Sacha Baron Cohen Defends Trump Accusation, Breaks Down Giuliani Scene in Colbert Interview
Warning: Some spoilers below for “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.”
British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen retaliated against President Donald Trump and his attorney Rudy Giuliani during an appearance on Stephen Colbert’s “The Late Show” on Monday.
On Trump’s accusation that he’s a “creep” and a “phoney,” Baron Cohen said: “I’m sure when he was hanging out with his good friend Jeffrey Epstein, they probably spent a lot of their time talking about how creepy I am and yes, I am a professional phoney like him.”
Baron Cohen recalled interviewing Trump in his Ali G avatar several years ago and revealed that the president-to-be did not see through him, despite claiming to do so later. He also said that Trump’s “face dropped” when he realized that the track-suit-wearing Ali G persona would be the one interviewing him, rather than the tweed-jacketed “Etonian” British show producer.
Baron Cohen’s film “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” began streaming on Amazon Prime Video on Oct. 23. One of the film’s most notorious scenes is a sequence featuring Giuliani and 24-year-old actor Maria Bakalova, who plays Borat’s 15-year-old daughter Tutar. In the scene, Tutar, posing as a conservative TV journalist, interviews the former New York City mayor in a hotel room. They eventually head into a bedroom and Giuliani is heard saying, “You can give me your phone number and your address” and lays back on the bed to fiddle with his trousers. Borat eventually bursts into the room shouting, “She’s 15. She’s too old for you.”
Giuliani has since denied he was doing anything untoward, claiming he was merely tucking in his shirt. Colbert asked, “Do you have anything to say to Rudy Giuliani about going into a bedroom with a supposedly teenage girl to drink whiskey and zip your pants up and down?”
“Well, he said that he did nothing inappropriate, and you know, my feeling is if he sees that as appropriate, then heaven knows what he’s intended to do with other women in hotel rooms with a glass of whiskey in his hand,” said Baron Cohen.
The comedian said he was present in the room via a specially built hideaway, with an internal lock, in the wardrobe that measured around 6-foot-5 and 3 feet wide. “I was in there for the entire scene. My only means of communication was that I would jump out at a necessary point. I would know what [Giuliani] was doing via text messages with the director,” said Baron Cohen, who later joked that his phone was only on 3% battery while he was in the hideaway.
He also noted that Giuliani had also brought with him to the interview a security guard, who was an ex-cop, that did an entire sweep of the room, including the wardrobe, before the interview.
“Rudy thought he was alone with her,” explained Baron Cohen. “The security guard, ex-cop, sits outside the room, ensuring that no one could come in and out, which is actually even more scary, when you think about it, for her.”
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