When Sacha Baron Cohen met Republican Roy Moore, he brought a ‘paedophile detector’
The former US Senate candidate lost a special election last year amid allegations he initiated a sexual encounter with a 14-year-old girl when he was in his 30s
Sacha Baron Cohen reliably churns out cringeworthy moments on his new Showtime series Who is America?, but Sunday night’s episode may be the most uncomfortable yet.
Cohen – who shows up as various characters in the satirical series – played fake Israeli anti-terrorism expert, General Erran Morad, as he interviewed former Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore. And “Morad” brought along “the latest Israeli gadget”: a wand that detects paedophiles.
Republican Moore lost the December 2017 special election to fill an empty Alabama Senate seat to the Democratic candidate, Doug Jones, amid allegations that when Moore was a local prosecutor in his 30s, he initiated a sexual encounter with a 14-year-old girl.
Several weeks ago, Moore hinted that he had been tricked by Cohen, and blasted Showtime for deceiving fellow conservative politicians and personalities.
According to Moore, he received an expenses-paid trip in February to Washington to “receive an award for my strong support of Israel,” he wrote in a statement. “I did not know Sacha Cohen or that a Showtime TV series was being planned to embarrass, humiliate, and mock not only Israel, but also religious conservatives such as Sarah Palin, Joe Walsh, and Dick Cheney.”
He added that Cohen’s “art is trickery, deception, and dishonesty” and “as an American, I would never hide my identity and deceive others only to mock and ridicule them as this Showtime series is designed to do.”
In Sunday’s episode, Cohen-as-Morad sits down with Moore and details some fake Israeli research: Sex offenders, “particularly the paedophiles”, secrete an enzyme at “three times the levels of non-perverts”, so Israel has “developed a machine used in schools and playgrounds to detect anyone coming in.”
The fake anti-terrorism expert then takes out a wand that sort of looks like a handheld metal detector. “It’s very simple to use,” he says. “You just switch it on, and because neither of us are sex offenders, it makes absolutely nothing.” The wand beeps every time Cohen puts it near Moore.