President Joe Biden’s White House restored the previously missing feed of press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre’s hostile exchange with a reporter on Monday.
The White House allegedly deleted an exchange between Jean-Pierre and Today News Africa correspondent Simon Ateba from its official live stream. During the exchange, Ateba accused the White House of discriminating against him.
The White House has edited out every interaction between KJP and @simonateba from their YouTube livestream. pic.twitter.com/QxAgEWFItc
— Kevin McMahon (@Kevin__McMahon) June 26, 2023
“The White House, under this administration, we’re committed to the freedom of the press. I want to be very clear about that,” Jean-Pierre declared.
“So are you going to take questions from me?… because you’ve been discriminating against me for the past nine months,” Ateba asked in response.
Simon Ateba is back at it again in the press briefing. pic.twitter.com/4BXTT4gfbw
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) June 26, 2023
Jean-Pierre then accused Ateba of being “incredibly rude,” and threatened to end the press briefing “if this continues.”
“I’ve been in this briefing room. I’ve been trying to ask you one question when I am on,” Ateba responded. “You’re not giving freedom of the press.”
Shortly after the incident, Ateba took to Twitter and accused Jean-Pierre of “violating the First Amendment.”
“On what some are calling the so-called chaos at the White House today, I was just trying to ask a question. It’s a pity what’s going on,” Ateba tweeted. “How can @PressSec Karine Jean-Pierre preach about the freedom of the press when she is violating the First Amendment many died to protect? May God help us.”
On what some are calling the so-called chaos at the White House today, I was just trying to ask a question. It’s a pity what’s going on. How can @PressSec Karine Jean-Pierre preach about the freedom of the press when she is violating the First Amendment many died to protect? May… pic.twitter.com/wOBsOv6GwI
— Simon Ateba (@simonateba) June 26, 2023
After Fox News reached out to the White House, the administration restored the missing portion to the stream, blaming it on “an error with the encoder that feeds the live stream to YouTube.”
However, Ateba was skeptical that an error caused the portion of the stream to be removed.
“What they did was..they pretended that the feed had a problem on YouTube when we were live, then continued broadcasting after our exchange, without that portion of the exchange. In doing so, they violated the Public Records Act,” Ateba said. “They only restored that portion after they were caught and called out, long after the briefing. It was a total fraud.”
Ateba also claimed the Biden White House blacklists any reporter deemed “problematic.”
“They blacklist you. They don’t respond to your question, they don’t respond to your email. And they don’t allow you to ask questions in the background,” Ateba told Fox News.
“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,” Ateba added.
Jordan Dixon-Hamilton is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter.
