Simon Ateba again held a press briefing at the White House on Monday about his perceived grievances.
Today News’ Africa reporter, a notorious gadfly who claims he’s been removed from the White House Correspondents’ Association, had one of his trademarked public meltdowns — this time before Ted Lasso was cast.
With Jason Sudeikis, Hannah Waddingham and other stars of the hit show taking the podium alongside White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, Ateba began berating Jean-Pierre for not answering enough of his questions.
“No, no, we’re not doing that,” the Biden flack snapped back. “We don’t do that, we don’t do that, we don’t do that!”
Ateba insisted “this is not China” and “this is not Russia” before accusing Jean-Pierre of “making a laughing stock of your profession”. He then grumbled that “it’s been seven months” since he was last asked to ask a question, while the Ted Lasso stars stood awkwardly in the background and Ateba’s fellow press yelled at him to ” respect decency”.
Moments later, after the celebrity part of the crowd was done, Ateba decided to move on. This time, however, several fellow journalists intervened to silence him.
One reporter let out an angry yell during Ateba’s ongoing diatribe, while others, including Portal reporter Jeff Mason and columnist Brian Karem (himself no stranger to the press conference controversy), chided Ateba about his behavior.
“You’re in the front row and you’re comfortable, and you get questions all the time,” Ateba shouted at Mason. “There are people back there who don’t get questions!”
Karem countered, “Don’t make any assumptions about what the rest of us are doing. Mind your manners when you’re in here, and if you have a problem, speak up afterwards! But you are attacking everyone here who is just trying to do their job!”
Jean-Pierre, who has had quite a few clashes with Ateba, described his recent outburst as “unacceptable,” while noting that the cast of Ted Lasso paid a brief visit to talk about mental health.
“As you all know, this is the White House press conference room, a historic room, a room that should have decency, a room where people should respect their colleagues and respect the guests who are here,” she noted . “I understand there will be give and take. This is how the press conference went before me for decades. And I’ll always respect that, but what I won’t appreciate is the disregard shown by colleagues and guests who were here to speak about an incredibly important issue, which is mental health.”
Earlier this month Ateba – who has long accused Biden’s communications staff of “blacklisting” him over complaints from other White House reporters – told Fox News host Tucker Carlson that Jean-Pierre is trying to to “silence” him after his removal. the WCA.
And shortly after his latest outburst in the Ateba briefing room went to twitter to announce he will appear on Carlson’s program later tonight to talk about how “they all disrespected me.”