Sacha Baron Cohen has been on one hell of a roll lately with his new Showtime series Who Is America? For instance, he recently secured the resignation of a Georgia Republican lawmaker who was filmed shouting racial epithets and literally showing his ass.
In his latest episode, Baron Cohen—in the guise of Israeli counterterrorism expert “Erran Morad”—sat down with accused child molester and disgraced former Senate candidate Roy Moore, ostensibly to discuss high-tech military innovations capable, he claimed, of detecting biological markers unique to pedophiles. And wouldn’t you know it—when Baron Cohen demonstrated one of these inventions, it seemed to detect something odd about Moore.
Baron Cohen feigned shock and confusion as the wand he was wielding repeatedly began beeping when waved over Moore’s chest.
“It must be faulty, it’s malfunctioning,” he apologized as the “detector” beeped over and over again.
“I’ve been married for 33 [years]” Moore said, clearly agitated. “I’ve never had an accusation of such things,” he added, in spite of very credible, very public allegations that he repeatedly engaged in inappropriate—and in at least one case, illegal—sexual conduct with a number of young girls.
“Maybe Israeli technology hasn’t developed properly” Moore said, before declaring that he was “simply cutting this conversation right now.”
“I support Israel, I don’t support this kind of stuff,” he added as he walked off camera.
Ironically, the segment began with Baron Cohen’s character saying, in Hebrew, “don’t say anything stupid.” Moore...did not follow that advice.