Cenk Uygur signals optimism after Trump win: MAGA 'not my mortal enemy'

Progressive media personality Cenk Uygur signaled optimism following President-elect Trump’s win in the 2024 presidential election, saying his enemy was "the establishment," which was "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,” Uygur wrote Friday in a post on social platform X. “I know now."

"MAGA is not my mortal enemy (and neither is the extreme left)," he continued, referring to Trump's "Mage America Great Again" campaign motto. "My mortal enemy is the establishment. And they have been defeated!” 

“The Young Turks” host added that “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 wrote.

Uygur, who said he disagreed with the “majority” of Trump's agenda, has been openly critical of the Democratic Party on a host of issues, including a perceived delay in calling on President Biden to drop his reelection bid since last year. 

“[Biden] is not going to win,” Uygur said in October last year when announcing his primary bid, nearly a year before Democrats pressured Biden to withdraw following a disastrous debate with Trump. “It should not have been me, it should have been somebody else, but unfortunately it was not anyone else.” 

The former 2024 presidential candidate, who dropped his long-shot bid in early March, also condemned Colorado and Maine’s decision to prevent Trump from appearing on the state’s ballots earlier this year, arguing that “we should support democracy.” 

Recently, he has offered his endorsement of Trump's pick for Labor secretary, Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-Ore.), who was backed by Teamsters' President Sean O’Brien and has strong support from unions.

“Now, online media is strong enough that their oppressive monopoly on the American mind has been broken,” he wrote Friday on X. “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," Uygur added.