In a uniquely 2020 move, comedian Sacha Baron Cohen just gave Rudy Giuliani his very own October Surprise. Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, the highly anticipated sequel to Baron Cohen’s Borat, might be this year’s most timely movie yet: the film sees Baron Cohen reprise his role as a Kazakhstani reporter, this time traveling to America during the COVID-19 pandemic. The best part? Baron Cohen successfully pranked Mike Pence and Rudy Giuliani into appearing in the film, but it’s Giuliani’s cameo — and response — that are truly surreal.
Giuliani, who believed he was conducting a real interview about Donald Trump’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, was instead filmed in an, um, compromising position with Maria Bakalova, who portrays Borat’s 15-year-old daughter. Here’s how it plays out: Giuliani, alone in a bedroom with Bakalova, is seen lying down on a bed. While Bakalova stands in front of him, he puts his hand down his pants and moves it around for several moments before Baron Cohen, dressed in pink lingerie, bursts into the room and yells that his daughter is 15. Giuliani sits up and asks, “Why are you dressed like this?”
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“She’s my daughter. Please take me instead,” Borat (Baron Cohen) insists. “I don’t want you,” Giuliani says, before leaving the room.
The sequence was captured by a hidden camera, and it’s unknown what happened before or after. But Giuliani has already gone into defense mode. And here's how that's playing out so far: “The Borat video is a complete fabrication,” he tweeted on Wednesday. “I was tucking in my shirt after taking off the recording equipment.”
But Giuliani’s explanation to WABC Radio is even weirder. “At one point, [Bakalova] explained to me some problems she had. I actually prayed with her,” he said. “And then I had to leave. I had my jacket on. I was fully clothed at all times.” He continued that the prank was “a hit job” in response to his recent allegations against Hunter Biden. Does this mean he believes Baron Cohen is somehow in cahoots with the Democratic party? We have a lot of questions.
Also, it’s important to note that the scene was filmed long before Giuliani passed Delaware authorities a hard drive that allegedly contained Hunter Biden’s texts and emails. In July, Giuliani told the New York Post that Baron Cohen, wearing “a pink bikini with lace,” interrupted what he believed to be a legitimate interview. “This person comes in yelling and screaming, and I thought this must be a scam or a shake-down, so I reported it to the police. He then ran away,” Giuliani recalled. “I only later realized it must have been Sacha Baron Cohen. I thought about all the people he previously fooled and I felt good about myself because he didn’t get me.”
At the time, Giuliani also praised Baron Cohen. “I am a fan of some of his movies, Borat in particular,” he added, calling the film “pretty funny.” But now, he seems to be on some sort of crazed revenge path against both Borat (who he seems to think is a real person in the interview) and Hunter Biden (who he seems to think is in cahoots with the Borat filmmakers). OK!
It would be safe to say, though, that Giuliani is not laughing anymore. In a Thursday morning tweet, which has since been deleted, he wrote, “I got the cops on Borat. And I finally got the FBI on the #BidenCrimeFamily.”