Speaking Truth In The Briefing Room Of Power – with Simon Ateba – [Ep. 208]

Linda J. Hansen: Welcome. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the Prosperity 101 Break Room Economics Podcast. My name is Linda J. Hanson, your host and the author of Prosperity 101, Job Security Through Business Prosperity, the essential guide to understanding how policy affects your paycheck, and the creator of the Break Room Economics online course.

The book, the course, and the entire podcast library can be found on prosperity101.com. I seek to connect boardroom to break room and policy to paycheck by empowering and encouraging employers to educate employees about the public policy issues that affect their jobs. My goal is to help people understand the foundations of prosperity, the policies of prosperity, and how to protect their prosperity by becoming informed, involved, and impactful. I believe this will lead to greater employee loyalty, engagement, and retention, and to an increased awareness of the blessings and responsibilities of living in a free society. Listen each week to hear from exciting guests and be sure to visit prosperity101.com. 

Thank you so much for joining with me today. I know you will appreciate this episode as I have an exciting, very well-informed guest. However, before I introduce him and get into the heart of our discussion, I want to invite you all once again to become prosperity partners.

Prosperity partners provide financial support of any amount to help keep this podcast on the air and your support would be most welcome. Just visit the Prosperity Partner link on our website, prosperity101.com, and sign up to show your support today. There's another way you can support our work by engaging with our strategic partners, the U.S. Christian Chamber of Commerce, Christian Employers Alliance, and Red Balloon.

Links to each organization will be in the show notes. Please consider joining those fine organizations and supporting Prosperity 101 by using code P101 when joining. And stay tuned each week as I'll be announcing exciting new strategic partnerships coming soon.

Now, on to this important interview. It's no secret that we are living in tumultuous times. The forces of evil are legion and those that speak for truth are often silenced. I have featured many victims of cancel culture on this podcast, but our guest today has a unique cancellation in his resume. He was canceled from being present in the White House briefing room. Why? Because he seeks truth.

I am so honored to introduce my guest, Simon Ateba. Simon is the chief White House correspondent for Today News Africa in Washington, D.C. Tucker Carlson has referred to Simon as the finest and most famous reporter in all Africa, and I would say he is at the top of that list here in America, too. I follow Simon on social media and find him to be consistently relevant, timely, fair, and detailed as he informs on various events and people.

Thank you, Simon, for joining with us today. I know your insights will be a blessing to the listeners.

Simon Ateba: Thank you, Linda. Thank you for having me. I'm glad to be here.

Linda J. Hansen: Well, it's been a pleasure to get to know you a bit, and I am so thankful you're taking time for this interview. I remember when you were no longer allowed in the White House briefing room, and although up to that time, I had not been very aware of your work, I became interested and started following you when I realized that you sought truth and did not back down when they tried to cancel you. So tell us briefly what inspired you to be a reporter and why you have chosen to cover events in Washington, D.C., and to buck the system to get truth.

Simon Ateba: That's a great introduction. I think the main thing is loving people. I always wanted to tell people stories, and usually if you watch the media, especially the mainstream media, you have the same narratives. They tell the same stories. They will tell you that this person is bad, and this is a demon, and this person is good. Just to give you an example, they are turning Stormy Daniels, who is a porn star, into a saint, and they are saying that she's more relevant and more believable than the former president of the U.S., Donald Trump. And no one is questioning her. No one is doing the right thing. I found that  was really wrong. I needed to just speak the truth and be fair to people.

I think it stems from that. The love for the people, the love for speaking the truth and having the facts out there has driven me to where I am today. I moved to Washington, D.C. to focus on U.S.-Africa relations, working for a publication called Today News Africa. That was at a time when China and Russia were expanding ties and relationships with African countries. And so I got to the White House just to focus on that relationship, and I began to cover President Trump's White House in the end, not really going every day. Then I decided to cover President Biden's White House every day, because, you know, The New York Times had told us that he was the good guy. He was the guy who was going to restore diplomatic relationships with the world. He was the good guy.

Only for me to get there and realize that I actually faced more discrimination under the Biden administration than under Trump. And I began to see things for myself. In 2021, South Africa discovered a new strain of the COVID variant—the Omicron variant—and informed the WHO. The WHO informed the U.S. How did the U.S. react? The U.S. reacted by banning South Africa and seven other Black African countries. And six of the countries that were banned had zero cases of the variant. At the same time, the variant was in the U.K., in Hong Kong, and everywhere.

And so I challenged the White House, asking them why they decided to ban only eight African nations, especially Black African nations—six of them with zero cases of the variant. And Jen Psaki, who used to be President Biden's press secretary, really was offended, got upset. And from that day, I began to have problems with the White House. They began to brand me as the rebel, calling newspapers to write hit pieces on me. And since that time, I've not become friends. But I believe that you need to speak the truth.

They actually made me a good journalist, because I believed they were the good guys. I was trying to ask them good questions and be on the team—until I began to realize that they were discriminating against me. And I was the guy they were claiming to love. I'm Black, I'm from Africa, an immigrant. And then I realized it was all fake. And I decided from that day that I'm going to be fair and speak the truth, because I was able to see it by myself.

You know, usually as a Black person and as an African, when you get to the U.S., you're told, these are the racists and these are the good guys. And the racists are usually people on the right, and the good guys are always people on the left. But when you see it for yourself, you begin to realize, I actually need to get to know people—not just go by what the mainstream media has told me.

As I began to know people on the right and on the left, I began to see that people were just people. People were saying, no, let's protect the border. We're not racist. We're just trying to protect the country. People were saying we need to have good jobs and strong jobs in the U.S. We're not xenophobic. We're just trying to advocate for a strong, good economy within the U.S. And it changed me completely. And, you know, they made me a better person.

Linda J. Hansen: Well, it's an amazing story. And I loved what you said about how it opened your eyes—that what you thought was the "good side," should I say, was really the one that actually was more discriminatory. And you found so many things, you've exposed so many narratives that have been full of lies. When you see that, how do you decide which ones to get out into the media? Because I'm sure you see many.

We see this happening with the border. We see it happening with women's health and the transgender issues. And we see it happening with energy issues and the election—election integrity. I mean, if you really look, you can find evidence of election fraud everywhere. When people ask me, I say, well, do you have five minutes? I could give you a hundred things I know about in five minutes just off the top of my head that I actually know happened that were election fraud.

But then, if we say that, we're quote-unquote "election deniers" or domestic terrorists and all that. So you have to feel like you're drinking water from a fire hydrant sometimes when all this stuff comes at you. It's like, which one do you get out the fastest?

In fact, listeners, just so you know, we were delayed a bit in this interview. And we actually paused to record a bit because, I mean, he had to post something. And that's great. I mean, he does bring us breaking news. So please do follow Simon Ateba on all social media platforms.

And you will find the headlines as they happen many times. So how do you pick what to promote?

Simon Ateba: Okay. So, you know, there's something you forgot: the weaponization of the justice system.

Linda J. Hansen: Yes. 

Simon Ateba: The story now in Washington, D.C. is that Trump is too dangerous. He should not be allowed to return to power. And so we are going to indict him one, two, three, four, five—as many times as possible. And we are going to bankrupt him and take his business away from him and impose an astronomical fine of $500 million that no one can come up with.

And so when you see that, if you don't develop your mind to see through those things—to see through the lies and the manipulations—that's what you believe. And that's what the mainstream media—CNN, MSNBC, NBC, ABC News, CBS News, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, The Daily Beast—you can go on and on. That's what they feed the people with.

Usually, they decide what the people think, they decide what the people see, they decide who wins an election, who is seen as the good guy. And they don’t just stop there. They also go to Wikipedia. They write and describe who is a conspiracy theorist, who is a racist, who is a good person, who is an election denier, who is a domestic terrorist.

And so they have so much power. And I realized that something was wrong with that. I needed to actually counter that with the fact. And the fact, beginning from the idea that people are people, involves looking at people and issues beyond the official narrative that they’ve given you.

Just to give you an example: when they say Trump should pay $500 million in New York City, and you ask, “Who is the victim?” They can’t name a single victim. You say, “Who went to court? How many banks were defrauded?” They can’t name a single bank. They can’t name a single victim. Why is he paying? Okay, he filed a wrong document. Maybe he did something wrong—but why do you fine him $500 million to destroy a business that has thousands of employees and supports thousands of people? You realize that it’s just election interference.

One thing that wasn’t taught in journalism school was power. In journalism school, they tell you to speak the truth, get the facts, and report them. But they don’t explain to you that in the end, people try to gain power and retain power in Washington, D.C. That’s everything—gain power, retain power, and oppose or destroy every single person who says things differently or who threatens your power.

And right now, they see Trump as the biggest threat to their power. So for you to become a good journalist who speaks the truth, you need to become a different person. You need to transform yourself. You need to transform your life. You need to see beyond the lies. You need to see beyond the manipulation. And you need to decide, “I’m going to speak the truth regardless of the attacks, regardless of the cancellation.”

As you know, they took my hard pass away from me—my White House hard pass. The hard pass allows you to go in and out of the White House and attend the press briefings. When you don’t have that, it means that every single day, you need to apply before 5 p.m. They can grant it. They can refuse it. And you also need to go to the White House and stand at the gate for hours before they come and escort you in.

They’ve also removed me from the White House Correspondents’ Association. They've written countless negative news stories about me in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico. They even went to my Wikipedia page and changed my history, saying I’m no longer covering the White House, and things like that.

So I decided to speak the truth because that’s the only thing that actually gives you the ultimate freedom. When you speak the truth, you are free. When you play the game of manipulation—no one is perfect. That’s what you need to understand. Trump is not perfect. Maybe he did one or two things wrong, but he’s not worse than all the people doing business in New York.

But the mainstream media tries to tell you, “This is the demon. This is the worst person, the worst businessman in the whole history of New York City in 300 or 400 years.” And I said, no, let’s check the facts. Let’s see the people like that. And that transformation in thinking made me who I am today.

Linda J. Hansen: That’s so inspirational. And I’m glad you brought up the narrative regarding President Trump. Like we said at the beginning of this episode, and when you and I were talking before we were recording, it’s the policy that makes the difference. People are people. We have to think about the policy. As I do this podcast and everything I do, I try to help people understand—it’s not about the party, and it’s not about a personality. It’s about the policy and how it impacts.

But as you mentioned, the new narrative coming out about Trump over the last few days is that he is a national security threat. And I first saw that from you. I saw it from other sources after that. And it just makes me chuckle, because I think—they just don’t give up. They come up with new things all the time. They’re blaming Trump for the border, which I think—really? Let’s look at the facts here.

You mentioned the lawsuit against President Trump in New York. I’m just going to quote something that Eric Trump had said, and you actually posted: "The entire world is watching this unfold. The notion of seizing properties owned by the former President of the United States and the front-runner for president in 2024—properties belonging to a company that has never missed a payment, never been in default, never breached a covenant, built American skylines, has repeatedly made banks hundreds of millions of dollars while employing thousands of hardworking New Yorkers—is shattering the trust not just of New York, which is fragile at best, but in the entire legal system in the United States."

And that was a post that you had posted that was a quote of Eric Trump. And I'm so glad you posted that because, you know, it's true. People don't realize if they just listen to mainstream media, they'll think Trump is just the worst thing ever. And he's a crook—and he is not. And so you have to look, like you said, look beyond the headlines and say, well, what is really happening here?

Well, he's disrupting their path to power, their reign on power and this whole globalist government, their ties with the Chinese Communist Party or the World Health Organization, World Economic Forum, all these things that are impacting the freedoms and livelihoods of American citizens and freedom-loving citizens around the world. And so we have to—if we love our freedom, if we love people, like you said at the beginning, what drew you into journalism—a love for people—if we truly love people, we need to tell truth.

Simon Ateba: Yes, no, I totally agree. And if you only watch CNN or you read only The New York Times, President Trump is the worst person on the planet. He's the worst businessman. He's a crook. He's suing ABC News that falsely accused him of raping someone, even when the court said he never raped anyone. But, you know, that's what they want.

Rape is a big thing. No one wants to be associated with that. And you don’t want to vote for that person. So they use even fake things—things that don't exist, things the court didn’t say—to accuse him. And now the latest thing is he’s a national security threat. If he’s president, they say, he’ll be so vulnerable, and the Russian oligarchs and Saudi Arabia will control everything. 

Linda J. Hansen: It’s crazy.

Simon Ateba: Yes. Complete nonsense.

Linda J. Hansen: Yeah, it is. 

Simon Ateba: And then you look at the fact—you realize that while he was president for four years, there was no new war. While he was president, Russia did not invade any new country. While he was president, he was winding down the war in Afghanistan and in all those places. While he was president for four years, the military-industrial complex wasn’t pushing the U.S. to start new wars and spend billions and billions of dollars when people in the U.S. needed those resources.

So you begin to see the falsehood and the propaganda, and you say, no—something is wrong here. Remove Trump from the equation. How do you take what a successful businessperson has built his entire life, a person who has employed thousands and thousands of people and paid hundreds of millions in taxes, and just destroy it? Why would you do that over a document? Because he might have told the bank something?

Linda J. Hansen: You know, what you're talking about is something I’ve heard Kevin O’Leary talk about. What Trump did—what they're claiming is so bad—is what every business owner does. They list their properties at a certain amount, and then it's up to the lending institutions to do their due diligence. Yes. And there is no bank that’s been defrauded. There’s nobody that’s been defrauded here.

And one of the things that you mentioned one time—I saw you had written this—is that you often wonder who chooses the leaders: the people, the strategists, the special interest groups, or the deep state? And I would say that right now we are in a war for that. Who is going to choose the leaders of the free world—hoping that we can keep the free world free?

And that means we the people have to be the ones. We the people have to dismiss the propaganda. We have to look beyond it. Like you said, we have to search for the truth. And it's not going to come from mainstream media. It’s going to come from bold, brave journalists such as yourself who speak out and aren’t afraid to speak truth to power—aren’t afraid to look behind the curtain and see what the true motivation is.

And to anyone listening, I will tell you—obviously follow the money—but it’s more than money sometimes. It’s about power. Power corrupts. And absolute power corrupts absolutely.

So we know that President Trump is upsetting the apple cart there. And when we were talking before we hit record, we were talking about Herman Cain. When I worked with Herman Cain and was deputy chief of staff for his presidential campaign, we were also anti-establishment. We were kind of the renegades. We were the outsiders coming in.

But people loved the message. We were growing a movement that was deep and wide across the nation because people loved the fact that someone was thinking about running the country like a business. And when people tell me, “Oh, Donald Trump’s insane,” or you hear media personnel talk about him being unstable or insane, I think—hmm.

So he built these multibillion-dollar businesses, has a family where every one of his kids is impressive and clearly loves him, and he has been respected by millions across the world and thousands who have worked for him. So many people give behind-the-scenes stories of President Trump’s character and generosity.

And so this particular episode isn’t meant to be “rah-rah Trump.” It’s meant to say—look beyond the headlines. Whether it’s Donald Trump—because he won’t be around forever. He will not be around forever. He is just an example of what happens. He won’t be around forever. So after Donald Trump, who will they demonize? They’ll demonize the next person who speaks truth.

So if you were going to give a recommendation to business owners—employers—who want to help their employees understand how to go beyond the headlines, how to understand how policy affects paycheck, which is, of course, my passion—what would you tell them to share with employees?

Simon Ateba: I would just tell them—people are free to vote for who they want to vote for. But I’d tell them to ask: Are their lives better off now than they were four years ago? Do they have more money? More savings? Is inflation lower, or are things more expensive? Can they afford the things they used to afford?

And from there, they’ll know who to vote for. Because who they vote for—or the policies they vote for—determine how good the economy is, how low inflation is, and how cheap the  groceries are. What you realize now is people had more money before. They have less money now.

Some people have more money—people in the military-industrial complex, who are funding wars in Ukraine and spending hundreds of billions of dollars. Maybe they have more money. But most people don’t. Most people are crushed by inflation.

The former mayor of New York City, Mr. Giuliani, went to the store yesterday and posted something. He follows me, and I follow him back. He said, “I just went to the store and Biden’s economy is killing us.” People are feeling the pain, and they should vote wisely.

Linda J. Hansen: Good point. And it isn’t even just inflation, which you’re bringing up is, of course, critical. But we touched before briefly on the border and security. Now we look—even in New York and some other states—they're asking homeowners to take in illegals. I told someone today: it’s optional now, but soon it may be mandatory in some of these states.

And we see the crime rising. The crime in so many cities—these sanctuary cities—is policy. We don’t want to discriminate against anyone, of course, but we need to have legal paths to immigration. We need sensible border security. And we need to protect our young people from trafficking and these innocent children and the people being destroyed from the fentanyl and other drugs coming in through the cartels.

So it’s all about policy. Listeners—don’t get caught up in the who. Pay attention to the what. And seek truth.

Simon, do you have any other closing comments before we close the interview?

Simon Ateba: Just to ask everyone listening to follow me on X at @SimonAteba—S-I-M-O-N A-T-E-B-A—and also to pray for me. Pray for me to stand strong and remain strong through election night, because it’s going to get really nasty. We have different investigations, people pretending to weep in court.

Stormy Daniels is going to be in court next month and will try to show how horrible Trump is, how horrible people on the right are, how horrible white people are. That’s the thing. I want people to pray for me so we can go beyond the politics of race and gender and division, and see that people are just people.

They have good policies or bad policies. They have policies that improve the economy and life—or policies that destroy the economy—regardless of whether they’re white, black, or brown. See people as people.

I also want people to understand that when people call for legal immigration, it doesn’t mean they hate immigrants. It doesn’t mean they hate Mexicans or Congolese. It just means—can we do things the right way, so people can go through the normal process?

I went through the normal process. And when you do, it’s actually harder. It takes years and years. Something has to be done. I love immigrants. I don’t demonize anyone. I love white, I love black, I love brown, I love all kinds of people.

And I believe once you do that—one of the reasons I reach half a billion views every 28 days on X, formerly Twitter—is because I understood: don’t be deceived by skin color. Don’t be deceived by race. People are people. They have envy, anger, jealousy, greed—all those things. But if you take that away and look at policy, don’t be distracted by President Trump posting things you don’t like, but at the policies and making the economy stronger. Are the cities safer? Those are the things we should focus on. People have different personalities, some are larger than life and some are timid. But if we focus on those things, those are superficial things and I want people to go deeper. Look beyond the headline. Look beyond the personalities and see how the policies align.

Linda J. Hansen: That is such good advice. Before we close, you have mentioned twice in this interview, Stormy Daniels, and I have never talked about her in my podcast before. But since you did, I am going to also refer listeners to something you posted- the letter that she sent years ago stating that nothing improper had occurred. I am not quoting her on that, those exact words, but I just reread it in one of your posts today. Just like so often happens when there is a political takedown, it’s people who have said nothing bad happened, suddenly are on the View or other shows, saying oh this horrible thing happened. 

Again, I would just like to ask people to follow the money, I am not accusing anyone of anything. I am just saying “hmm let’s question that.” Because stories seemed  to change and why is that?  So whenever you see people being attacked so much, like Simon was saying this attack on President Trump’s business and all these different things. I mean they want to put him in jail for like 700 years. It’s crazy.

I think the people of America are waking up. You can just compare a Biden rally to a Trump rally and there’s no comparison. But hopefully we will be able to get truth out. And as you said, focus on the policies. The color of skin doesn’t matter. We love immigrants, we want immigrants to come to here safely and legally. We don’t want people to be victimized by traffickers or others who are doing it out of ill intent. We have really good reasons to have these policies that provide order and a rule of law and safety and freedom for all. 

So thank you Simon, again it’s Simon Ateba and you can follow him on X. I follow him on LinkedIn as well. I am sure if you find him on his social media you will be blessed. Just don’t always believe everything you read about him in the news as we said. The mainstream media is not always kind to him, so trust but verify. Please follow him because you will find truth about stories that you may not be hearing the whole truth about. 

So thank you so much Simon. Again if people want to contact you what's the best way for them to contact you?

Simon Ateba: Just follow me on Twitter or X and LinkedIn. 

Linda J. Hansen: Ok well thank you so much. It’s a blessing to have you on the podcast. 

Simon Ateba: Thank you Linda. Thank you for having me. 

Linda J. Hansen: Thank you again for listening to the Prosperity 101® Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, share, and leave a great review. Don't forget to visit Prosperity101.com to access the entire podcast library to order my newest book, Job Security Through Business Prosperity: The Essential Guide to Understanding How Policy Affects Your Paycheck or to enroll you or your employees in the Breakroom Economics online course. You can also receive the free e-book, 10 Tips for Helping Employees Understand How Public Policy Affects Their Paychecks. Freedom is never free. Understanding the foundations of prosperity and the policies of prosperity will help you to protect prosperity as you become informed, involved, and impactful. Please contact us today at Prosperity101.com to let us know how we can serve you. Thank you.