Arpaio says comedian punked him in interview

Joe Arpaio, the pardoned former county sheriff who is running for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate, says he was punked by comedian Sacha Baron Cohen in a fake interview. “I’m kind of disappointed I fell for their trap,” Arpaio said of the interview, which veered into off-color topics.

Fresh off his pardon last summer, Joe Arpaio says he was punked by comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, who used flattery and the promise of a large audience to lure the former Maricopa County sheriff to a fake interview.

Arpaio, who is now running for the Republican nomination for Arizona’s open U.S. Senate seat, recalled the episode as “rather bizarre,” with the questions veering into off-color topics such as “hand jobs” and “golden showers.”

“I’m kind of disappointed I fell for their trap,” Arpaio, 86, said Thursday during a telephone interview in between campaign stops.

In retrospect, Arpaio told The Arizona Republic, he should have vetted the media request, but he no longer has a large staff of press secretaries.

Arpaio said those involved in the elaborate production told him they were hoping the show would be picked up by Showtime, and bragged about landing Sarah Palin, U.S. Sen. John McCain’s 2008 running mate, for a separate interview.

Arpaio said he realized he’d been duped earlier this week, after he saw that Palin was lashing out at the British comedian after being tricked into an appearance herself for his new series, “Who Is America?”

Others, including former Vice President Dick Cheney and failed Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore, also apparently were snookered by Cohen.

“I start thinking, ‘Wait a minute, this could be the interview I had, too,’ ” Arpaio said. “I was kind of mad at myself.”

Arpaio said last year, he got a call from someone who he thought represented a foreign journalist. The person on the other end of the line told him he was “one of the top 20 people in the United States,” or even the world. At the time, Arpaio was lending his name to a GOP activist in California who was running for Congress. He agreed to the interview.

A driver picked him up from a Los Angeles airport and drove him directly to a studio, which Arpaio said looked like a warehouse.

He said the studio looked a little “strange.” He said he saw smoke.

Arpaio said the interviewer had a beard and described himself as a famous journalist from Finland. The interview lasted for about an hour.

“They got a little nasty, some nasty wording during the interview,” Arpaio recalled. He tried to focus the interview on his efforts on illegal immigration, his management of his former office’s Tent City and his support of President Donald Trump. Arpaio said he grew suspicious, especially after the interviewer began to “zero in on sex.”

“I started to get a little angry, a little sad, but I went through it,” he said.

Those questions, he said, involved connotations about “hand jobs” and “what do you call it? Golden showers,” he said, referring to the term for the sexual act involving urination.

“I’m thinking, ‘Wait a minute. What the hell does this got to do with the interview?” he said. Still, Arpaio endured the “interview” and didn’t walk out.

“I know Palin said she cut it loose and left,” Arpaio said. “I never leave. You know me, I never left the interview, I went to the bitter end.”