The Young Turks Co-Founder: Get Money Out of Politics

Cenk Uygur, co-founder of online news program The Young Turks, explained why he believes it is important to take money out of politics.

“Our politics will constantly be controlled not just by the Koch brothers, but also [George] Soros and also [Michael] Bloomberg and all of these giant donors on both the left and the right, multinational corporations and the unions,” he told FOXBusiness.com at the Democratic National Convention.

“We gotta end that. We gotta get back to democracy. It’s not an accident that under this crooked, corrupt system we have the two most unpopular candidates in American history. If you fix the system you’ll get a lot better candidates.”

Uygur also commented on both the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees.

“I think she’s the establishment,” he said. “I think she’s status quo in a time when people don’t want status quo. I understand why people are dissatisfied with her and I did not support her during the primaries… but at the same time I can’t risk the Republic on someone like Donald Trump.”

He added:

“He [Trump] doesn’t really believe in the First Amendment rights, let alone separating us based on race, religion, ethnicity. So I can’t have it, so I’m going to hold my nose and vote for Hillary Clinton—very likely—you still have to see how the third parties work out.”

While protests continue at the convention in Philadelphia over the fallout from the Democratic National Committee’s email hack, Uygur said it is important to openly look at a third-party candidate like Gary Johnson and Jill Stein.

“People should hear her [Stein] out and they should hear out Gary Johnson too,” he stated. “They’re both doing great in the context of third-party candidates in my lifetime. So Gary Johnson sitting at 10%; that’s a real number—he should be allowed into the debates. Jill Stein’s at about 5%; that is much better than the Green Party’s ever done and that’s also a real number.”

An entrepreneur himself, The Young Turks co-founder is aiming to develop his news business even further, hoping build a stronger presence on all platforms.