President Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, has been caught up in Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest “Borat” parody, seen in an edited scene after an actress impersonating a reporter in a bedroom and, at one point, resting on the bed and putting his hands on his trousers in what he later said was an effort to change his clothes.
Still, photos and scene descriptions of Mr. Cohen’s upcoming “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm,” which will be released on Friday, were posted on social media early Wednesday after The Guardian announced that the film featured a “compromise scene” featuring Mr. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City.
Late Wednesday, Mr. Giuliani called to the WABC radio station in New York to say that he had been tucking his shirt after cutting microphone wires. He called for early release of the scene to a scheme to undermine his latest attempts to press charges of corruption against Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s son, Hunter Biden.
“The video of Borat is a full production,” Mr. Giuliani, 76, tweeted after he got out of the air. “I was never wrong at any time before, during or after the interview. If Sacha Baron Cohen means otherwise he’s a stone-cold liar.
“I called the police,” he said in a quick text exchange on Wednesday. “He and all his crew ran away, leaving behind their supplies.”
ImageSacha Baron Cohen in the “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” scene. The actor has ensnared many Republican politicians with his in-camera pranks.
Sacha Baron Cohen in the “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” scene. The actor has ensnared many Republican politicians for his camera pranks. Credit … Amazon Studios, from Associated Press.
A clip that appeared on social media, heavily edited to suit the actor’s signature mockumentary style, begins with Mr. Giuliani sitting on a sofa, answering questions. Shortly afterward, the actress, who talks with a strong Eastern European accent, asks the former mayor if they should continue their conversation in the bedroom. Mr. Giuliani accepts and is then seen lying on a bed, while she appears to be taking off her microphone and appears to be patting her.
The segment then cuts to the image of Mr. Giuliani, lying on the bed, putting his hands on the front of his pants.
“I had to take off the electronic equipment,” said Mr. Giuliani to the hosts of the “Curtis & Juliet Show.” “And when the electronic equipment came off, some of it was in the back, and my shirt came out a little, but my clothes were all on. I leaned back, and I tucked my shirt in, and at that moment, at that moment, they’ve got a photo that looks doctored, but in any case, I’m tucking my shirt in. I assure you, that’s all I did.
The scene ends with Mr. Cohen, dressed in an outlandish pink outfit, running into the room and screaming that the woman, played by the actor Maria Bakalova, was 15 years old (she is 24, according to IMDb).
Mr. Giuliani said that Mr. Cohen was terrified by his call to the police, bolted away, and left him talking to the filmmaker’s lawyer.
The former mayor is not the first Republican official to be caught in one of Mr. Cohen’s cringe-inducing pranks.
In 2018, Mr. Cohen fooled former G.O.P. Senate nominee Roy Moore of Alabama into giving him an interview for the showtime comedy show “Who is America?” Later in 2018, a Republican representative in Georgia resigned after being tricked into repeatedly shouting a racial epithet at Mr. Cohen’s Showtime series.
Sarah Palin, former governor of Alaska, and a 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate accused Mr. Cohen of pretending to be a disabled veteran to land an interview with her, which she claimed was part of his repeated efforts to humiliate and devalue middle-class Americans.
“He has a lot of people — Newt Gingrich,” said Mr. Giuliani, who insisted that Mr. Cohen had not been taken in.
“He had Donald Trump before he was president.” Mr. Cohen’s latest film, “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of the Prodigious Bribe to the American Regime to Make Profit Once the Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,” is scheduled to be released on Amazon Prime on Friday.
