In a follow-up text exchange Thursday, Aboud said \u201cthere was never a baby so for you to (think) or imply there was is very bad journalism.\u201d He also texted that he didn\u2019t know why El Paso Matters was doing a story about \u201csome stupid comedy when election day is so close. You should be talking to candidates.\u201d<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t respond when asked to clarify whether or not he knew the scenario was fake and the baby a prop.<\/p>\n
The mockumentary \u201cAli G: Who Is I?\u201d \u2013 written and directed by Cohen and distributed by Amazon MGM Studios \u2013 made a limited theater debut last weekend and became available on Prime Video on Wednesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Screenshot-2026-10-27-151036-e1793139093383.png\")
El Paso Republican Party Chair Michael Aboud, in red t-shirt, appears in a scene depicting actor-director Sacha Baron Cohen as an Israeli colonel in the mockumentary \u201cAli G: Who Iz I?\u201d (YouTube screenshot from \u201cAli G\u201d preview)<\/p>\n
In his Wednesday text, Aboud told El Paso Matters that Cohen and his team are \u201cgreat at misleading people. They\u2019d said they were doing a documentary about the mass illegal border crossings. They never mentioned Cohen had anything to do with it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Last week, he told the El Paso Times<\/a> that he had received an email \u201cthat seemed official\u201d from a production company in summer 2025 inviting him to participate in a gathering in California focused on immigration and its impact on communities.<\/p>\n In a video clip posted to the Howard Stern Show<\/a>\u2019s Instagram account on Oct. 20, Cohen talked about the baby scene, saying it set out to find out whether one can turn someone who is rational into a \u201cmurderer\u201d within a few hours.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd did it?\u201d Stern asked. \u201cYeah,\u201d Cohen replied.<\/p>\n Aboud did not respond to requests for comment on Cohen\u2019s interview on the popular radio talk show.<\/p>\n The Texas Republican Party did not respond to requests for comment about Aboud\u2019s appearance in the film and his actions in it.<\/p>\n An Army veteran, Aboud served as a Republican precinct chair in 2021. He was first elected as Republican county chair in 2025 to fill an unexpired term, and was reelected to the position with 56% of the vote in the March primary, defeating two other candidates. County party chairs serve two years starting soon after the March primaries.<\/p>\n The party chair position is unpaid, although the party receives funds to administer its elections, including accepting filings and submitting names for election judges and early voting ballot boards.<\/p>\n The Texas Election Code does not provide a code of personal conduct or set out other reasons for removal of a county party chair other than for \u201cabandonment of office\u201d if they fail to perform their statutory duties or fail to attend four or more meetings of the county executive committee, the party\u2019s governing body,\u00a0<\/p>\n \u2018Save the white race\u2019<\/p>\n The Guardian reported<\/a> that until it contacted Aboud last week, he was \u201cunaware of his participation in anything other than what he believed to be a nonfiction film.\u201d The outlet said Aboud declined to comment when pressed further about his actions in the movie.\u00a0<\/p>\n The 90-minute, R-rated \u201cAli G\u201d comedy features Cohen as several characters, including the movie\u2019s namesake, white wannabe rapper Ali G, as well as an Israeli terror expert, Colonel Erran Morad.<\/p>\n In the movie, Aboud is one of nine men who take part in anti-terrorism training and introduces himself as the Republican party chair in El Paso.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve seen a lot of the illegal immigrants coming through, there\u2019s a huge amount of terrorism, gangs are hanging people from their overpasses \u2013 way too often,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the middle of the training, another character played by Cohen enters the scene: Richard Edmonds, the field director from \u201cCalifornia Immigration Control,\u201d a nonexistent agency. Edmonds tells the group that Ali G is really Alejandro Gonzalez \u2013 a \u201cLatin X drug lord\u201d from El Salvador\u2019s \u201cdeadliest cartel.\u201d<\/p>\n Edmonds says the gang\u2019s name is Los Chicos del Callej\u00f3n \u2013 the Backstreet Boys.<\/p>\n Ali G has fathered more than 140,000 children, the men are told, and if his pregnant girlfriend Julia gives birth in the United States, the child will become an \u201canchor baby.\u201d Then those thousands of other children could become citizens, the men are told.<\/p>\n Edmonds then gives the men a mission: to stop Julia from giving birth in the United States.<\/p>\n Aboud is one of two picked \u2013 and who agree \u2013 to go undercover as ambulance workers, kidnap Julia and transport her and the unborn baby to Mexico so she can give birth there instead.\u00a0<\/p>\n Aboud and the second man picked for the mission fist bump.<\/p>\n Dressed as an ambulance worker, Aboud and others arrive in a fake ambulance to kidnap Julia, who\u2019s in labor. Julia gives birth \u2013 to a fake baby in a fake hospital \u2013 while Aboud reluctantly holds her hand. He\u2019s splattered with fake blood.\u00a0<\/p>\n The baby is taken from Julia, who is drugged with a needle to the neck as Aboud and others watch. She\u2019s left behind as the baby is driven in the ambulance to a remote area. The baby is to be put in a tote bag hooked to a drone to be flown into Mexico, Morad tells the men.<\/p>\n Aboud clears his throat and sighs, appearing unsure of the task, but then helps hook the bag to the drone. Morad high-fives him. Aboud watches through binoculars as the drone carries the baby away, and amid some chaos, is handed the drone\u2019s remote, which is supposedly losing power as the baby is lifted high in the air.<\/p>\n Aboud appears unsure of how he ended up with the remote and what to do with it. Morad then says that If the baby lands in the United States, it will become a citizen.<\/p>\n \u201cRelease the baby! Release the baby!\u201d Morad shouts. \u201cSoldier Michael, save the white race and kill the baby! Drop the baby!\u201d<\/p>\n Aboud appears to struggle to figure out how, but then pushes a button that drops the baby from the drone. Ali G appears just in time to catch the baby, then Julia appears and is reunited with the newborn.<\/p>\n It\u2019s unclear exactly what Aboud heard or saw during the filming \u2013 or what kind of editing went into the movie.<\/p>\n In one of the last scenes, Ali G is shown telling the baby, now about a year old, his birth story. Turns out, he says, immigration enforcement officials were misinformed and had mistaken him for the Latino gangster.<\/p>\n What satire exposes, according to Cohen<\/p>\n Cohen is perhaps most known for his 2006 mockumentary, \u201cBorat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.\u201d<\/p>\n In an Oct. 20 essay in Time Magazine<\/a>, Cohen talked about satire, writing that each of his characters have \u201ca specific mechanism to encourage people to drop their guards and show what they really believe, prejudices and all.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve always designed my characters and comedy as vehicles to expose prejudice, bias, and stupidity, though I realize not everyone sees them that way,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n In the \u201cAli G\u201d movie, he said, he \u201cexposes Islamophobia and the ludicrous things people will do when they\u2019re gripped by an irrational fear of \u2018the other.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The movie has not been well-received by critics, with one calling it a \u201cstunning career crash<\/a>\u201d and many others saying it\u2019s appalling and unfunny.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/CB_ElPasoRepublicans-1.jpg\")
Michael Aboud, El Paso Republican Party Chair, directs the party\u2019s candidate ballot draw for the primary election, Dec. 18, 2025. (Corrie Boudreaux\/El Paso Matters)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/hqdefault.jpg\")
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