Hollywood and Democratic politics go hand-in-hand.
The left uses celebrities to push the policy goals of the Democrats.
But Hollywood stars showed up to a White House briefing and all hell broke loose.
Democratic administrations routinely rope-in celebrities to burnish the image of Democrat politicians.
Joe Biden has leaned heavily on using Hollywood celebrities to fill in for his lack of charisma and vitality.
Recently, the cast of the Apple+ comedy Ted Lasso showed up to a White House press briefing to discuss mental health – which was strange.
Ted Lasso star Jason Sudeikis is not an expert on mental health – nor does he even play one on TV.
Nevertheless, the dog-and-pony show was interrupted by White House correspondent Simon Ateba who has become a major gadfly for Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
Ateba, who represents Top News Africa, took Jean-Pierre to task for refusing to answer his questions.
Jean-Pierre, clearly embarrassed to spar with Ateba in front of the Ted Lasso cast, tried to defuse the situation saying, “We’re not doing this.”
Ateba said, “This is the U.S. This is not China. This is not Russia. What you’re doing is not right…What you are doing is you’re making a mockery of the First Amendment. It’s been seven months you’ve not called on me.”
The cast of Ted Lasso is at the White House Press Briefing and it began with @simonateba telling Jean-Pierre “you’re making a mockery of the First Amendment.” pic.twitter.com/PxZnRBvTWI
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) March 20, 2023
Jean-Pierre whined, “What has just occurred this last 10 or 15 minutes is unacceptable. It is unacceptable. So we are going to either continue the briefing, or we can just end the briefing right here.”
Ateba appears to be rankling all the right people and he is taking legal action against the White House Correspondents’ Association for excluding him.
He wrote, “I have decided to take legal action against the White House Correspondents Association since they made false claims against me and my company and did not abide by their own membership guidelines. From now on, I will let my lawyer talk about the case but I will fight like hell because as they sit in the briefing room collecting salaries, they don’t know there are people like me who build companies from scratch. Pray for me.”
The press corps is one giant club, and Ateba is not in it.
Further proof of that occurred when Associated Press reporter Zeke Miller apologized for Ateba’s “unacceptable” behavior.
He said, “I just want to express our apologies in the press corps to the folks watching at home for the display we saw earlier. Our responsibility is to them. We’re here to ask questions on their behalf, to hold their government accountable because they can’t all be here. You know, this isn’t about us.”
It’s impossible to imagine a reporter apologizing on behalf of Jim Acosta whom attempted to monopolize multiple press briefings when Donald Trump was president.
Ateba got in the way of the Democrats’ Ted Lasso spectacle – and it made them furious.
