The Vote; Up in the Air; Sacha Baron Cohen | 60 Minutes Full Broadcast

What you're seeing is extraordinary. >> This is an FBI. >> Armed federal agents seizing ballots from a local election facility. >> They had vests. They had guns as if they were raiding a drug house. >> With the midterms two weeks away, state election officials across the country are being threatened. You could go to prison. >> We're not going to prison. No, it's silly. You're absolutely sure? Well, the war with Iran is cutting off a resource critical for nearly every modern product we make. Helium. No helium, no new cell phones, no MRI machines, no missiles. And it's getting harder to find. >> If we do not have helium, we'd have to shut down. shut down. Everything gets shut down. >> So, how much helium is left? >> You've seen him interview some of the biggest names in the world.

>> Is it cuz I was black? >> You're black? >> Huh? >> Who's black? This is called Buckingham Fall. >> Now, after 20 years in remission, Ali G is back. I thought, would it be funny to have the world expert in something with the biggest idiot in the world? >> I'm Leslie Stall. >> I'm John Worerheime. >> I'm Nora O'Donnell. >> I'm Ross Dowet. >> I'm Ariel Levy. >> I'm Bill Whitaker. Those stories and more tonight on 60 Minutes. The midterms are just two weeks away and President Trump is using his power to intimidate the people who run our elections, putting the voting system under remarkable stress. The latest move came on Friday when the Justice Department threatened to prosecute California election officials if they knowingly count mail-in ballots from 20,000 people the Trump administration says are likely non-citizens.

It's the latest in a sequence of actions that has bred an erosion of faith in the integrity of our elections. Our story focuses on how state and local election officials are being pressured in a way that is stoking that distrust. We start with what happened in Georgia this past January. >> This is a criminal search. >> What you're seeing is extraordinary. >> This is an FBI. >> Armed federal agents seizing ballots from a local election facility. In my wildest dreams, I never imagined that we would be uh raided by the FBI of all things. >> Fulton County Commissioner, Democrat Dana Barrett, got a text message that sent her racing to this warehouse near Atlanta. >> Were the FBI agents inside by the time you got here? >> They were. They had vests, they had guns, they had all of the the equipment on their belts as if they were raiding a drug house.

>> Yeah. Can we look at that? There were dozens of agents who gained entry to the warehouse with a criminal search warrant that allowed them to seize ballots and other election materials from the 2020 election. >> Is there any way that you could have said no? >> No. They had a valid warrant signed by a judge. We did not have a choice. >> The agents worked all day packing up more than 600 boxes of election records. After nightfell and director of national intelligence Tulsy Gabbard arrived, the boxes were loaded onto trucks and disappeared. Where are the ballots now? >> We have no idea. >> You don't know where they took them? >> Nope. >> Do you know what they were going for? >> Look, it was, in my opinion, political theater aimed at undermining the 2026 and 2028 elections. You think it was an intimidation for the next election?

>> I think it was all part of this concerted effort that's happening nationwide to undermine faith in elections. >> We obtained this internal FBI email temporarily reassigning 260 analysts to work on a priority investigation into the Georgia materials. That was three months ago and nothing has come of it yet. There have been dozens of probes into the 2020 election in Georgia and none have moved the needle. You take a fraudulent claim, you investigate it at the state level. Then the federal level refers to what the state did and people just see all of these investigations and FBI raids and subpoenas and they say something must be wrong there. Why should I believe the results? The Trump administration has cast more doubt about the reliability of our elections by investigating voting machines and actual ballots, which the Justice Department has attempted in several states.

>> I was a political science major. >> The Lieutenant Governor of Utah, Dedra Henderson, told us it's a kind of interference she's never seen before. In the past two elections that I oversaw as lieutenant governor, the threats were all external non-state actors, cyber security threats and and other things. Um, but now we also have threats coming from within our own government, >> your federal government. >> That's right. >> If there is a sample ballot, like >> Henderson is responsible for Utah's elections. >> Does this verify citizenship or do the clerks do that? Everything from voter registration to counting the ballots on election day. Keep in mind Henderson is a Republican in a deeply red state. President Trump won the last election here by more than 20 points. >> This is your office. >> The room where it happens. Last year, the Justice Department zoned in on Henderson and her counterparts in states across the country, demanding their statewide voter registration list, which includes voters confidential personal information. Henderson had never seen anything like it. She said no.

>> They wanted things that we typically are required by law to keep private. uh social security numbers, full dates of birth, driver's license numbers. Why? Why did they want that? >> We just weren't given very good answers and we were concerned about what they would do with that data. >> Officials in 29 other states, Democrat and Republican, felt the same. And so they also refused to comply. The Justice Department has sued all of them, saying it needs access to voter roles to help ensure that immigrants who are not entitled to vote don't. They think that you're allowing ineligible voters to go and vote and they feel it's a federal obligation to stop that. Why is that wrong? across the board. Nobody I know wants anyone who isn't eligible to be able to vote.

>> State audits have shown that non-citizen voting is extremely rare, though it does happen. In Utah, Henderson found only 52 who were questionable out of more than 2 million voters. We did a calculation that that's 2,000 of 1%. >> Yeah. So, has it ever been an issue in Utah? >> No. >> Henderson has been notified that if she knowingly allows any non-citizens to vote in Utah, she could be prosecuted and even sent to prison. >> Election security is national security. >> In July, Secretary of Homeland Security Mark Wayne Mullen spelled it out. Those individuals can also be held accountable by fines, by penalties, and even depending on how far it goes, prison time. >> Election officials in California have been put on notice, too. The Justice Department has threatened to prosecute them for essentially the same crime. And President Trump put out a social media post Friday about California. They will all go to jail for a long period of time. You could go to prison.

>> We're not going to prison. No, it's silly. >> You're absolutely sure. >> Well, she's right to say, "Well, the Justice Department told Henderson last month she's officially under investigation." You are toe-to-toe with the president of the United States. It's a big thing that you're doing. >> I'm just doing my job. standing up to the federal government that's threatening you with jail time. It's bold at the very least. I have to I have to tell myself it doesn't matter what the consequences are if as long as I feel like I'm doing what's right. I think this is an important thing for me to do. Holding these guard rails, holding the line, someone has to. Other Republicans like Governor Mark Gordon of Wyoming also pushed back when election monitors from the Justice Department in August demanded access to his voting machines.

>> I feel very strongly about federal government coming in and taking our guns. I don't like that and I don't like the federal government coming in and taking our votes either. >> The federal government should get involved. Things escalated when President Trump defied history and the Constitution with a shocking statement on a podcast. >> The Republicans should say we want to take over. We should take over the voting the voting in at least many 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting. >> In America, elections are local. They're run by towns and counties and states. It's all in article one of the constitution. Congress makes laws regulating elections. >> This country is so sick because of the election, the fake elections. >> But the president doesn't have a role in running them. That hasn't stopped Mr. Trump from signing two executive orders trying to create new federal voting rules.

>> And it's an honor to sign this one. To sign all of them, but to sign this one is a great honor. >> [applause] >> Non-citizens cannot vote in federal elections. So the question is simply how many of them there are. >> Harmy Dylan, the head of the civil rights division of the Justice Department, has spearheaded the government's voter role initiative. She spoke to us from California. There are people who feel that the point is to sew distrust about the whole election system. There are very few people who are non-citizens who end up voting. Very, very few. And so therefore, what's the purpose? >> The point is actually the opposite of what you were saying is not to so distrust. The distrust is there. And so all of these kinds of crimes are being prosecuted now for the first time really in volume. And you even the Biden administration prosecuted 13 people for non-citizen voting. >> 13 people. I mean, the numbers are tiny.

>> So Leslie, we've been in office for less than two years. We've had investigations ongoing for over a year and it takes time. There are literally thousands of them out there that we are looking at. >> The pile up of investigations, charges of voting hanky panky have caused voters to lose faith in our election system. >> They try to rig elections. >> Democrats have cast doubt on our elections too. >> We will not let their scheme to rig the midterm election and beyond be successful. >> But it's a question of degree. The 2020 election was rigged. >> In the 21 months of President Trump's second term, >> the election was rigged. >> He has said in so many words, "The vote can't be trusted more than 150 times. >> PLEASE RAISE YOUR RIGHT HAND." >> The president is only turning up the volume. listened to him at the Republican midterm convention last month, asking his supporters to make a promise >> THAT I WILL GO OUT WITH MY FAMILY, MY FRIENDS. I'LL DO IT ANYWAY. I DON'T CARE IF I'M REGISTERED OR NOT. I'M GOING TO TRY AND cheat like hell like they do.

>> One argument is that when the president of the United States keeps saying that the system's rigged, people lose confidence. You don't think it's rigged, do you? In terms of rigged, I definitely think that there were irregularities in prior elections, but I think people are more sensitive to it now. >> Is the administration planning to send ICE agents out to the polling places? >> There's no plan to do that. >> Dylan dismissed that concern and called the notion that President Trump might challenge the results of the midterms paranoia. So would you consider a noncitizen voting an irregularity that would lead to a challenge of the vote? >> I think that would lead to that person's vote being challenged but not the entire election. >> What I'm hearing you say is that you think it's very unlikely that a vote, a state vote will be challenged, but people worry about that. Can you rule it out? Well, I don't know what's going to happen, but I can tell you that absence some shocking contingency that is unexpected, uh, there should be no interruption in the usual course of counting and certifying the results in the states.

>> With just 16 days till the election, polls are showing that only half of Americans expect the midterms to be free and fair. We have swing states where elections are almost always really razor thin close. What about Wisconsin? What about Georgia? Can they have honest, fair elections? >> They can have honest and fair elections whether or not the losing candidates accept those results is the question. And we are seeing a trend of candidates who lose races now refusing to concede, saying it was rigged, saying it wasn't fair even when it isn't close. Candidates who lose can do so much good by graciously conceding. That that will instill confidence in the public. You've no doubt noticed that since the war with Iran broke out, gas prices have spiked, up more than 50% since January.

But there's another less well-known natural resource also impacted by the conflict. Helium. The world and the war don't function without it. No helium, no new cell phones, laptops, cars, MRI machines, missiles, all require this finite and irreplaceable resource. The closing of the Straight of Hormuz in February trapped onethird of the global helium supply. Then just weeks later, Iranian strikes onQatar's major gas facility further rattled the supply chain. With the extent of the damage unknown, American industry is left desperate for answers as the helium crisis remains up in the air. Last March, as a new war raged, Iranian missiles and drones hit military targets throughout the Middle East. oil tankers stuck in the Persian Gulf and energy infrastructure. All of it meant to destabilize the global economy.

One of those highv value targets attacked Ross Lefan in Cutter, the world's largest facility for natural gas and its byproduct helium. 7100 miles away at the University of Chicago, Joe Saken was watching closely from his lab. When you heard the news that there was an attack on the facility in Cutter, where did your thoughts go? >> Um, I hope people weren't hurt was first and then second's like this is going to be a problem. I mean, I won't say the words I was thinking, but you know, it's like crap, we're going to have to deal with this and I might not be able to get helium. >> Helium is critical for those large cylinders, nuclear magnetic resonance machines. In Saklaben's lab, these machines are used by students, but also for higher stakes research to develop breast cancer drugs, immunotherapies, and treatments for Alzheimer's. Suddenly, it's all imperiled. Collateral damage from the Iran war.

Helium is the coldest liquid on Earth. So every couple months, Sakabin uses this long tube to pour 100 L of helium on these magnets to stabilize them at 452 degrees below zero F. >> Once it gets to a critical level, we have to put helium back in the magnet to keep it cold. >> Right. >> If that doesn't happen, we break the magnet. >> You got problems if that doesn't happen. >> Huge problems. >> You're saying there there's no workaround here. There's no other substance you can substitute in. >> No, nothing else boils that low. How many >> Saken's lab contracts with one supplier to deliver the helium he needs each month. >> First you of Chicago supplier plays Sakabin and his colleagues on what's called allocation essentially rationing. >> They basically have said well we'll give you 50% of what you used last year. That doesn't help us. And so what we have to do is decide which machine are we going to sacrifice and which one are we going to try to keep. >> That's where we are now. >> That's where we are now. if we can't get the helium. Fortunately, we found another supplier that is getting us helium on a fairly regular basis, but they can't guarantee it. So, we never know if they're going to say, "Oh, this week we don't have any."

>> Then last month, Saken got a message saying that supplier was about to run out. It's not just university research labs. 1if of the world's helium is consumed by the semiconductor industry alone. to make every modern-day electronic you might use from your iPhone to your pacemaker. Outside Minneapolis, we visited one of those chip makers, Polar Semiconductors. >> All right, so G, go ahead and put that on first. >> We suited up alongside Sura, Polar's president and COO, to go inside what's called the FAB, the ultra sterilized area where they make the chips. are barriers to entry, so to speak. Two masks, two booties, and two pairs of gloves. >> You wonder how many people going to the Mall of America have no idea what's going on a few hundred yards away. >> That's absolutely true. >> Inside, workers in roundthe-clock shifts, manufacture semiconductors for engine systems and cars, the US military, and those ubiquitous data centers around the country.

>> How does helium figure into this? I would say almost 40 50% of the machines in this factory would have helium in some way or the other in the machine. >> So it's not just one step of the process. >> No, no, no. Hundreds of steps in the process involve helium. >> Such as this machine where helium keeps the environment clean and stable to avoid defects on the wafers. Polar is able to hedge its helium reserves by relying on three suppliers. Still, the company has felt the effects of the shortage. One of their suppliers has put them on allocation as well, that rationing program. >> Just to be clear, if you did not have helium, what would happen to this facility? >> Well, that's a situation that I don't want to even imagine because if we do not have helium, we'd have to shut down. >> Shut down. >> Everything gets shut down. And the helium crisis is hitting at a time when Polar Semiconductors plans on doubling production capacity to 140 million chips a month. Demand's not going down. The AI data centers are growing. Lot of demand for semiconductors. Electrification is growing. Demand for semiconductors. And that means the demand for helium is going to be growing for a long time.

These data centers we keep hearing about. Yeah. >> Trillions of dollars popping up all over the US, those don't happen if we don't have helium. >> Oh yeah. Without helium, none of these things happen. That's why local supply in the United States is so important to us. >> Besides cutter, the United States is the other major producer of helium for the world. And most of that comes from a single facility in Wyoming. US helium exports are up 70% since the war began and Roslafon was hit. This is mostly to accommodate countries manufacturing semiconductors. But the US can't offset the shortage indefinitely. And here's another issue. Ramping up production of helium is not easy, even if you can find it. 4 hours north of the Twin Cities, we visited the site of a helium discovery, the Topaz Project. Cliff Kane is president of the startup exploration company. >> So this is a wellhead. We drilled down around 3,500 ft. We hit the pocket of gas down there and up comes the gas and we'll come out this gauge here. And uh that's how it goes.

>> And once it goes, this finite resource is gone forever. For the record, Kane estimates about a dollar of helium is released every second that valve is open. His company has inserted seven wells around a 100 square mile plot of land. In most cases, including the cutter facility, helium is a byproduct of the money maker, natural gas extraction. In Minnesota, though, it's all helium all the time. But finding helium is one thing. Getting it to market, even in the best case scenario, will take years. This is all encouraging, but this isn't going to help us next month. >> It's not going to help us next month. It's not easy to find. It's not easy to build. The logistics are hard, right? You got to keep something that's 452 degrees below zero cold and it's perishable. >> That's because helium starts to boil off as soon as it's in transit. It's that complicated supply chain that worries Kane, making helium, he says, particularly vulnerable to disruption.

We've been trying to warn the markets about this for decades. We're too concentrated with our supply in the world. When you look at it, you got supply in cutter, you have some supply in Algeria, you have a little in Poland, you have a source in Russia, and we have a few here in the United States. So, all it takes is a few of those to fall, and the whole supply chain comes unraveled. >> The longer the war with Iran continues, the tighter the global supply of helium gets. But how tight? That's difficult to answer. If helium is hard to acquire, so is information about it. >> Is opaque a fair word? Oh, yes, absolutely. It's a very tight-knit business with these six main players who are responsible for the majority of the sales >> prices originally. >> Rich Brook would know. He's a former executive at Heirl, one of the six major international helium suppliers, and is now an industry consultant. >> How much have prices gone up this year?

The spot market prices have tripled uh and and they can go even higher because it tripled. Yes. >> You think it's expensive to fill your car up with gas? >> That's right. The US produces helium as well. Are there countries that had been relying on cutter that are now coming to the US for their supply? >> Yes, absolutely. Especially the countries that were heavily requiring helium for their semiconductor industries. There's only been traditionally two qualified sources. Cutter and Exxon, which is here in the US. When cutter went down, those companies which are predominantly based in places like Korea and Taiwan and Singapore immediately started looking towards the US for supply. How long can the US accommodate this demand from other countries? >> Well, it depends on how long the shortage lasts and also it depends on on how much product we can continue to recover out of the out of the caverns. >> He's referring to helium storage caverns, two in the US, one in Germany. Illustrated in this diagram in blue, they're underground, made of salt, and naturally impermeable, which makes them ideal for holding excess helium when the market is long. Do we have any idea how much helium is in these caverns?

>> So, that's a closely held secret by the owners of the cavern. The market at one point last year was long, so they were actually taking helium and pumping it into those caverns. Of course, now they've reversed the direction. >> 3 months from now, what does supply look like? Well, if you can tell me what's going to happen in the straight of Hormuz between now and three months from now, I can tell you exactly what will be happening in the helium business. Unfortunately, you can't and so I can't. In the aftermath of the Iranian strikes on Ross Leafon in March, the Qataris said it would take at least 3 years to get the facility back in full operation. We wanted to know about the extent of the damage of the helium infrastructure specifically, but our request for comment went unanswered. With so much at stake and so much swirling uncertainty about the state of this vital element, we enlisted Joe Bermudez to assess how bad it could get. A senior imagery analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Bermudez looked for clues using what little information we do have. It comes from a satellite.

>> It'd be nice if the Qatari government uh shed a lumar. We provided Bermudez two images of an area of Ros Leafon that facilitates helium production. One before the Iranian strikes in March, one four days after. He showed us this area where he says that it looks like water or firefighting foam dried to make a black stain on the cement. >> It looks like uh something necessitated the pipes in this area, the equipment in this area to be hosed down. So, you're not prepared to say what it was or the severity, but something happened. >> Yes, absolutely. >> For all the unanswered questions about the extent of the damage at the cutter facility, this we know. The helium supply chain issues are sufficiently serious that Cliff Kaine has briefed policy makers in Washington. >> When you address the Pentagon about helium specifically, what were you telling them? >> That we have a problem. We have a single critical point of failure in the system.

We have cutter go down. Now that single critical point of failure is coming closer to term and I think that's what's got him concerned because that's all it does take. >> Kane says it's especially concerning given that on account of the war with Iran, the US is experiencing a munition shortage. And yet the Pentagon has asked some defense contractors to quadruple their production capacities of certain weapons. >> You can't make modern warfare without helium and that's just a fact. You've heard about the missiles, the hypersonics. Without helium, you can't make the fiber optics. You can't produce the munitions. You can't produce the electronics that goes on these things. And so, if you don't have helium, your opportunity to make war becomes even more difficult. We are 7 months into the war now with no end in sight. Since September, nearly two dozen ships have been hit while attempting to pass through the straight of Hormuz. And no ships carrying helium are leavingQatar.

Sasha Baron Cohen has made a career in entertainment out of rendering himself unrecognizable. As the lovable but ignorant Kazakhstani reporter Borat, the fashion and fame obsessed narcissist Bruno, and the hip hop idiot Ali G. hilarious fools he deploys to trick real people into exposing their real beliefs. At 55, Baron Cohen has been doing his undercover comedy for more than half his life. In that time, the complexity, moral stakes, and physical danger entailed in his deceptions has increased. He sometimes requires trap doors and getaway vans to escape the situations he's created. He's a rare combination, a mission-driven public intellectual and an adrenaline junkie who has invented his own genre of comedy in the hopes of making us laugh and waking us up. We talked to him at his alma mater, Cambridge University, where his parents sent him in the hopes that he would become a lawyer.

>> I wanted to be a comedian, but I was embarrassed to tell anyone that I wanted to be a comedian because it's a bit like saying, "I want to be a supermodel." You know, then people go, "Well, you're not actually very good-looking, so you >> It's a secret." >> So, exactly. No one knows this. But Baron Cohen had been experimenting with a version of the character who had become Ali G for years. >> Yo, what's up, homie? This is MC Jos making it real. >> He was this upper class kid who did all the same catchphrases as Ali G bu. But he was upper class. Buya, you know, jungle massive. Baron Cohen took his prototype of Ali G for a test drive among the skateboarders of London with the intention of airing the sketch on a youth culture show he was hosting on cable >> and I start skateboarding terribly and they go you're crap man you're whack after about 5 minutes I went back to my real voice I said guys I'm pretending this is this is a character they were shocked at the end of the hour I get called by the head boss >> he says if you try that again you're fired >> oh wow And then I knew I was on to something.

>> That something was honed into the character millions have come to know as Ali G, >> a white imbecile and hiphop journalist who wants to be a black rapper >> and whose debut on a satirical late night talk show in 1998 was the stepping stone to the Ali G show. >> A smash hit in the UK that spawned an HBO series and a feature film. So the core idea of Ali G was I thought would it be funny to have the world expert in something with the biggest idiot in the world. >> Mhm. >> You know would that justosition be really funny >> if the world expert takes it seriously? >> Right. And apparently yes. >> Baron Conn went on to unleash Ali G on dozens of credulous authorities. >> Is it cuz I was black? >> You're black? I got some business idea that I just want to tell you about and I'll be a fool if very quickly. Boom. Boom. Shake the >> case in point. The former surgeon general of the United States, C. Everett Coupe.

>> I kept on telling him these stupid questions like, you know, ain't the heart a bit crap, you know? Don't shouldn't it have a different rhythm? Because at the moment it's boom boom boom boom but what about a then they would look after it and go yo this is me art respect it no you're way off page there >> so ally >> now after more than 20 years in remission Ali G is back >> yo we is here now this is called Buckingham fallace and people from around the world come here to take photos those and to wait and get boned by Prince Edward. >> Um, >> like if I play my cards right, that could be me. >> How old is you? >> 52. >> No. >> Okay. >> Even if you switch those numbers around, that ain't going to work. By the way, you look >> right up there is Big Ben. >> We went along as Ali G commandeered a double-decker bus and took us to see his version of the London landmarks. The big hand is on the I I and the little hand is on the I I I >> do you feel like you bring any element of of your actual self to some of the characters?

>> If I knew who I was, then I could answer that. But I don't know. I mean, Ali G definitely because in a way at the age of 11 I was an Ali G of sorts. The youngest of three boys, Baron Cohen grew up in Northwest London, the son of a fitness instructor and an accountant. >> My mom was hilarious, but probably not intentionally so. >> Can you give me an example? >> Well, she has a voice like this. >> Sorry if you're watching this. Um, and she had such a distinct voice that everyone in my high school could imitate it. So everyone would go Sasha telephone because that's what she would say when people would call me. >> He had a passion for break dancing and early hiphop, even providing the entertainment for his own bar mitzvah. He went on to study history at Cambridge University where Baron Cohen discovered the stage. >> I realized I loved making people laugh, but I also really like making them cry um on stage.

>> You like to give people the full emotion. >> I want to give them their Yeah. bang for their buck. I really do. Yeah, I do. >> How do your parents react when you finish Cambridge and you say, "I think I want to be a actor." >> They thought it was a ridiculous idea. It was just an impossibility. They were right. They were actually correct. >> Well, no. >> Well, it was so it would have been irresponsible for them to support me >> because the likelihood of success was seemed impossible. >> He pursued his goal by studying with the Stannislovski of clowns, a man named Phipe Golier. His idea of clown was the stupidest creature that can ever be on stage. He used to say, "More stupid than this and you die." >> Uh, sorry for the cultural appropriation, the French accent. >> And what'd you learn? >> Everything. Everything. He was my mentor. >> And Baron Cohen brought it all to >> Borat. Borat, >> the beloved, bumbling anti-semite Kazak reporter who made his grand entrance touring America in 2006. We are actually live on the air right now.

>> I am very excited. >> Yes, it's >> Hello, USANI. >> Hello, USANI. I'm very excited. >> So, when you're making Borette, obviously, you meticulously plan ahead. Yeah. >> And you know, it's not like you and your merry band of producers is just going into antique stores. There's a huge amount of stuff that you don't see, which is us behind the scenes looking at who we were interviewing going, >> they not them. Not them. >> Who is this lady you have shrunk? Was she the owner of this house that you camp in front of? >> The movie was both hysterical and revealing. An experiment, he says, where interactions with real people move the plot forward. What's more, Borat made $260 million. >> You know, Borat is again a funny character, but also to he also shows the kindness of people as well who are so nice to him, >> but also can expose, you know, the layer of hate and bigotry below the surface that people normally wouldn't >> go on air and and show. Baron Cohen's undercover comedy ventures into morally complex territory. In many cases, his incognito encounters with unsuspecting people create an ethically questionable bargain. The worse they look, the better it is for him.

>> Come on and make my day, Jew. >> I guess what I wonder is, have you felt conflicted or guilty about baiting someone into making a complete fool of themselves? Okay. Well, I think a lot of the times they're not making fools of themselves. Uh I think a lot of those in the Alley G interviews they come ac across well actually. >> Uh I think the same with Borat. >> The encore of Borat was Bruno. >> [ __ ] up. I'm Bruno. >> A flamboyant fashion reporter who wanted to become the quote biggest Austrian superstar since Hitler. Baron Cohen says the movie was conceived as a gay romcom and romcoms need to end with a kiss, usually in a setting that's scenic and sentimental. >> Instead of that, we did it in a cage match and it was me and my love interest and we kiss [cheering] and >> we wanted to see what would happen with the crowd. Would they become violent?

Really? [screaming] >> No. It seemed like they wanted to kill you. >> Yes. >> What's the sort of ratio of fear to thrill for you while that's happening? How much are you worried about dying and how much are you thinking, "Oh my god, this is going to be the best scene." >> I'm thinking about the scene almost entirely in that moment. I mean, I can remember it vividly now. Yeah. I remember well, I remember lying down and I'm kissing him and I'm looking at the chairs and I'm thinking, "This is great." Baron Cohen's work has earned Golden Globes and BAFTA awards as well as Oscar nominations for Borad and for his dramatic role as the 60s activist Abby Hoffman in the trial of the Chicago 7. >> We carried certain ideas across state lines. >> Before that, he played Israeli MSAD agent Ellie Conn in a miniseries called The Spy >> and starred opposite Will Frell as the French NASCAR driver Jean Gerard in Tallaladega Nights. I was in the middle of shooting borat and on the plane over I thought I need to do a French character. Why don't I do my old French clown teacher?

>> Oh, you so that it is that you know you know >> I thought you said your dad did not bite. >> That is not my talk. Peter Sers in all his absurdity, faux Frenchness, and physicality was the first and remains the greatest influence of Baron Cohen's career. >> I mean, Cellers is still my favorite comedian >> of all time. >> Yes. Yeah. Because he completely inhabited the character >> and it's laugh out loud funny and they are silly voices. >> In Baron Cohen's new movie Ali G, Who is I? his directorial debut out later this week. He plays Ali G, a deranged leftist professor and a former MSAD agent who all interact with unsuspecting strangers. The result designed to expose the extremism at both ends of the political spectrum is as disturbing as it is funny.

>> These immigrants are not coming here to mow your lawn, trim your trees, rake your leaves, clean your house. Did you go into this movie with any kind of question you wanted to answer? >> Yes. I mean, number one, I wanted people to laugh really, really hard. And I wanted to also just examine this idea of conspiracies and lies, whether we in a matter of hours could turn intelligent people who believed in the theory of race replacement into murderers. Doesn't sound that funny. There's loads of laughs in the movie as well. >> The scale of the challenge was unlike anything Baron Cohen had undertaken before. >> We had to have, you know, prosthetic teams working on this for years. We had animatronic teams. There are hundreds and hundreds of things that can go wrong and each of them has to go right. Do you feel like you're holding up a mirror to society, plain and simple, or is it like a like a weird warped funhouse mirror that gives us a distorted perspective of how scary things actually are?

>> Again, the primary objective of all of this is to get people to laugh really hard. Um, and smuggled in there is a bit of satire. It's a bit of hopefully the people come out of the movie theater and think. >> Baron Cohen is trying to show us that democracies depend on shared truths and autocracies survive on shared lies. He says he's just doing silly voices. But for more than half his life, his character's curiosity, stupidity, and charm have also revealed our character. >> You know, my dream was could I make one classic comedy? And I felt like with Borak I was like I did it you know. So anything else is is really gravy and yeah I feel very very lucky. King in the castle. King in the castle. The last minute of 60 minutes is sponsored by United Healthcare Medicare plans. A Medicare experience designed for what's next.

>> I'm Sebastian Younger, one of the new contributors here at 60 Minutes. I've recently returned from Ukraine, where I witnessed an entire society fighting for survival. Almost 5 years after Russia invaded, Ukraine refuses to yield. But Vladimir Putin is keeping up the pressure. In recent days, Russian strikes have torn through civilian buses and residential buildings, killing dozens. And President Trump might be giving Russia access to even more money to wage its war. With midterms on the horizon, the Iran war unresolved, and gas prices sky-high, the president is now allowing Russia to sell diesel on the world market. That means the war may continue with no end in sight. Donald Trump has even called on Ukraine to replace President Zilinski with someone willing to make a deal with Putin. The stakes couldn't be higher. Survival for Ukraine and security for the Western world. We'll keep watching and we'll be back next week with another edition of 60 Minutes.