Tucker Carlson Trashes Frequent Fox News Guest for Trying to Restore Order at White House Press Briefing

Tucker Carlson defended Simon Ateba on Monday, just hours after the Today News Africa reporter once again turned the White House press briefing into an airing of grievances. In doing so, Carlson blasted Reuters reporter Jeff Mason, who is a recurring guest on Special Report hosted by Bret Baier on Fox News.

Ateba has long complained about White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and Jen Psaki before her for not calling on him enough. He has repeatedly expressed frustration by melting down in the briefing roof which, unsurprisingly, has irked the White House press corps.

Monday’s briefing was one such occasion, and was made all the more madcap by the fact that the cast of Ted Lasso was standing behind Jean-Pierre at the time.

“We’re not doing this!” she told Ateba when he tried to shout a question.

Carlson aired a clip of the incident, which included an angry Mason attempting to get Ateba to cease his outburst.

“It’s been seven months,” Ateba said. “You’ve not called on me… This is not China. This is not Russia. This is the United States.”

“The rest of us are here too, pal,” said one reporter.

“If you have grievances, you should bring them to her later,” Mason chimed in.

“I have done that,” Ateba said. “All my emails have been ignored.”

“And the press corps is tired of dealing with this,” Mason shot back.

Carlson slammed the other reporters’ responses.

“Outrageous doesn’t even describe what we just played for you,” the Fox News host said. “So here you have the White House press secretary whose job it is to answer questions from journalists on behalf of the entire American population hijacking the event to promote a TV show and then screaming at a guy who wants his questions answered.”

Carlson then called Mason and other reporters “shills.”

“And then the other shills in the room don’t take the side of their fellow journalist, but take the side of the lady at the front to whom they were actually beholden and try and shut down Simon Ateba,” Carlson continued. “Who did that? This is a partial list that would include Jeff Mason of Reuters who should be ashamed, Brian Karem of CNN, Associated Press correspondent Zeke Miller.”

He said the reporters “should be ashamed of themselves” because their job is to serve their “viewers and readers by getting to the truth.” Carlson welcomed Ateba to the show and he again slammed Mason in particular, calling his remarks “one of the most awful things I’ve ever seen.”

This isn’t the first time Carlson has covered Ateba favorably. In January, he suggested the reporter had been shunned for asking tough questions, though the host did not mention Ateba’s tantrums.

Watch above via Fox News.

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