Sacha Baron Cohen pranks Sarah Palin for new show

Provocative British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen is leaving a trail of "fake interview" destruction ahead of his new television show due to air next week, duping United States politicians including Sarah Palin and former vice-president Dick Cheney in elaborate pranks.

The introduction to the trailer reads: "Imagine if Sacha Baron Cohen had been undercover secretly filming a new show for a year". In her post, she didn't say exactly what he did, but a source familiar with the interview told People that "the last straw" was a question about "a government-funded sex-change operation for Chelsea Clinton".

"Who is America?", due to launch on Sunday on cable channel Showtime, has been shrouded in secrecy apart from a trailer showing former US defense secretary Dick Cheney signing a large bottle described as a water-boarding kit.

Showtime has no comment.

The former Republican vice presidential candidate says she fell victim to British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen during an interview for his upcoming Showtime series, "Who Is America?".

Palin claims that she participated in what she thought was a legitimate Showtime documentary honoring American soldiers, but was actually a prank where Baron Cohen presented himself as a disabled veteran and subjected her to "Hollywoodism's [sic] disrespect and sarcasm" before she walked out. "I am just telling you what I encountered - it was much of the same she experienced".

"I was rushed to the studio, production was a mess, I sat down and we started talking pro-Israel stuff, Israeli defense, and then out of left field the interviewer starts talking about how children should defend themselves against terrorist attacks", Walsh tweeted. "Strangest interview of my life".

Furious to have been duped, Palin contacted one of the world's most prestigious news organizations (The Daily Mail), and challenged Cohen, Showtime and CBS to donate all the proceeds from Who Is America? to a charity benefiting actual wounded U.S. military veterans.