(May 14, 2019 – Source: Getty Images North America)
*Sacha Baron Cohen believes too many people misread Donald Trump, and he has his own strange encounter with him to draw from.
Baron Cohen spoke Wednesday at the 92nd Street Y in New York, where Josh Horowitz recorded “Happy Sad Confused” before a live audience, Variety reports.
“I mean, how has he survived a second term? People underestimated him,” Baron Cohen said. “We were too easy to dismiss him as a nincompoop. There are elements of brilliance to him, otherwise.”
As evidence, he cited Trump’s return to the White House and “the fact that he’s transforming this country.” He kept his own verdict to himself. “I won’t say positively or negatively,” he said.
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Humor plays a big part, too. Baron Cohen called Trump “amusing” during a separate chat with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway on the Pivot podcast. He said he hears “a huge amount of comedy in the way he speaks.”
“He’s intentionally being funny,” he said. “And if you have a look on the far right, they use comedy and sarcasm as an engaging way to dismiss criticisms.”
Baron Cohen got a close look at Trump in 2003, when the businessman sat for an Ali G interview years before his reality TV fame. The meeting ended badly.
“I actually met a woman who was in the car with him after that interview, and he was apparently furious,” Baron Cohen said. “He actually went out publicly a couple of times to criticize me. And in the end, we used all those clips and used them to advertise another show that I did.”
The tension began before the cameras rolled. “As Ali G, I had the privilege of sitting with some of the smartest and most powerful people in the world, and all of them were punctual,” Baron Cohen said. “Donald Trump kept us waiting for about 40 minutes.”
The delay rattled him. Baron Cohen said he felt “intimidated” as Trump yelled into a phone at Rudy Giuliani. The language, he said, was “not for the likes of delicate Jewish ears.”
“Later on, I heard that he used to do that with other people,” Baron Cohen said. “It really was a power move.”
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