WATCH: Reporter Who Blew Up Psaki’s Last Day Heckles Jean-Pierre at Briefing — Asks If She’s ‘Fit For This Job’
Today News Africa correspondent Simon Ateba — who infamously disrupted Jen Psaki‘s last day on the job — heckled White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and derided press briefings as “a waste of time.”
Jean-Pierre has undergone one hellish bombardment after another over the classified documents discovered by Biden aides in private storage spaces — including his Wilmington home — which are now under investigation by Special Counsel Robert Hur.
At Tuesday’s White House briefing, Jean-Pierre continued to refer questions on the issue, as well as the documents that were found at former Vice President Mike Pence’s Indiana home, to the White House counsel’s office.
Ateba used the briefing as an opportunity to heckle Jean-Pierre, and to mock the briefings he attends religiously as a “waste of time”:
SIMON ATEBA: Karine, since you don’t have any answer on the classified documents —
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Go ahead. Go ahead.
SIMON ATEBA: — are you still a great fit for this job?
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead, my friend.
SIMON ATEBA: Because we don’t seem to have any answer from you.
SIMON ATEBA: Is the press briefing a waste of time?
REPORTER: Come on!
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Go ahead. Go ahead, my friend.
REPORTER: Has any meeting been set between the President and the Speaker yet?
During the entire briefing, Jean-Pierre referred reporters to the White House counsel’s office — which has conducted two briefings via Zoom conference in the past week — a total of 16 times, including for several questions on the Pence document discovery.
Jean-Pierre’s tenure as press secretary began with an Ateba disruption as well. Ateba took heat from colleagues and from the podium when he relentlessly disrupted then-White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki’s final briefing — at which she introduced KJP as her successor — to push for the back rows to get more questions.
Watch above via The White House.