Corey Lewandowski Defends Neo-Nazis In Sacha Baron Cohen’s ‘Who Is America?’
Corey Lewandowski did his reputation no favors by accepting an interview with comedian Sacha Baron Cohen.
Of course, the former Trump campaign manager didn’t know he was being interviewed by Cohen. Instead, Cohen posed as the fictitious Finnish YouTube star OMGWhizzboyOMG, or Billy Wayne Ruddick Jr., who runs an Alex Jones-style right-wing conspiracy theory website called Truthbrary.com.
Cohen has already embarrassed a number of politicians and entertainers on his political satire show, Who Is America, leading to public humiliation and even resignations. According to CNN, a Georgia Republican representative was forced to resign after Cohen duped him into saying the word “n****r” several times on air in one episode, while just last week, former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio was fooled into saying that he would even be willing to accept oral sex from Donald Trump if the president so desired.
And now Cohen’s latest prey is Lewandowski, who has recently been in the news for all the wrong reasons after he mocked an immigrant child with Down syndrome. This time, Cohen publicly defended neo-Nazis, saying it was alright for “honest fascists” to have their opinions heard.
“Why should the president pick a side between anti-fascists and fascists?” Cohen asks Lewandowski in the fifth episode of his show, which aired on the one-year anniversary of Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville which had led to violence and the death of a counterprotester.
“You have to respect them, you can’t be attacking them,” Lewandowski says of the white supremacists.
“You can’t be attacking honest, fascist people that just want to express their right to start a genocide,” Cohen continues, attempting to bait Lewandowski into a clearly skewed response. “That is their right.”
10pm #whoisamerica #charlottesville pic.twitter.com/aJ1rHXcu4R
— Sacha Baron Cohen (@SachaBaronCohen) August 12, 2018
Lewandowski’s remarks are similar to what Trump himself said after violence in Charlottesville last August, calling both fascists and anti-fascists “very fine people,” a statement that had generated widespread backlash at the time.
The former Trump campaign manager has remained loyal to President Trump even after being ousted from working in any official capacity within the administration and has continued to generate controversy with inflamed rhetoric on news media channels. In June, Lewandowski rolled his eyes and now-infamously said “womp, womp” when Democratic strategist Zac Petkanas shared the story of a 10-year-old child with Down syndrome who was separated from his mother at the border, according to the Daily Mail.
Cohen also baited other prominent Trump supporters in the episode, including Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, who claimed that he wouldn’t have liked to “take sides” if he was asked to dispense a group of fascists in 1930s Germany.
