The owner of a California gun store appeared on Fox & Friends to discuss his encounter with actor Sacha Baron Cohen, who appeared at his shop pretending to be a Hungarian immigrant.
Norris Sweidan, owner of Warrior One Guns & Ammo, received a call in 2017 from someone who said they were making a documentary about a Hungarian immigrant who wanted to purchase a gun. Cohen proceeded to show up at his store in full costume with a film crew.
Sweidan was suspicious as soon as Cohen walked through the door. "When he walked in that disguise, he just looked stupid. Tight pants, big boots, you can see, I mean that beard, a dumb looking hat. And then, you know, he didn’t say much. He wouldn’t make eye contact with me. And you have to understand, in the gun business we pay attention to people."
Sweidan quickly recognized Cohen’s true identity, prompting the actor to leave the shop. "He kept looking at the producers. As soon as I kept trying to make eye contact with him, I was like, yeah, you’re Borat. As soon as I said that–you can see in the [security] video–he took off." Borat is a 2006 comedy film in which Cohen starred as a fictional Kazakh journalist traveling through the United States.
Cohen recently premiered a new show called "Who is America?" on Showtime. The show features Cohen conversing with lawmakers and other prominent figures while in disguise. Former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin condemned Cohen for disguising himself as a disabled veteran in order to interview her.
In the first episode, Cohen got several gun advocates to express support for children as young as three years old to carry guns in school. It also features the president of the Virginia Citizen Defense League, Philip Van Cleave, playing along to a training video involving guns made to look like stuffed animals.
"The disturbing part is, I'll be dead honest with you, is about how they're mocking the Second Amendment, how they're mocking guns ... and you got political people, you got congressman that fell– you want to arm kindergartners, that's your answer?" Sweidan said. "You can't mock our Second Amendment."
"You have politicians that fell for this ... come on people, don't mock our Second Amendment," he added. "It's a serious job. I love my job. I love my customers."
"Showtime should be ashamed," he added during the interview.
Sweidan has further condemned both Cohen and Showtime. "[Cohen] was fake, the producers were fake, the show was fake, and Showtime is fake, to be honest with you," Cohen said in a separate interview with a Fox affiliate, "They want a real story, come talk to us. We’ll give you a real story."