Trump

Starting next week on Channel 4, Who Is America?, Baron Cohen’s first television series for over a decade, sees him take on the president of the US, rekindling an enmity that began with a 2003 Ali G interview.  

Years later Trump later took to YouTube in the curious vlog series ‘From the Desk of Donald Trump’ to tell Baron Cohen to “go to school [and] learn about being funny.”

Well, now Baron Cohen has graduated from funny school – or rather the Trump University as a video he tweeted in early July suggests.

The disruptive, combative political landscape created by Brexit and the election of Donald Trump is, on the face of it, a gift for UK television satirists and their venerable tradition of biting and often brutal parody.

While Theresa May’s blandness may do little to whet a satirist’s appetite, Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage bring larger-than-life personas to Brexit. And Trump is, well, Trump.

After a year on the campaign trail, Channel 4 News’ Matt Frei knows better than most the risks posed by the new US president, and the difficulties he presents the media.

“For us journalists, the tricky balancing act we have to perform in the next few years is being aware […] we no longer share the same assumptions about wealth creation, liberalism, [and] the nature of democracy [as much of the public],” Frei warns.

“I remember on the day of the [Trump] election thinking there is not a news organisation, or periodical that won’t be covering this on the front page.”

The RTS Network Presenter of the Year nominee has spent the year hot-footing it across America in pursuit of the new president.

“I didn’t call it for Trump,” she confesses. “I started in Texas following Ted Cruz. I went down to Florida, I followed Marco Rubio. I knew each of the candidates before we got to Trump.”

For the first time in the history of the American republic, one of our own is in the Oval Office. His day job may have been running a property empire but, as a successful reality star who still retains an executive producer credit, the 45th President of the United States is unquestionably a TV guy.

That experience gives Donald Trump an “attack is the best form of defence” confidence in his handling of the media. He banned from his campaign those publications that he claimed were reporting on him unfairly.

The World According to President Trump will see RTS award-winner Matt Frei talking to those in the know in an attempt to get to the bottom of what a Trump presidency means.

Will Trump really seek to ban all Muslims from entering the United States? Will he actually build The Wall? What will the US-Russia relationship look like?

The channel's live coverage of the debate, held on September 26th, reached a consolidated audience of just under 200,000 viewers.

Channel 4 Current Affairs Commissioning Editor, George Waldrum said: "This has been a US election like no other with phenomenal public interest. Everyone wants to know if Trump can really pull off a shock victory. We're excited to bring what could be a pivotal moment in both Clinton and Trump's bid to be the next President, to a UK audience. It's unmissable."