10:01] 

Yeah, so two answers that one is policy the others mechanics as you're pointing out So on the policy front we already started doing it and that's part of why Other shows on the left have started attacking us voraciously, right? So What are we doing? We're going to talk to the right wing We're gonna talk to independence and they're like you can't do that talking to Charlie Kirk makes you a Nazi Does it or does it introduce ideas like? Banning private equity from buying residential real estate to right-wing audiences you can't trust Tucker Carlson. Who said I'm trusting Tucker Carlsen? I'm not trusting Tucker Carlson, but if Tucker Carlso says that we shouldn't go to war with Iran, I'm going to encourage that. Well, he's probably lying. Who cares if he's lying? If he's telling his right-wing audience, day in and day out, do not go to war with Iran, I don't really care what he actually thinks. I care what's he's tell people and how he's influencing them. So I'm going to go and find allies, and I am going to speak to independents and right-wingers and tell them the populist left is coming and we're gonna rescue you guys. And Trump's gonna let you down, and after Trump lets you down you know where to come. Okay now the problem the reason why other shows can't do that and why other democrats can't do that is the very first thing that uh rogan will ask or patrick bed david on the right will ask is oh yeah did you say biden was too old or were you one of the liars oh good news i said biden is too old okay oh yeah do you call out democratic corruption good news I called out democratic corruption oh you say donald trump is trampling on the constitution did you call Barack Obama. When he violated due process in killing Anwar al-Lawki? Good news, I did. And in fact, I was furious at Attorney General Eric Holder. And I said, you're opening a door you should not open, okay? So we have been right, we have consistent, we have be principled, and so have these candidates like Ro Khanna, Nina Turner, and there's others, right? And all these guys. So we're providing them an answer that they have been looking for the whole time. So now On the left, a bunch of radicalism has begun, not just on the far left, the culture warriors, etc. But also the previously moderate camp, the Biden-Hillary camp. If you, they are so, the MSNBC poisoned their mind to the point where Democrats are angels, this is the tribalism. Democrats are Angels, Republicans are all Nazis, and they're all racist, okay? So if you voted for Donald Trump, you're a racist Nazi, okay. But wait a minute, guys. Because a lot of those are Obama voters. So how could they be racist Nazis if they voted for Obama? And I'm not talking about one or two. I'm talking about millions. Wait a minute. Do you understand that the most extreme person on the right does not represent the whole right? The most extreme on the left does not the whole left. Isn't this obvious? So when you get closer to the middle the swing voters They're not at all racist, they're not all interested in burning the Constitution. Some on the radical right are, yes, you're correct about that, now those are the guys I've been fighting my whole life, right? But that doesn't mean every Trump voter, 71 million Americans are all Klan members? No, they are not, right. Oh, that is despised. So the MSNBC former moderates have become the most radical. They're like, no, and if you talk to Charlie Kirk and if you think that his voters aren't all racist, then you're a racist. You're a fascist, right? So I mean, attack, attack attack. We've been attacked from every quarter, right. And no, I say no to everyone who's a radical and I'll fight you to the end of time. So this happens in religion too. If you're going to be a good muslim you have to believe in you know with the most radical cleric says who said that no the radical clerk made that up that's not true at all i have to listen to him i can interpret anyway i like no you have a listen to that leaders why do i have the list of leaders did all i come and tell you you himself no i didn't that brother pretended that he speaks for all of which by the way sacrilegious We can all interpret it any way we like, okay, and if that bothers you, that's a sad day for you. Okay, you do not own Islam, okay? You do not own Christianity, you don't own Judaism, you don't on the Republican party or the Democratic party or the left or the right. Well, they say, oh well, you don't agree with us on x, y, or z, okay. These are tiny little issues, right? Transports at the professional level. That is a microscopic issue that was created by the right wing to drive a wedge between us and then it worked and it worked beautifully because the radical left walked right into that ambush and they're like hey everybody come with us we've got a great ambush to go to. I'm like no it's an ambush please it's a trap don't go there heretic Nazi. Okay all right so and to this day those guys don't acknowledge Yeah, that hurt us in the election. It was not the number one issue. Number one issue is how corporate the Democrats are and how they never deliver, right? But the second issue was that we were stuck with these ambushes you just guys willingly walked into, right? So those are radicals and I fight against them. So it is what it is, you know? There is no way to get to the right answer without going through all of these wars. Because when you propose change, The people in power don't say, oh, you'd like to change the system that put me at the very top. Well, come on in. We'd love to have you. No, they smear the hell out of you and they have your own side attack you. They have the other side attack. They have every side attack, you. Some of it is conscious. Some of is subconscious and they'll feed into it. The establishment will be like, oh yeah. Cenk's a heretic, right? He wants Democrats to win, boo. No, no, no. You want the Democrats to have the most unpopular positions. Wait, guys, even if we sit, look, for example, I was for gay marriage and at the time, back in, you know, forever, that was unpopular all the way up until 2013. How do you know it became popular in 2013? Because Biden and Obama switched their position in 2013. That means it crossed the 50% barrier. Those cowards, sorry, I know you love Obama, sorry. They would have never gone to that position if it was unpopular, okay? And besides which is a fact, you can see the tracking of the polls, right? So we were in favor when it was very unpopular. So wait, wait, doesn't that contradict? No, because that is a constitutional right. That is a fundamental human right. I don't have a constitutional rights to play in the NBA. You don't a constitutional to play the WNBA, okay. But we do have a constitution right to love whoever we love. Associate ourselves with whoever we want marry whoever we and the Supreme Court agreed with us. We do have that constitutional, right? We were right all along but how do you win on that fight? Do you start there? No, you start by doing popular things and building up the credibility and the leverage to then make an ask of the American people Hey, remember when we delivered Social Security and Medicare for you and you remember how much you love that now Can you trust us when we ask you to pass the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act? Hey, we got enough credibility to be able to do that, and then we do it. Hey, after we do popular things, can you see that we're also right, that maybe our gay and lesbian and bisexual, et cetera, or LGBTQ brothers and sisters also are equal and should have equal rights? And you frame it in a way that all Americans relate to, justice, equality, right? And equality means equality. It doesn't mean I have more rights than you. It means I have the same exact rights as you. So we won on gay marriage doing that. So instead when we went radical on trans sports, we went backwards and we lost trans people in the military. Now they're starting to get into which bathrooms you should go. Those are disasters. If you're a transgender person and they're making you go into the wrong bathroom, the one you don't identify with, that hurts your life. How many transgender people are gonna plan to WNBA? Maybe one, right? Whereas they all need to go to the bathroom. And we need and so that should have been sacrosanct and military

Mo Dhaliwal [01:18:36] 

And there's a real skillful conflation of these things to drive the wedge and to undermine the overall purpose.

Cenk Uygur [01:18:42] 

Exactly right and so now when I make the case for trans people being in the military the right wing goes oh you're one of those you know lives and you and then I have to talk them through it hey they're volunteering to die for you that's a good thing hey shouldn't don't you believe in equality oh yeah god damn right I do well then we shouldn't they be equal to you and then they mean well they better pass a fitness test that's right and they have that pass the fitness test so right now the transgender folks are kicking out the military. Have ex not everyone I don't can't vouch for every single person but overall have excellent Fitness tests, etc. All the different metrics and requirements that you need. Well, if that's true Aren't you doing dei in reverse? Saying even though they qualify I would like to disqualify them based on gender ideology Well, congratulations, you look apparently you love dei, right? So you flip the frame. There's ways of winning but if you just blunder into right-wing ambushes and then drive everyone out of your party that disagrees 2%. Because you're clinging to this purist mentality. Yeah, this purists radical ideology. You're never gonna win, right? And then we're all gonna get marched backwards. And that's what's happened. Okay, so now on mechanics, what are we doing? So mechanics is harder. So the algorithms reward extremism. They call it consistency, but what that really means is If you're on the left, you better say more and more left-wing things. If you are on the right, you'd better say, more and more right wing things. That's what drove some of the right wing to become radicals in the first place. Now it's done it for the left wing. So if you disagree with any portion of your audience, you lose some subscribers, the algorithm will bleed you dry. So, but wait a minute, I have to tell the truth. My audience wants to hear that Joe Biden is young, but he's not young. I have tell him that he's old because I'm in the news business, right? Nope, nope, you pissed off some portion of your audience, algorithm's gonna punish you, okay? But I have to say that insisting on the WNBA is not the right strategy, nope. Some portion of you audience wanted to hear things that aren't true, and you didn't super serve them so the algorithm will punish you. So what does that do? That punishes truth, and it makes the country much more divided, and then so when we say let's do paid family leave, You can't unite the two sides because they hate each other so much. The right wing goes, oh, I'm not going to go with those libs, and oh, yeah, they're probably going to want to make me transgender, right? You're like, oh yeah, yeah. Do you want the moms to have time off after a baby, or don't you, right. But the good news is most Republicans say, yeah even when I was on Patrick B. Davis' show, they polled our audience, 75% of them said yes to paid family leave. So good news, right, so we got to get past these things to get to it, but the algorithms. Unfortunately have greatly exasperated the problem So I am trying to find a way around that because that's what we do And and you know, will we have harder time raising money for rebellion PAC when we don't take corporate PAC money? Yes. So my point is we have hurdles at Young Turks We have hurdles that rebellion PAC but guess what I was born with hurdles I wasborn to get past the hurdles because I didn't have a choice. Mm-hmm. So that's we're gonna do We're going to figure it out and the good news is that with 28 million subscribers and 30 billion lifetime views We're built for this and so we will go forward and we will win and in fact here I'll end on the prediction that I told you earlier that everyone will say is impossible In fact, I'll give you two for the price of one. Okay, so We will win the Democratic primary in 2028. We will remake the Democratic party and we will win general election and we'll bring back this country, America and the Democratic Party to what it was supposed to be. And the second prediction is Young Turks is going to be the number one news network in the world. Okay? So, right now... No way CNN has billions and billions of dollars in revenue and they have this enormous name recognition They have this and they had that and they've all the fancy pants, right? You guys are a bunch of immigrant outsiders. You got a Turk and an Armenian You know, you've got this ragtag group Jews and Muslims and all these different folks It'll never work. And how are you guys gonna do it? You're so small compared to them at least in terms of revenue and money and stuff It's inevitable. Because we are on the side of the crowd. We have the wisdom of the crown on our side. We have. The right policies and we're lucky i mean that's a big stroke of luck that most of our policies line up exactly with the american people what people want not every one of them like i'm for much more gun control in the average american right but most of all policies or right down the center of american uh... Politics Is TV gonna win or online video gonna win? Well, that jury's already in, so more people are coming in our direction. So if somebody thinks that they're going to do a news network that is going to be bigger than ours and better than ours in the future, well, I'd love to, I mean, I wouldn't love to see it, but I'd like to see you try, right? I already saw CNN throw $300 million in the garbage trying. They lasted three weeks with their online video. 300 million dollars they burned in a dumpster fire. The old guys can't figure it out if they're life-dependent on it. What's the first thing they're gonna do in an online studio? Put in prompters. Okay, I get why you use prompter. Sometimes if we have to read something and it's hard to remember, you use a prompther, right? But when I'm doing a new show, Anna's doing a show, et cetera, John, all of our hosts, when you look into the camera and you make mistakes and you act human and you connect with the audience, That's going to be the... Robot reading from a prompter any day time. Yeah, right and they're gonna come in their suits and eventually I'm like, ooh, we're gonna take the tie off. We're so populist. We were so authentic, right? No, those guys have no chance and for there are people that are smaller than us and they might catch us They have a better chance than the big guys do right? But they're going to have to they got 20 years to catch up, right we've got a 20-year lead So let's see what happens, but I think the future is Let's see if I'm right one more time. I think future is clear I think we're going to be the number one news network, and I think it will make a big difference.

Mo Dhaliwal [01:25:27] 

All right, so we've got those two predictions then. You guys are taking the primaries and the Young Turks is the largest news network in the world. All right. We'll watch those predictions. Thanks for your time, Cenk. Much appreciated, man. Hopefully we've given you a lot to think about, that was High Agency, like and subscribe, and we will see you next time.

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