In a disturbing sign that American politicians are becoming increasingly ignorant, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, appears to have been tricked by two Russian comedians into defending the sovereignty of a fake nation.
The Russian prank callers Vovan and Lexus, pretending to be the Polish Prime Minister, spoke for over twenty minutes with US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley:
“Let me start with very much thanking you for the support we received on the vote today,” Haley said, referring to the U.N.’s condemnation of the U.S.’s decision to move its Israeli embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem,
“We will never forget it,” she added. That language mirrors what Haley herself told the United Nation, promising to “take names” of countries that voted against the U.S.
During the call, the pranksters extracted some non-committal answers from Haley regarding Poland’s conflicted opposition to Russia, while being equally ill at ease with the ascent of neo-Nazis in Ukraine, whose violent rhetoric is aimed at both Russians and Poles.
But the most disturbing part of the conversation was when Vovan and Lexus told Haley of Poland’s concerns with recent elections in the fictional country of Binomo. The pair “reminded” Haley of Binomo’s claims in the South China Sea and that its location was “near Vietnam”.
“You know Binomo?” the comedians asked.
“Yes, yes,” Haley said.
“They had elections and we suppose Russians had its intervention,” they replied.
Without hesitation, Haley affirmed that she is familiar with the non-existent state and that she was fully aware that Russia had meddled in its recent elections.
“Yes, of course they did, absolutely,” Haley said before offering to “find out exactly what our stance is on that, and what if anything the U.S. is doing or thinks should be done and I will report back to you on that as well.”
“We’re supposed to have White House meetings on all issues with the South China Sea coming forward, so I think we’ll have more answers at that time,” Haley added.
Once Vovan and Lexus passed this hurdle, they crossed into even deeper levels of absurdity, suggesting that American actor Kevin Spacey had a homoerotic experience with the Kiev regime leader Petro Poroshenko.
At the end of the conversation, she told the fake Polish Premier to call back at any time, indicating that she remained unaware that it was a prank phone call even after it became progressively absurd.
While the Trump administration will likely brush off the incident, the comic endeavor is quite worrying as it shows both a lack of personal judgment and a lack of geo-political knowledge on the part of a woman whose job title would dictate that she should have a great deal of both.
Being duped into defending a state that does not exist is highly worrying. Beyond being materially harmless satirical clowning, the prank phone call of Vovan and Lexus are actually deeply instructive in respect of what politicians think, say and are ignorant of, during times when they don’t have their script in front of them.
Americans must ask themselves: “Would I prefer politicians and diplomats who can sniff out a prankster using logic and intelligence or would I prefer politicians and diplomats who get duped as Nikki Haley did”?
Listen below, via YouTube:
