Cenk Uygur Defends Joining Charlie Kirk On Stage At MAGA Event: Progressives Want to ‘Overthrow Our Establishment, Too’

Cenk Uygur, the self-described progressive co-founder of The Young Turks, defended his weekend appearance at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest over the weekend.

Uygur replied to a tweet Monday that shared his discussing with MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk “the moment he realized that MAGA-MAHA is serious about fighting the establishment.” Other prominent figures like Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson also spoke at the event, which was headlined by Donald Trump.

“I’m genuinely curious to see if folks on the left feel this is outrageous. I go to talk to MAGA, they boo Mitch McConnell & Dick Cheney. On what planet is that a bad thing? Then I talk about how progressives have always wanted to overthrow our establishment, too. How is that bad?” Uyguy wrote on X, while sharing the tweet.

“Maybe some of you can find ways to get yourself to believe this is going to cause harm. Or you’ll have theories on how it’s going to help them oppress people at a later date. Or my favorite – this legitimizes them. They won the election, they don’t need legitimacy from us,” Uygur continued, adding:

But I want the good, honest, non-combatant folks on the left to seriously think about whether this might actually be a good thing. I know it’s foreign thought to even consider talking to the enemy. But what if you find out your enemy agrees with you on a lot of things.

It’s too early to hope that we find out we’re not even enemies. Because for the left, we have some things coming down the pike from this administartion that we massively disagree with and are worried about. But can we dare to find some common ground, too?

And maybe that starts to make things better. That the more we see each other as humans and less as enemies, the less we actually become enemies.

Uygur has been telegraphing a possible turn toward MAGA in recent weeks. At the end of November, he wrote on X, “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!”