The nephew of Cenk Uygur, The Young Turks creator who is running for Congress, called the women on CNN “c—s” in response to a segment that was critical of him.
Uygur, 49, has a history of making controversial statements that include rating women based on how likely men would be to let them perform oral sex on them, using slurs, and supporting the legalization of bestiality. The comments led to 2020 front-runner Sen. Bernie Sanders retracting his endorsement of Uygur.
Before Sanders revoked the endorsement, Rep. Ro Khanna, a co-chairman for Sanders’s campaign, appeared on CNN with anchor Brianna Keilar. She pushed Khanna to address Uygur’s controversial statements. “The important thing is for him to unequivocally, clearly condemn any of those past statements and say that they were wrong and that he has moved on and understood why they were wrong,” Khanna said. “I do think he has done that, and if people acknowledge their mistakes, acknowledge when they have said something that is offensive or hurtful, I do think they should be given a chance to still participate.”
Absolutely disgusting. The misogyny is appalling. The great and professional @brikeilarcnn and all the women of CNN are owed an apology. https://t.co/bLHtrqwDCJ
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) December 17, 2019
Hasan Piker, Uygur’s nephew and the host of The Breakdown on The Young Turks, showed a clip of the interview on Twitch, a gaming-focused streaming platform, paused it, and then ridiculed Keilar in a post that surfaced on social media.
“By the way, these f—ing, all of these c—s dude, on CNN and every other establishment outlet. None of them can even say this motherf—er’s name right, dude. Goddamn. If you’re going to act like they’re being racist, the least you can do, you dumb shits, is say the man’s name right,” he said.
CNN anchor Jake Tapper retweeted the clip and commented: “Absolutely disgusting. The misogyny is appalling. The great and professional @brikeilarcnn and all the women of CNN are owed an apology.”
im not referring to the women specifically when i say “everyone in establishment media” – i’m talking about people like you jake. you and everyone else who engages in dishonest smears off this one psycho’s twitter threads just cus it targets progressives which you obviously hate. https://t.co/yQaz4OGKN4
— hasanabi (@hasanthehun) December 17, 2019
Following Tapper’s criticism of Piker, the TYT host responded: “I’m not referring to the women specifically when i say ‘everyone in establishment media’ – i’m talking about people like you jake. You and everyone else who engages in dishonest smears off this one psycho’s twitter threads just cus it targets progressives which you obviously hate.”
CNN spokesman Matt Dornic told the Washington Examiner: “I’m not interested in providing an official corporate statement about someone so irrelevant and clearly troubled. I think Jake already addressed appropriately.”
Piker faced backlash in August for claiming that Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw lost his eye “because some mujahideen — a brave f—ing soldier — f—ed his eye hole with their dick? Isn’t that how he f—ing lost his dumbass eye, because he got his f—ing eyehole f—ed, by a brave soldier?”
Uygur is running for California’s 25th Congressional District, which was vacated by Democratic Rep. Katie Hill earlier this fall. Should Uygur win the primary, he could be going up against Republican George Papadopoulos, who served less than two weeks in prison after being convicted of lying to the FBI in relation to his time with the Trump 2016 presidential campaign.
The Uygur campaign did not immediately return a request for comment.
