A fiery exchange between a reporter who White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre routinely avoids somehow disappeared from an official live stream.
Simon Ateba, White House correspondent for Today News Africa, clashed with Jean-Pierre on Monday just after Biden’s spokesman said, “here, at the White House, under this administration, we’re committed to the freedom of the press.”
“So are you going to take questions from me?” Ateba asked, according to the official transcript. “Are you going to take questions from me because you’ve been discriminating against me for the past nine months?”
Other reporters ganged up on their colleague, with one saying, “Please stop. How is she discriminating against you?”
Jean-Pierre then called on another reporter.
“Please. Allow me to do my job and ask my question,” Ateba said.
The two continued to wrangle and interrupt each other until Jean-Pierre said: “OK, if this continues, we’re going to end the press briefing.”
“I’ve been in this briefing room. I’ve been trying to ask you one question when I am on,” Ateba said to Jean-Pierre. “You’re not giving freedom of the press.”
“If this continues — you’re being incredibly rude,” she said. Ateba attempted to ask a question, and KJP repeated her assessment of the situation.
All that disappeared from the feed — until Fox News asked about the missing exchange.
“After Fox News Digital reached out for comment about the missing exchange, the portion of the missing video was then restored to the stream,” Fox reported. “The White House told Fox News that the portion missing was caused by an error with the encoder that feeds the live stream to YouTube.”
Ateba told Fox he was skeptical about the claim, saying the White House likely intentionally removed the exchange. “He told Fox News that he has been consistently marginalized, saying he has been iced out of White House events, his emails go unanswered, and he has been ignored in press briefings for months,” Fox wrote.
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“What happens is if you do that, if you make the comfortable uncomfortable what happens to you is they try and sideline you. And the other people will be afraid to even come near you because [they] don’t want to be seen close to you, because then they won’t get questions at the next press briefing, then they won’t be invited to social events,” he said.
Jean-Pierre actually did storm out of a press briefing in December 2022 after Ateba demanded that he be given a chance to ask a question.
Karine Jean-Pierre just stormed out of the briefing room after losing her patience with a reporter. pic.twitter.com/OXU16xhNQZ
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) December 8, 2022
The latest exchange came after a Daily Wire report that the White House often alters transcripts of Biden’s speeches and remarks.
Sometimes, the transcript throws in a [sic] when Biden misspeaks. Other times, the stenographer adds a bracketed correction to Biden’s error. And every once in a while, the White House just cuts out Biden’s bizarre word salads altogether.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Joseph Curl has covered politics for 35 years, including 12 years as White House correspondent for a national newspaper. He was also the a.m. editor of the Drudge Report for four years. Send tips to [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @josephcurl.