You can’t have a moment out of character.”. Mr. Trump, who used to spend an inordinate amount of time gossiping about celebrities, went nuts, tweeting and making a YouTube video about how rude the stunt was. More with Sacha Baron Cohen after the break. He said he moved in with two conspiracy theorists for a few days for the new “Borat” to show “that they’re ordinary folks who are good people, who have just been fed this diet of lies. “I made a mistake with her. And it was Holocaust denial site. He’s like, what is this machine with four legs? You’re usually Ali G or Borat or Bruno, but you decided to give this speech as yourself. And so we’ll lose elections. They were stunts — that were of — political stunts to be effective. Sacha Baron Cohen is an observant Jew who speaks Hebrew and works with the Anti-Defamation League on “Stop Hate for Profit,” a campaign to stem the bile on social media. I don’t find him funny, but his crowd found him really funny. And our daughter, Malala, is obliged to urinate standing up.”, Mr. Baron Cohen explained that his aim was “to challenge and mock the absurdity of the extreme left, too,” faulting “the ineffectiveness of extremists on the left who are unable to ask a simple question because there’s so many qualifications before every sentence so that they don’t offend anyone.”. And I remember one of the committee asked Brett Kavanaugh to swear before God that what he said was correct, and that was enough for the committee member. Under the law, you are not permitted in my room. There’s a scene with a top Trump adviser in “Borat Subsequent Movie Film: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” (premiering on Oct. 23 on Amazon) that will leave you gobsmacked. It’s a lie that they’re using to make money. “Listen, I do get embarrassed,” he said, but “when I go into character, I get fully immersed in it to the degree that I’m almost locked into the character.”, Mr. Baron Cohen believes, as Abbie Hoffman said, that “Sacred cows make the tastiest hamburger.”, In “Who Is America?,” he satirized the left with a character who is a professor of gender and women’s studies at Reed College. You think we should do it here? What if a country didn’t like carrots? I think I’d be too infuriated with stuff and I wouldn’t be able to control myself. I poked my head out from underneath the tablecloth with a sign to my daughter, saying, “Don’t do it.” And she’s like, you know, and essentially, Rudy was slightly suspicious. Exactly, but I did actually — actually, coincidentally, my wife studied under his rival French clown teacher, but anyway. “Luckily, we’re not A-list,” he said. But yeah, I was relying on the Jason Woliner, the director, and Ant Hines to text me. And the way to do that is, you make the next thing that you see increasingly more extreme. He blames two things: Donald Trump and social media. Mr. Baron Cohen said he and his wife, Isla Fisher, go happily unnoticed by paparazzi. And we were told that the cop would sweep the room. So everything else is Aaron’s painting rather than a photograph. One study, done by Zignal Labs, found that after Twitter removed Trump, there was a 73% drop in disinformation about the election on social media. They claim that their artificial intelligence catches most of the inappropriate content, but they claim that their real world content moderators can’t keep up with the volume. I think the role of comedy is important. I trust the audience, and everyone can watch the movie and judge for themselves. That was how we avoided having photographers at the wedding. He puts out statements that make headlines. They loved me being naughty, being funny and potentially embarrassing them amongst their friends.”. And then you have this fundamental realization that a lot of these people, they’re incredibly smart in a tiny area, but they should not be given the reins of power. So that does not apply to private businesses like Twitter and Facebook. The professor believes that “the world’s most dangerous chemical weapon is testosterone” and refers to “President Hillary Clinton.” He cycles and wears an N.P.R. Unless you count fleeing crazed Americans. I didn’t know anyone who was a successful actor. So they’ve been lying, right? And let’s talk about a group you called the Silicon Six. And why did you not wait a little longer before bursting out of the closet to see what he would do? I wanted to join a theater company called Theater de Complicité So I never thought I was going to have my own TV show. It would put people to work. Special thanks to Shannon Busta, Liriel Higa, and Kathy Tu. This period will be looked on as absurd that governments did not intervene earlier, that these people were allowed to profit off spreading lies that lead to mass death. He, of course, denies it. I was very reluctant to do it, and—. In “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm,” he revived his role as a Kazakh journalist touring America. And you’ll get new ones delivered directly to you. Why? I know in your 2019 speech, you suggested Zuckerberg and other social media CEOs should get jail time, if their platforms continued to be tools of violence or election interference. Reviving his Borat character and playing the political activist Abbie Hoffman, the actor feels he “had to ring the alarm bell and say that democracy is in peril this year.”, Leading man: Sacha Baron Cohen’s riotous characters have perhaps masked his dramatic abilities.Credit...Buck Ellison for The New York Times. “She was hilarious,” he said. I felt, even if it was going to destroy my career and people are going to come at me and say, ‘Just shut up, the last thing we need is another celebrity telling us what to do’ — I fully understand people who do that — I felt I needed to do that to live with myself.”. And this is going to lead to the end of democracy. The real estate dealer said that Mr. Seacrest’s security guard should have “pummeled” and “punched” Mr. Baron Cohen “in the face so many times, he wouldn’t have known what happened.” He said the comedian should have ended up in the hospital. So my point is if they could be held liable for enabling pedophiles who use their site to endanger kids, then why can’t we hold these companies responsible for those who use their sites for advocating the mass murder of kids because of their race or religion. Your favorite Adam Sandler movie is “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan.”. As Ali G, Mr. Baron Cohen pitched Donald Trump an ice cream glove that would prevent your hand from getting sticky. “I thought he was seriously retarded,” Mr. Trump said after walking out. So, yes, that’s part of the reason why he was so effective and so entertaining. “Borat" was the reason she got divorced. It’s the people who are spreading these lies and conspiracies. So you recently tweeted, “Borat is an absurdity, and the Chicago Seven really happened. Correct. Oh, it’s difficult because they’ve been saying it for so many years. But Facebook and social media companies spread the very same lies to millions of people because they’re protected by 230. “Sway” is a production of New York Times Opinion. Yeah, sure, I would have taken $100,000. But out of character, he’s very private, even a bit shy. As a result of that, we built a little hideaway for me inside a wardrobe. call out Mark Zuckerberg and “the Silicon Six.”, getting Dick Cheney to sign a waterboarding kit for him, white nationalist rally in Charlottesville. Artist who tricked Sacha Baron Cohen into falling for Covid graffiti hits back with tongue-in-cheek wall dedicated to the Borat star. I listen to your podcast, and I read your articles. “Then I ended up hiding in the bathroom, listening to conservative men go to the toilet for five hours until I broke into the room. I had been wary of the dangers of social media for a number of years. It’s nice having a trailer. Are they pranks? The film shows the horrific treatment of Bobby Seale, who was the only Black defendant. If people watch it more, they can increase the sales of advertising, right? Let’s Ask Beeple. We’re B-listers.’”, He mused that “it seems bizarre that we’re still married in Hollywood after so many years.’’. Well, again, I’m not a historian of that particular period. No, that is false imprisonment. The prankster has no problem sprinting out of a luxury hotel in New York and running down the street in lacy pink lingerie. So it was a fascinating insight to me. Yes, a lot of that stuff is really organized by these troll armies. We give them a head start, and we let them run. You can also make the argument, as several people have to me, is that Hitler didn’t need Twitter, Mussolini didn’t need Instagram. And it was a way to get these members of the upper class to really say what they believed about criminals and ethnic minorities. Kara, thank you for having me on. Would you be OK with Twitter, for example, deplatforming the Borat handle because it’s not a real person, or adding a disclaimer to a hateful or heated tweet? Sacha Baron Cohen is an observant Jew who speaks Hebrew and works with the Anti-Defamation League on “Stop Hate for Profit,” a campaign to stem the bile on social media. “We were at a very pretentious party, and me and her bonded over taking the mick out of the other people in the party. And it was a website saying that the six million was a lie. Why? I am instructing you to leave. They don’t allow nipples, but they did allow Nazis, so. If you don’t win elections, it doesn’t matter what’s second. I think tellingly, Rudy has not sued, because he knows that he would lose. He tried to emulate the way that Lenny delivered gags. This is how I’m getting attention. I am unemployed. And then, essentially, I left with the security guard. And I believed that Trump and Trumpism would win again by spreading lies, conspiracies, and hate through social media, conspiracies about the election, and through racism and hate. Last year, Facebook made $86 billion, and they did it with 50,000 employees. We’ve sorted that out. So, listen, I’ve — truth be told, I’ve always been reluctant to be a celebrity. They met in Sydney, Australia, circa 2000. You filmed him. Currently, Facebook and companies like it cannot be held liable for the death they cause. They are profiting off of death. And I wanted to capture that seriousness and that subtlety, the contrast between his public dynamism and his sensitivity and occasional private pain. So they were stunts. And then suddenly, I’m Borat. We didn’t have the resources. If you thought the comedian could never do anything wilder than getting Dick Cheney to sign a waterboarding kit for him in his 2018 Showtime series, “Who Is America?” you would be wrong. ), The actor started his speech by saying that, to be clear, “when I say ‘racism, hate and bigotry,’ I’m not referring to the names of Stephen Miller’s Labradoodles.” Later he noted that while his stunts could be “juvenile” and “puerile,” at least some are aimed at getting people to reveal what they actually believe, as “when Borat was able to get an entire bar in Arizona to sing ‘Throw the Jew down the well,’ it did reveal people’s indifference to anti-Semitism.”, Scorching the lords of the cloud, he said that Facebook would run and micro-target any “political” ad anyone wants, even if it’s a lie. Do you think it amplifies the malevolence? Yeah, if you’ve been made to believe that Biden was a pedophile and a cannibal and had stolen the election and Trump had won, then yes, it’s logical to march on Washington and maybe to try and overturn that vote. But Vietnam was a lie, right? What’s your price? The second time, I came in as a sound guy. I mean, if they gave a handle explaining that it was satire, I think that’s fine. You did a lot of things in Borat that — and all your characters, where you got them to do things. Because of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. They’re something else. One of them is protest. Yet my personal favorite performance is one Baron Cohen actually delivered as himself. But for me, it’s a little more heavy. Email us at sway@nytimes.com. Sacha Baron Cohen wanted to end “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm,” the sequel to his 2006 smash mockumentary, with a bang. And these are terms you coined for Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Jack Dorsey of Twitter, Susan Wojcicki of YouTube, Sundar Pichai of Alphabet Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, also the founders of Google. Facebook could hire Americans to help protect American democracy, hire Brits to protect British democracy, and the same all over the world, right? Ali G —. And there was a —. So I felt compelled as a human. And my wife studied in L’École Jacques Lecoq. BORAT 2 Official Trailer (2020) Sacha Baron Cohen, Comedy Movie HD© 2020 - Amazon Prime And the ruse was that it was my father’s 70th birthday and that he was a famous chef in England. All right, I have one last question. Bouffon is an early form of satire. It’s not a fun experience making Borat or “Who is America?“. Maybe it’s not. Two, he’s a fascist.’ My dad was born in 1932. And they said, no, we’re not. Social media companies, as you know, they can be held liable for hosting content related to criminal conduct like copyright infringement, sex trafficking, prostitution, and child pornography. I was never friends with her. And I pulled up a website. “Sway” is produced by Nayeema Raza, Heba Elorbany, Matt Kwong, Daphne Chen and Vishakha Darbha and edited by Nayeema Raza and Paula Szuchman; fact-checking by Kate Sinclair; music and sound design by Isaac Jones; mixing by Erick Gomez. He refused for many years to give interviews as himself. Hoffman found space for comedic stunts even in the face of his highly politicized prosecution. Actually, I’ve lost a lot of money. You gave a Zoom toast at Larry David’s wedding to Ashley Underwood, who was a producer on “Who Is America?”. OK, it’s yours. Sacha’s Jewish grandmother Liesel, a ballerina, fled Germany in 1936. He turns around, I had to put the tablecloth down. He’s a genius in a league of his own.”. It’s telling that Aaron chose to replicate that scene from reality. If you’re in a podcast app already, you know how to subscribe to a podcast, so subscribe to this one. Why can’t they hire hundreds of thousands of people to enforce their policies as content moderators? And they would try to put on these plays called bouffon plays that were intended to be really funny, but were intended to completely undermine and destroy the powerful and the establishment. If you were on the dais, very briefly, what would you ask, and what character would it be? I met the parents at a Vanity Fair Oscar party once and they were the most blissful people at that party, where stars often wander about looking bored or resigned. What’s interesting is, you do that, too, and — I hate to say it — this is something Trump does rather well. He said that his father, a native of Wales who was an editor on Fleet Street for a periodical called New Middle East, before he went into the clothing business, sat with him at the kitchen table, when he was still living at home, to edit his first Ali G script. Yeah, Tom Hayden obviously had a political career. So that’s what makes social media perfect for autocrats. This is about giving people, including some of the most reprehensible people on Earth, the biggest platform in history to reach a third of the planet.” I’ve spent years trying to explain why social media companies can’t hide behind the First Amendment. “Essentially, he was trying to be a stand-up comedian,” Mr. Baron Cohen said of the man who co-founded the Yippies and preached flower power. But Abbie never sold out, and he remained true to his ideals. But what about free and fair elections, which are the fundamental pillar of democracy? It’s also about the persistence of systemic racism. Yes, I think there needs to be regulation. The U.S Constitution says that Congress — Congress, not companies — Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech. On set means coming to the minivan, which carried me around when we were shooting ‘Bruno.’ And there ended up being a police chase. More than anyone in public life today, he exposes bias — whether it’s anti-Semitism, homophobia or rank racism — for what it is, shameful and wrenching and ignorant.” (In fact, Mr. Baron Cohen used Hebrew and some Polish as a stand-in for the Kazakh language in Borat. Sacha Baron Cohen plays the cello and is planning to take some Zoom classes from the masters. (And, he has a terrific singing voice, which he showed off in “Sweeney Todd,” “Les Misérables” and at David Geffen’s 75th birthday party, when he sang “If I Were a Rich Man” from “Fiddler on the Roof” and chaffed the billionaires and millionaires in the room that they made up “the world’s third largest economy.”), Mr. Sorkin, who wrote and directed the Chicago 7 film, said that the day Mr. Baron Cohen shot his scene on the witness stand reminded him of the day Jack Nicholson shot his courtroom scene in “A Few Good Men,” noting, “Everyone wanted to watch; 120 extras didn’t care that the camera wasn’t on them, they stayed to watch.”. A room service guy brings in a room service trolley. Rudy calls the cops, lies to them, and says that a federal crime has been committed. It was a keynote address at the 2019 Anti-Defamation League Summit. Far more entertaining than Hillary. So he knows that they’re not going to win. “Well,” said Mr. Baron Cohen, “I might try exercising again because I haven’t done that for seven months.”. You put a series of conspiracies everywhere, and they quickly take over. She once came on set just for fun. OK, so you don’t break into character often. I did the same thing and was quite worried about what was about to happen as I saw it unfold. I mean, we are far less effective as a force often because there is less uniformity. Special thanks to Kathy Tu, Michelle Harris, Shannon Busta and Liriel Higa. Gerald Baron Cohen lived to see the son’s success. General Motors, at its peak in the ‘70s, employed more than 800,000 people around the world. To call off the revolution? I mean, essentially, what I do is I point the camera, and people act as they do. Those with disabilities were allowed in once a year. Other comedians speak of his work with awe, particularly the sketches mocking the left that surely hurt his award prospects in Hollywood. And I felt he was somebody who was struggling quietly. You got into day trading on Robinhood during the lockdown. I felt strongly that he was. He’d seen fascists on the streets, Mosley’s Blackshirts beating up Jews. Baron Cohen’s “victims” are public figures, ranking among the political and pop-cultural elite. Do you have high hopes for the Biden administration or this Congress to do anything, whether breaking them up or changing section 230 to remove liability protections? One, which is even during the pandemic, Facebook and social media companies are making massive profits by spreading lies and conspiracies about COVID and vaccines, right? It’s this kind of radicalization algorithm, which is why I felt I had to say something. And he realized that if he could make people laugh, he could gain attention and recruit more people to the cause. It’s a crucial thing where these people who were marching on the Capitol are not necessarily bad people. Which one do you prefer, the characters that you have or this sort of Abbie Hoffman, which is a more sort of pure acting experience? Ali G pitched Donald Trump about investing in an ice cream glove that would prevent your hand from getting sticky. They can afford it. So, yes, this is about the debate between the left and the far left, which he beautifully encapsulates in the hatred of Abbie Hoffman and Tom Hayden. I never thought I’d be given the money to make a movie. There is some exhilaration when you manage to survive it. Maureen Dowd: You made your dad pose as a famous chef at your wedding? I’ve been following his work, and pestering him for an interview, ever since he first hit America, masquerading as Ali G, a wannabe British rapper, and scamming unsuspecting dignitaries into interviews. “I finished high school and there was a chef called Raymond Blanc who got a Michelin star. He realized that was the new medium, and he realized that, for example, in Austria, if the Nazis took over a lot of the programming on radio, that they could make the invasion and the taking over of Austria easier. Yeah, I would try and get them in a corner and say, listen, this is going on. And no one really cared. "Borat 2" won two Golden Globe awards on Sunday – and, according to Sacha Baron Cohen, it's all thanks to a very special co-star: Rudy Giuliani. Other people — it was like internet detective work on the internet on Twitter for days and days, what he was doing precisely. Amazingly, by the way, Rudy, the president’s lawyer, signed a contract in which he allows the use of hidden cameras. “He was very influenced by Lenny Bruce and he realized that if he could make people laugh, he could get them engaged in the cause.”. “That’s hilarious,’’ Mr. Baron Cohen said, when I remind him about the encounter. And I’ll quote you saying, “This is not about limiting anyone’s free speech. Did you think it was going to get this bad? But this guy, Philippe Gaulier teaches — actually, both of them teach — they’re some of the only people in the world who teach this style of theater called bouffon. And I was appalled by Trump’s Muslim ban and the White nationalist rally in Charlottesville in 2017. He plays for the stunt, for the audience. And I wasn’t seeing the heroism.” That changed when he saw archival footage of Hoffman at a press conference, a moment you recreate in the film. So for example, there was a lot of talk by Zuckerberg of him coming up the election about freedom of speech, which, obviously, I’m a huge defender of. You and I share a passion for calling out their nonsense. They’re going to try and win the hearts. Was there any footage we didn’t see? So I fell in love with him. Read Sacha Baron Cohen's scathing attack on Facebook in full: 'greatest propaganda machine in history' S a c h a B a r o n C o h e n This article is more than 1 year old I am taking a break. He has probably more free speech than just about anyone in the world. So what motivated you to take them on? Mr. Trump, who walked out of the interview in disgust, told me afterward: “I thought he was seriously retarded. Stop being— just be funny. She found the whole thing so upsetting, and she never came back on set again.”. I mean, I’ve loved playing Borat, but it’s sometimes dangerous, and there’s no fun in going out when it’s dangerous. As you know, Rudy has a tremendous amount of respect amongst the NYPD. I wanted to know what drew Baron Cohen to the project and why he thought the story was still relevant 50 years later. And when he takes her clothes shopping, he asks the saleswoman to direct them to the “No means Yes section.”. They’re completely different to the politicians who are motivated by their own power, who realized that they can create fear by spreading these lies through the most effective propaganda machine in history”: social media platforms. He was actually even influenced by Lenny’s trial. summit, Never Is Now. Suddenly, Borat has a real understanding of the law. Would you have taken $100,000 to call the whole thing off? I prefer playing Abbie Hoffman. For example, there’s a scene where his more buttoned-up co-defendant, Tom Hayden, calls him out on doing this. She hadn’t told him that she was in it. Me and my wife introduced him to her at my birthday party. Was he ensorcelled at first sight? We’ll be back in a minute. While he calls himself “this comedian who’s dabbled in a bit of acting over the years,” Mr. Baron Cohen is actually, like all great clowns — yes, he went to clown school, L’Ecole Philippe Gaulier — able to switch easily from light to dark. “In 2005, you needed a character like Borat who was misogynist, racist, anti-Semitic to get people to reveal their inner prejudices,” he said. No one was talking about that, and the Trump government realized that they could undermine that other pillar. There’s so much stuff being uploaded every day. On January 6th, around 5 p.m., you tweeted at Mark, Jack, Susan, and Sundar, saying it’s time to ban Donald Trump from your platform once and for all. He said that his father grew up in poverty, but his parents worked hard to get Sacha and his two older brothers into a good high school and Sacha did well enough on his tests and in his Cambridge interview to get a coveted slot to study history. Two, Facebook and other social media companies— and when I speak to them, they go, Sacha, we’re overwhelmed. [LAUGHS]. Right, Hoffman is obviously a left of center character. “A genius in a league of his own,” according to Bill Maher. “How do I get in and how do I get out?” Security was there to “check everyone’s bodies going through. And he was using these tactics of the bouffon, which is a type of theater that I studied under this French clown teacher. He would occasionally speak as his characters. And I essentially stood there for an hour while the interview was going on. But the one thing we didn’t have was enough battery in the phone. The impact was actually huge. It would stop the lies, save lives, and buttress our democracy. The Silicon Six — all billionaires, all Americans, who care more about boosting their share price than about protecting democracy. And by the way, a lot of the responses I got on Twitter and Facebook were just shut up and be funny. So my thought is—. It seemed like a perversion of justice, a system that didn’t work. So the idea that they are the defenders of free speech is ludicrous. So let me give the context. Sacha Baron Cohen: Correct. Listen, I actually tried to get that movie, to rewrite it, to appear in it. I said, ‘What do you think of him?’ He said, ‘Two things. There’s one time I actually went in there three times. That convinced Abbie that they would go to jail. And then, well, I suppose if it was fair and you gave them at least 20 or so minutes, then yes, I suppose that — you know. I’m a massive fan of yours. And I felt more compelled than ever to play Abbie. In virtually every other industry, you can be sued for the harm you cause publishers. Only a Sacha Baron Cohen interview could end with a fake police raid and a car chase. Borat uses the flower bed in front of the Trump hotel at Columbus Circle as a men’s room. I mean, if you look at Goebbels, the first thing he did was his social media was radio. I went over to his restaurant, called Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, and I asked to work there and he declined. The film’s writer and director, Aaron Sorkin, recently wrote that part of the reason it took 14 years for the film to be made is because he didn’t immediately get Hoffman’s character. And winning elections, that’s the first thing on your wish list. What do you call them? But these companies can’t be sued, right? Was it really worth becoming even richer? But it does make you wonder what did Rudy try to do to other female journalists. T-shirt and a pink pussy hat and says things like, “In our yurt, we try to challenge the gender stereotypes. So you already have some exceptions to Section 230. Sacha Baron Cohen tweeted an image of a … It’s the conspiracy theory and those who spread it and make money that are at fault. I was going to run down the stairs, but actually, Rudy’s bodyguard gets me and pushes me into the room and says, you’re staying here until the cops arrive. Also a high degree of difficulty: a scene where he sneaked into a Mike Pence speech at a Conservative Political Action Conference this year. You must leave now. And I think the wonderful thing about it was we had no idea how impactful or how pivotal Rudy would be in the final month of the election and post-election in spreading this lie. Well, I think what you saw is what he did, is what it is. So I studied in L’École Philippe Gaulier. These armies of trolls are used to intimidate people on social media. Like, saying he would levitate the Pentagon, bringing thousands of people to do that, or —. So, at one point, I had quite a heated discussion with one of them at an art gallery opening in San Francisco about Holocaust denial, just asking why they were allowing Holocaust denial. Racists are proud of being racists.’’ When the president is “an overt racist, an overt fascist,’’ he said, “it allows the rest of society to change their dialogue, too. Borat buys a chocolate cake and asks the woman behind the counter to write on top, “Jews will not replace us” in icing — with a smiley face. The stories about how Sacha Baron Cohen was able to dupe Rudy Giuliani in "Borat 2" just get better and better.. It’s not pleasant. Yes, I mean, the truth is Abbie battled depression and later took his own life. (“Is it nicer than Melania’s cage?” she wonders.) I mean, yes, Trump is a cometitian. Well, it’s interesting. I felt my ambitions for my career were pretty limited, growing up in Northwest London. I went down to archives and heard old stand-up that he’d done. In character as Ali G in 2000, you played a limo driver in the video for Madonna’s “Music.”, If Steve Mnuchin wasn’t Treasury secretary, you think he would have produced the new “Borat.”, No. So, free and fair elections is probably the most crucial one, particularly in an election year. Great, I was hoping you would. Arriving in character for the premiere of “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.”, “I’ve always been reluctant to be a celebrity,” Mr. Baron Cohen said, “and I’ve always been wary of using my fame to push any political views.”.