Brian Tyler Cohen (born January 12, 1989) is an Americanprogressive[1]YouTuber,podcast host,[2] author,[3] political commentator, andMSNBC contributor.[4] His political podcast isNo Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen. On hisYouTube channel, he interviews political figures, reports on politics, and live-streams events, including debates and election results.[5] As of November 2025, his channel had more than 4.88 million subscribers and has received more than 4.4 billion views.[6]
On February 25, 2022, Cohen became the first YouTube creator/podcaster to interview U.S. presidentJoe Biden.[7]
In 2011, Cohen graduated fromLehigh University inBethlehem, Pennsylvania, with a BS degree in business and economics and a BA degree in English. He addressed the graduating class of 2011 as its class president.[8][9]
Cohen acted in a handful of film and television roles from 2012 to 2016.[10] In October 2018, he started posting political content on his YouTube channel, which primarily covers national politics. In June 2020, he started his first podcast,No Lie, during the midst of theCOVID-19 pandemic. Cohen has since created multiple shows on his channel, co-hostingDemocracy Watch with voting rights lawyer andDemocracy Docket founderMarc Elias[11] andThe Legal Breakdown with former federal prosecutorGlenn Kirschner.[12]
In addition to hosting podcasts and creating YouTube videos, Cohen has been a speaker atNetroots Nation,[13] Collision[14] andWeb Summit in Lisbon.[5] He had been an occasional contributor toThe Huffington Post prior to launching his show.[9] Cohen has worked for the websiteOccupy Democrats as a writer[15] and on-camera host.[16] On June 22, 2023,MSNBC announced that Cohen would be joining the network as a political contributor.[17] He made his national television debut as an MSNBC contributor onThe ReidOut on July 20, 2023.[4]
Cohen is the co-founder of Chorus Creator Incubator Program, a program launched in the wake of the2024 presidential election to build a progressive creator's ecosystem.[18][19]
Cohen is critical ofmainstream media, citing the fact that most Americans now rely onnew media rather than television news.[20] He has criticized theDemocratic Party for what he perceived as an overreliance on mainstream media and argued that podcasts and YouTube shows reach wider audiences.[21]
On August 13, 2024, Cohen's debut book,Shameless: Republicans' Deliberate Dysfunction and the Battle to Preserve Democracy,[a] was published by the flagshipHarper imprint ofHarperCollins.[3] In it, Cohen outlines his evaluation of the current state of theRepublican Party and what theDemocrats and everyone who wants to protectdemocracy should do about it.[22] It was met with favorable reviews.[b][23]Shameless debuted at number one onThe New York Times nonfiction best-seller list for the week ending August 17, 2024, and remained on the list for three weeks.[24]
^In Shameless, he skillfully chronicles Republicans’ decades-long descent into a politics of dysfunction, disinformation and personal destruction ... A must-read. — Speaker Nancy Pelosi
^"The insidious reason Tucker Carlson supports the Canadian trucker protest".No Lie on 13 Feb 2022
