Sacha Baron Cohen's new TV show Who is America launches

POLITICAL prankster Sacha Baron Cohen has piled on the comic pummelling his British countrymen gave Donald Trump over the weekend — exposing some of the Republican party’s biggest names in his new TV series, which launched today.

The Borat and Ali G star takes on a number of outrageous, and sometimes seemingly obvious, guises in Who Is America? — filmed undercover over the past year for a seven-part Showtime comedy, which presses many of the social and political hot buttons dividing America.

Strict global embargoes around the program have keep most of his stings secret, but for those

‘victims’ who outed themselves and went after Cohen clearly to minimise the damage their

appearances will cause.

And judging by their furious response and the media reaction even before the first episode aired, they have at least been successful in turning the narrative around to whether Cohen is an anarchic genius or just a very naughty boy.

While many targets now claim the program misrepresented themselves to engage the celebrity and political commentators involved, what they were willing to do and say should still embarrass and shame.

In a trailer released last week, former Vice President Dick Cheney is shown signing his ‘first

waterboarding kit.’

In the opening episode, one Cohen’s new characters — as a gun-loving Israeli military trainer, Colonel Evvan Morad — enlists NRA evangelist Philip van Cleave, conservative pundit Joe Walsh and other Congressmen to film a video campaigning for toddlers to be armed.

Democrats Senator Bernie Sanders also sits down with Cohen as Billy Wayne Ruddick Jr, who

purports to run Truthbrary, an online alternative to ‘fake news’ — but argues over Ruddick’s theory of solving poverty by simply moving the 99 per cent in with the one per cent on the nation’s rich list.

Former vice-Presidential candidate, Sarah Palin and disgraced Alabama senator, Roy Moore, called Cohen “evil, exploitative and sick” after being “duped” by the same character, who they claimed had been disguised as a disabled US veteran.

But Cohen defended the claim in a letter issued as Ruddick, stating ‘I did NOT say I was a War Vet.

I was in the service — not military but United Parcel and I only fought for my country when I shot a Mexican who came onto my property.”

He wrote, “Coincidentally, just like our President, I was sadly prevented from joining the regular army on account of bone spurs bein’ [sic] discovered in my testicles.”

Signing off, Ruddick challenges Palin, writing: “you used to hunt the most dangerous animals in the country, like wolves and people on welfare. So why hunt a fine citizen journalist like myself?”

Another character, ex prisoner Rick Sherman meets with a Malibu gallery owner, who is filmed plucking out her own pubic hair to provide to the fledging artist, who told her he’d begun painting with his own faeces and the bodily fluids of his cellmates while in jail.

The series is streaming in Australia on Stan.

holly.byrnes@news.com.au

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