Hello there alaskans wherever you are. Welcome to the Must Read Alaska Show. Coming to you from somewhere in Alaska. This is a place where we talk about you guessed it Alaska where we keep the mainstream media on their toes and where we are standing up for what's right and a world run by leftists. You can find out more by heading over to must read Alaska dot com and also checking out the Must Read Alaska youtube channel for some really great content. But first let's get this party started.
Well, welcome everybody to the Must Read Alaska show. I'm your host john Quick Coming to you live from somewhere in Alaska and boy do we have a special treat today for you? We want to thank everybody that listens watches and reads must Read Alaska. We are doing this for you. And if you care about conservative news, we exist for you. So we have the show and we're maybe top 200 itunes in any four countries in any given moment.
And today we have a very special guest to you for you today, Simon who is the Chief White House Correspondent for Today News Africa in Washington, D. C. It's one of the biggest news organizations in Africa. Simon, thanks so much for coming on the Must Read Alaska Show today. Thank you for having me, john so tell me about your role as the Chief White House correspondent. That is a big role.
How did how did that how did you come to this role and and are you enjoying your time in D. C. Yeah, so I'm having a great time even though I've faced many challenges also at a biden White House in the biden White House as chief White House correspondent. I spend my time covering the White House. You remember a few minutes before we came on this show I was attending a telephonic press briefing by john Kirby who is one of the spokesperson at the White House.
So my job is it's really to focus on ties between U. S. And Africa ties and interaction between U. S. And Africa. Doesn't. I mean focus you remember the last december president biden hosted the second US Africa summit in Washington D. C. They were close to there were 50 African leaders who came to Washington D. C. To try to see how the the U. S. And Africa can strength strengthen ties so those are the things that interest us.
But I'm also in the U. S. So it means that covering the White House, I pay attention to what's going on at the White House. So if you go to my personal tutor account we see that what I post them mainly is what is going on at the White House, what is going on in the US. But if you go to Today News Africa which is the twitter the twitter handle for Today News Africa. You see that what we have there is mostly what the latest US africa relations.
So tell me what are the major issues facing africa right now folks that are going to listen to this are gonna be mainly from the US. And I think a lot of us don't really have any idea what the major issues are facing africa. So give us the boilerplate on what's going on in Africa. So one of the major issues right now as far as U. S. And Africa concerned is the rise of china.
The rise of Russia and the fact that those two countries are spreading disinformation and misinformation sometimes against the U. S. And because of that relationship between Africa and the U. S. Is being is undermined. It's becoming weak. You remember last year when there was that vote at the U. N. After Russia invaded Ukraine the US realized that they didn't have as much influence as they used to have in Africa.
Several african nation bank Russia decided not to go along with the U. S. And after that the U. S. Realized that they had to do something If you recall in october of last year secretary of state antony Blinken went to South Africa to unveil what they called the new US africa policy and that policy was meant to revamp and ties between U. S. And Africa and after that in december 2020 20 to President biden himself invited 50 african leaders to Washington D. C.
To try to see how um you know that relationship can be strengthened as china is rising. So one of the major issues now when it comes as far as the U. S. Is concerned is how will the U. S. World role with the U. S. Play in Africa is the U. S. Role in Africa diminishing and and I can say that it's diminishing and they're trying to revamp it. The issues are the same. The issues of infrastructure, people need infrastructure for basic thing. The issues of corruption is still there.
Um Some African leaders have been in power for a long time dictatorship. The fact that democracy right now it's almost on the dick if you remember there have been several coups in Africa in West Africa particularly in the past in the past few months. So the issues that the issues are the same but when it comes to us Africa relations, one of the main issues how with the U. S. Continue to play a bigger role in Africa as china and Russia rights. So what about the opportunities?
There's got to be some major opportunities for Africa. There's got to be you know what what are the things that Africa is hopeful for that? You're hopeful for for your country? The opportunities are everywhere. You know when you have a developing country or a developing continent that doesn't have the basic basic things that needed to farm infrastructure in terms of roads in terms of electricity. I used to live in Nigeria, I was born in Cameroon.
But I used to live in Nigeria I studied there and it's hard to have electricity. Sometimes people spend weeks weeks and they don't have electricity. As a result it's undermining businesses, it's undermining education and so you have opportunity opportunities when it comes to infrastructure development. Uh So that's 11 of the big things so if the US really want to invest in Africa they have to almost catch up because that's what china is already doing.
China is building bridges, roads and everything that has to do with infrastructure and that's where the U. S. Should come in and try to see how they can have a partnership with Africa by investing in infrastructure. And they're trying to do that last year in in Early last year around June last year President Biden and the other G20 leaders, they announced that they were going to invest $600 billion dollars in Africa over the next five years.
So but you know those are commitment, it's not clear how much of that money will actually be raised and be invested in Africa. So I read one of your stories, you can tell tell us it from your your account that you before you got to the U. S. You would watch CNN and then you got here and you may be thought a little differently about CNN tell us that story.
Yeah so I I grew up in Africa, I was born in Cameroon, spent time in Nigeria study there and well most people, while most people watch Fox News and a lot of Conservative media outlets read them here in the US in a lot of places around the world where people watch is CNN and so I used to watch CNN and the impression I had then was that the racist and the bad guys were the republicans were the conservative and and so that's what I thought.
And I didn't want to have anything to do with anyone in the midwest, the old white guys with no college degree, you know the way they described them. And so I didn't want to have anything to do with them and everywhere I wanted to live. I wanted to live in, you know, democrat around cities, Washington d c California, state, city of state, California Maryland, you know, places like that. And so my mind was closed up during the 2020 presidential election.
Our publication endorsed president biden, then candidate biden. We didn't have we didn't want to have anything to do with President trump because the new york times told us that, you know, he used the s you know, whole world against Africans. And so I didn't want to do it. So I began to cover the White House and while I was covering the White House, I began to realize that I was actually being discriminated against in the biden.
White House more than even in the trump White House because during trump White House, I wasn't covering the White House full time because of the reason that I just explained I didn't want to have much to do with trump already. You know they've told me this the races, this guy, these are the racist and power, they hate blacks and don't have anything to do with them.
But I realized during trump I would go to the White House even though I wasn't covering the White House regularly, I would go to the White House and President trump is hosting maybe african leader, he hosted President Buhari of Nigeria.
He or even when he's hosting any world leader event and I have access when president biden came to power, I have had access to express briefing in more than two years just once and that was after a complaint and I began to realize it wasn't really what I was told for instance in November 2021 when South Africa identified the new uh, American variant. the villain was everywhere. He was in the U. K. It was in Hong kong he was everywhere.
But the biden administration decided to ban only eight african nation from coming to the US. Six of those countries had zero cases of Bavarian and when I challenged jen Psaki who was the press secretary for president biden then you know she reacted really angrily and then she wasn't calling on me anymore and and and and they began to discriminate against me even and I began to realize it wasn't just against me.
It was also against other Africans and also against other conservative news outlets in the briefing room for instance. It's hard for them to call on the new york post. It's hard for them to call on the daily color. It's hard for them to call on the Washington time. It's hard for them to even call on people like Al Jazeera or News Marks or, you know, all the other people who don't really, um, either send them questions in advance or throw the democratic lines.
And it changed me and I began to know republicans and I realized that conservatives were actually great people. They came for me, supported me when I was being discriminated against the Taco Carson invited me on the show and different other people began to invite me and began to know them. So my transformation actually took place right in the White House, which is, which is a story on its own. That's pretty cool. That's it. That is an amazing story.
What's one last thing you'd like to leave folks that are gonna listen to this and maybe hear about Africa for the first time from somebody who lives there. What's the one thing you want to leave folks in the US knowing about Africa? Yeah, so two things I asked everyone to go to Today News Africa and Heat support continue to support me, continue to support our publication are good to add Simon active.
And, you know, subscribe to our substance, how we say that when I see how immigration is being done in the US, where uh you know, some people have it easy to come to the US, whereas Africans hardly get the same opportunity. They don't participate is 0.0 point 0% 0.0 point 1% of Africans who apply for visas are allowed to come in. Yet, Africans love the US, They love that connection.
The relationship with the U. S. They are smart, they're intelligent, they're educated when they come to the U. S. They are to the economy. And and I would say that Africans are good people. They love the US opportunities abound and we tell anyone listening to us now to reach out and see how we can also help to, you know, continue to develop Africa in different areas, health, agriculture, infrastructure and several other areas. Well, Simon, thank you so much for joining us on the must read.
Alaska show. I really appreciate it. We wish you nothing but success here at must read Alaska. And I look forward to hearing the questions that you asked. The White House Press Secretary. Um have a good day and have a great rest of your week. Until next time. I'm john quick from somewhere in Alaska