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Left-wing political commentator Cenk Uygur has joined a growing list of Democratic and liberal challengers to President Biden’s reelection run, and he is challenging the Constitution’s requirement that the president be a natural-born U.S. citizen.
Mr. Uygur was born in Turkey and became a naturalized U.S. citizen. He created “The Young Turks,” a left-wing news commentary show on YouTube, and co-founded the Justice Democrats political action committee, which works to elect far-left candidates to Congress.
He has vowed to take his challenge to the Constitution’s presidential requirement to the Supreme Court — if his long-shot run for the Democratic presidential nomination gets that far.
The way Mr. Uygur sees it, he has no choice but to run.
“Joe Biden is going to lose, and I need everyone to understand he is going to lose, and we can’t have it. Trump is an actual fascist,” Mr. Uygur told The Washington Times. “Democracy is on the line.”
Mr. Uygur intends to shake up the race because top Democratic politicians such as Kentucky Gov. Andrew Beshear and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker have not challenged Mr. Biden’s candidacy. He said his party must find a viable alternative to Mr. Biden.
“This is not a guy who is going to win, and I will do anything and everything to make sure the Democratic Party and the country at large wakes up,” Mr. Uygur said. “If you think democracy is on the line, you would be in this race. You wouldn’t just let Biden lose.”
Mr. Biden, who is 80, suffers from widespread doubts about his physical health and mental acuity, and Democrats such as Mr. Uygur openly question his position atop the 2024 ticket.
A recent NBC News poll found a combined 74% of registered voters had major concerns (59%) or moderate concerns (15%) that Mr. Biden doesn’t have the physical or mental fitness necessary to serve another four years in the White House.
Most polls also show that Mr. Biden is neck and neck with or losing in a theoretical rematch against former President Donald Trump, 77, who remains the prohibitive favorite to win the Republican Party nomination.
Still, unseating an incumbent president in a primary race is an uphill battle. Mr. Uygur’s trek is even more challenging because he was not born in the United States.
Article II of the Constitution reads in part: “No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President.”
The Constitution does not define “natural born citizen,” and the Constitutional Convention of 1787 left no evidence of discussion about the term.
The Supreme Court has no precedent on the qualifications to serve as president.
Mr. Uygur said the Constitution’s 5th and 14th amendments give due process to all citizens, meaning those not born in the U.S. are guaranteed equal rights, including the chance to serve as president.
He said a grade school “mythology” teaches that only people born in the U.S. can serve as president. He points to the 1964 case Schneider v. Rusk, in which the high court grappled with a naturalized citizen being stripped of her citizenship for returning to her home country for a few years. The court ruled that under the Constitution, naturalized citizens had to be treated the same as those born in America who wouldn’t be subject to having their citizenship stripped if they moved abroad for a while.
Mr. Uygur said this aspect of his campaign touches a “raw nerve” with the more than 20 million naturalized citizens living in the U.S., a “silent majority.” He also said it’s a civil rights issue.
Mr. Uygur believes he will win on the issue and plans to take his legal fight to the highest court. “We are going to end this mythology,” he said.
Legal scholars said a win for Mr. Uygur, at least in the courts, is unlikely.
“This is a pretty open-and-shut case. The Constitution requires that you be a natural-born citizen. That does not envision naturalization as a way of becoming a citizen. It says natural born, so I believe this candidate will not be eligible to run for president and is not,” said Adam Winkler, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Michael W. McConnell, a law professor at Stanford University and former federal circuit court judge, said Mr. Uygur’s challenge “has approximately zero chance of success.”
Mr. Uygur launched his campaign against a leader of the Democratic Party whose favorability rating is fading. Mr. Biden has a 40% approval rate, down from about 55% when he entered office in 2021.
He joins a field of offbeat liberals seeking to replace Mr. Biden, including Marianne Williamson. The author and spiritual thought leader is seeking the Democratic nomination again after catching the attention of some liberal voters with her 2020 run.
Also in the mix are environmental lawyer, writer and political scion Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who quit his Democratic run to vie as an independent presidential candidate, and left-wing activist Cornel West, who also is running as an independent.
Mr. Uygur was born in Turkey and immigrated to the U.S. when he was 8. He graduated from the Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania.
In 2020, he ran unsuccessfully for Congress in California. In previous presidential elections, he supported Sen. Bernard Sanders, a democratic socialist from Vermont.
• Alex Swoyer can be reached at aswoyer@washingtontimes.com.
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