Uygur calls rival Sharpton an Obama cheerleader

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Responding to a reader poll on Thursday night, Current TV’s “The Young Turks” host Cenk Uygur suggested that Al Sharpton, whose MSNBC program “PoliticsNation” airs at the same time as Uygur’s, is a cheerleader for President Barack Obama.

The Current reader poll Uygur was responding to showed that 84 percent of his viewers believed he was not being too tough on President Obama. Making good on his promise for “real interaction” with viewers, Uyger defended himself and pointed to Sharpton as the alternative.

“If [Obama's] wrong about something, I’ve got to tell you,” Uygur insisted. “I can’t be like, ‘Give me an O! Give me a B! Obama’s great!’ If you want that kind of show, go to Al Sharpton.”

“Did I say that?” he quipped immediately thereafter, drawing groans and laughter from the rest of his crew.

Uygur, whose first week of shows on Current TV ends today, has been strident in his criticism of the liberal MSNBC network, which he left in July after being offered his own prime time program and a substantial raise.

“I didn’t want to work at a place that didn’t want me to do my kind of show, that wasn’t interested in my kind of show, didn’t want to challenge power,” he explained at the time.

Uygur later told fellow former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann that he felt like MSNBC sacrifices truth for access to elected officials, and he wanted no part in it.

This video is from Current TV’s “The Young Turks,” broadcast Thursday, Dec. 8, 2011.