>> this week on q&a our guest's award-winning journalist guest's award-winning journalist and compton who recently retired after 40 years of covering the white house for abc news. news. she talks about presidents from gerald ford to barack obama and shares her personal experiences with these men and her opinions on the administrations. c-span: after 40 years of covering the pres. of the united states at the white house, house, who had the best and worst press operations? >> guest: pretty much stable through all of them. marlon fitzwater, a particularly good press secretary under the george herbert walker administration tended to have less good strong number two's and number threes. i always thought that curious

because of press secretary can do everything him or herself. the best press operation i think again that has been pretty even, but even but when barack obama became president they kind of reorganized it i'll walk in from the press. into the lower press office. almost twice as many people with a single best. people who specializes in each issue. instantaneous and getting answers back. ♪ -- c-span: which was the hardest to get information from? >> guest: each administration had times. toward the end of the carter administration we did not have email, we did not have -- everything is handed out in paper or announced over

the loudspeaker, but the administration was so on the ropes and offensive that it got harder and harder to get through the top officials, harder and harder to get routine things from the. i think the best time for any of the administration was certainly true of george w. bush when they 1st walk in the door then not only had an agenda but presidential transitions are now so orchestrated that president bush had an issue a week already planned, points of like education. and so there were passed to get that the information that they wanted out for every administration when they are in a time a time of war, persian gulf war iraq afghanistan being able to get through the foreign policy and national security council people has been really a top priority, and i

have to give high marks to most of the administrations because he really could reach overall -- a real human being who seems to know something. c-span: why did you quit? >> guest: because i felt it was the right time. i think there is honor in being able to stand up and walk away with something you have really enjoyed for something that may not still deliver quite as much satisfaction and something that has come to something of a pausing moment. it is not a presidential campaign year. i never would have left during one of those. it was coming up against the mark my would have finished 41 years at abc news, 40 news, 40 of those in washington and almost all of that covering the white house. also comes at a time when broadcasting and network broadcasting there were knew teams of people coming into abc news, news a new president, new anchor of abc world news tonight a new

style on television reporting and abc and the other networks where more and more of our young -- the digital journalists, young people come in doing so much more and getting on the air now and having tutored and cared for and encouraged on so many of them i really saw this line about new faces that are now a few years older than i was when i walked up the white house driveway age 20 selman. c-span: we have some videotape of you from 1988 the 1st you can find that you appeared on this network let's watch it and get your reaction to it. >> with the agenda in 1988 political election be any different if donna writes had not gotten onto that airplane from miami and confided to a stranger in the seat next to her that she was going to visit gary hard for the weekend? would have been different if dick gephardt had not designed his campaign logo

to look just like the chrysler mom and campaigned about $40,000 cars in iowa? would it have been different if the networks had given jesse jackson a harder time on his economic and foreign policy platform in the earliest days of the campaign? we are here today to figure out who sets the agenda. c-span: do you but that? >> guest: i don't. i am trying to remember what the background is. is. i still on that blue sweater c-span: what did you think of what you were saying in retrospect? >> guest: that is the kind of on the ground footsoldier covering politics will that i always relished most, and it is talking to people who would care what a dick hardware jesse jackson is doing. and i look at the modern coverage, particularly coverage, particularly of the midterm elections in 2,014 where some people say

it is an election about nothing, others say it is an election about everything. someone everything. someone pointed out that abc has an almost no stories about it. the men and women who make decisions. c-span: when you mentioned the gary hard thing was that the beginning of the coverage of the personal life of presidents? >> guest: i don't think i don't think so. when gary hart cared reporters to follow him and messed around with monkey business i think that was a a time when politicians finally realized that they were private lives were fair game. reporters, not us foot

soldiers, but the managers editors, executive producers, the management of network television news decided, yes, we can go after the stories. c-span: what do you think the impact has been on the population? do they care? >> guest: unfortunately i think the general viewing audience in the general leadership love stories like that. they want to see the high and mighty when they become hypocritical take a fall. they like to they like to see public figures who have feet of clay even when you have them up on a pedestal. so i think if anything the kind of gossipy, personal coverage of men and women as men and women, not as political leaders, but the more personal and their families personal lives, the public has a real appetite for that and it has spotted news like podcasts hard copy, straight copy, the was

the look just like newscasts but also liberty and fame based, and i think that has lowered the common denominator. >> what has happened since you have been reporting from the white house that you do not like over the years? >> i love twitter. i love the immediacy of social media, but it does not all pan out as a positive for us to be able to be able to write in 140 characters is an art but it is done very quickly, and it still has lasting power because the tweets are out there and facebook posts and is to grant and the other kind of messages. what they do not have behind them is what i miss the most, a reporter who has sat and thought carefully about the script, hounded to perfection, called one or two more sources, gotten an editor to help. this is awkward, how can we make it better. i think in the last ten

years and certainly in the last five i spent far less time perfecting what we used to take great pride in and that is a very good writing. c-span: where did you learn to write? >> guest: writing is a lifelong lesson. and i don't know how well i wrote. i have never applied for a job, never written in java application to my college intern when the local tv station offer me a job as a reporter, $100 reporter hundred dollars a week. i think i learned about writing by doing it. three years later, four years later, abc news in new york called and offered me a job as a network correspondent. and they very smartly put me -- they moved me to new york. one of the things was sit and radio and write hourly newscasts and anchor them.

it had an instant lesson in the middle east politics. it helps the it helps the right to minutes, four minutes as the saintly and as colorfully as possible. i had an hour to do it. and i think that the chance to write four or five newscasts today and deliver them and know how awkward phrasing can kill you and when you are proud of what you have written about like what you have written it is so much easier to deliver it i think i think that 1st year was a huge ramp-up in writing. c-span: a quick personal step, board where? >> guest: the southside of chicago from parents who are longtime south siders. hyde park. c-span: did you live there the whole time? >> guest: at age five who moved.

we lived in side of lake michigan. i rode michigan. i rode my bike to school on elementary, the eldest of four. those are my growing up years. c-span: where did you go to college and why? >> a a huge high school in illinois. it was still the era when the ivy league's what wonderful thriving women's colleges. i'd applied early decision at wellesley and was deferred a girl down a girl down a couple of towns away of planning out in. so i looked at hollins college in virginia, hollins university, four-year liberal arts women's college, went, visited college, went, visited, fell in love, and spend for wonderful years in virginia. c-span: where did you meet your husband? >> guest: he walked up to the car in georgetown as i was leaving the market on

wisconsin avenue. i was in a hurry to get back to the white house because i was the lead story of the 6:30 p.m. news on saturday. he walked up to my car and said do you know somewhere down the college with. i could have gotten out of the quick, but he was so handsome. we talked for 15 minutes, i got to the white house on time and i best friend and said i just met the man i'm going just met the man i'm going to marry. c-span: how long did it take? >> guest: mary seven months to the day later. c-span: how many children? >> guest: for children. i timed them poorly. i was sent immediately out to cover john anderson independent campaign. by election night i was in maternity close the clothes and baby number two. born just after the reagan inaugural.

then i took things easy. born during the reagan years. abc broke my heart in a a way they sent me to capitol hill to take charlie gibson's place. i was assigned to the 2nd reagan term the capitol hill. it was so easy. people came people came to work on tuesday, went home on thursday afternoon. c-span: how hard is it for a woman with child to do this kind of business when you are on airplanes traveling, no sleep and all that? how close to when you have these babies did you work? >> guest: it was easy for me because i was in good health had for normal pregnancies, wonderful husband at home and the full-time housekeeper who was happy to spend the night if i was i was going to be laid at the office or out of town. so we -- i had the means at home to feel secure about the family there.

i had nice normal pregnancies. at. at the reagan inaugural they had to bring me a chair. i was three months from delivering, delivering, and it was nice to sit every once in a while. but the 1st crisis in my 1st pregnancy came the night i was -- it was -- i was halfway through the pregnancy when i started covering politics into the 1980 election. because i would not be able to travel through the entire election they asked me to cover republican candidates. i stood in front of the house and senate doing a report, and talk about how sam senate. he zoomed out and you can see both ends of the capital, dulles airport, the mississippi river and that i was out to hear pregnant. in the comptroller of the executive producer shouted i don't ever want to see your elbows again until the baby is born not that i was ashamed of it but it was distracting. c-span: let's go back to 1988.

a debate asking questions. abcatoo mr. vp, yes, we read your lips, no new taxes. despite the same pledge taxes. despite the same pledge from president reagan after income tax rates were cut in each of the last five years some federal taxes have gone up on social security, security, cigarettes liquor, even long-distance telephone calls. that is money straight out of people's wallets. isn't the phrase misleading to voters? >> no because i am pledged to that. yes, some taxes have gone up. the main.is taxes have been cut and yet income is up to the federal government by 25 percent in the last three years. and so what and so what i want to do is keep this expansion going. c-span: what is the value of these debates? >> guest: about that particular debate and that question is that nobody was listening.

all they remember is the 1st question i was asked by the reports one left, the moderator last michael dukakis if he would support the death penalty if kitty dukakis were raped and murdered. the three murdered. the three women happens to be three women panelists and a male moderator. we we had urged bernie earlier in the day not to ask that question. teefor bernie shaw. >> guest: bernie shaw. we thought it was a got you question by using the governor his wife's name it made it into is the personal and as we sat there you could see in the dark behind us there was a large audience. and bernie asked that question we heard a gasp come from the audience behind us. i think debates are important, and i important, and i think the panel debates, although they are dinosaurs now i think they i think they are good because the journalists can ask a question that the pres. could not get around or vice president cannot get around. he had to answer. he he has already said no knew taxes, taxes are going

up. i can understand why town hall debates are so popular. you like to have questions, but questions, but they would more often ask will you keep my taxes low not giving the candidate any in the mandate to sharpen that answer or carry the issue forward. i think that is an achilles' heel in the town hall format c-span: george herbert walker bush, what do you remember? >> guest: kinder and smarter. headed smarter. headed the cia, been a member of congress ambassador to china before we even had an embassy there. he had done so much and he came to office at the end of

the reagan administration what i consider the 3rd reagan term. he did not have a big blog agenda. he wanted the private sector and private effort and charitable efforts to be recognized. he wanted to be the education president, but these were not big monumental issues. what he will be remembered for his three things, he had been in office a few months when the berlin wall fell. he got in and out of the persian gulf war and was at 90% in 90 percent in the polls. in the economy began to slide. and in the and in the end he walked around trying to get reelected saying i care and no one believed him. c-span: did you cover him during the campaign?

>> guest: i did. c-span: did you know his son? >> guest: i knew four of them. c-span: did you ever think george walker bush with the would be president? >> guest: i think i was surprised when george w. bush and jeb bush both decided to run for governor. the morning of the election my going to starbucks to get my coffee and there is marvin bush. why are you out campaigning. he says, i'm the only smart brother. of course there of course there were all surprised jeb did not win. and i think my greatest moment came when he was still kind of a smart alec playing golf with his father i was the travel pool.

and they made it through 18 holes 18 holes in one hour and 53 minutes. he came up to my reporter's notebook and said one hour and 53 minutes. write that down, that's a record. the white a record. the white house doctors is aerobic golf. c-span: 1992 another time we did a presidential debate. what was it it like to be chosen to do this and how much preparation did you do? >> guest: for the 1st debate we were told 36 hours before we had been chosen. i was on his campaign train with julie literally texting for take off and they stop complaining came back to the terminal is because and compton had a phone call.

i was given a number in los angeles will you be on the debate tomorrow night? new york and asked for permission. yes. they all knew it was coming. coming. so i got almost no preparation time. i spent that preparation time staying up late running questions. the 2nd time the 2nd time we had at least a week or two notice. once i was asked to be a debate questioning i kind of cut off contact with them on the campaigns but with those trying to influence questions because i wanted to i wanted to be able to have a clear head and clear thought and look at it with fresh eyes. c-span: here are couple of questions you asked back in 1992.

>> mr. pres. how can you watch the killing in bosnia and ethnic cleansing or the starvation and anarchy in somalia and not want to use america's might if not america's military to try to end that kind of suffering? >> where will income families can be guaranteed a tax cut are at the very least at what income level they can be guaranteed no tax increase. ♪ how much coordination did you do? >> guest: almost none. we had dinner together the night before and all of us were kind of veterans at that. we knew that there were areas that we wanted to cover. it is interesting in the 1st panel there were three questionnaires. peter jennings called me. he had done the vice presidential debate.

make sure you have enough questions for 90 minutes. basically everyone shows up at the same six questions. the three panelists i met in my hotel room we we had long yellow sheets. make sure it was going to ask about this trip to fund the supreme court. we painstakingly made sure that we had every base that we felt was important covered. c-span: the public often thinks the reporters a bias. >> guest: the mainstream media does a wonderful conscientious job to keep us on track. much of the mainstream media is liberal and not what they

consider the mainstream. since us are getting that question 40 years ago from audiences what i get now is audiences feel they have a place a place to go, a comfort zone to which they can gravitate on cable television news. more conservative they can go to one channel, more liberal they channel, more liberal, they like the.that one upon another channel. and i think that is unfortunate because the mainstream and the network newscasts and the main prize-winning newspapers across the country i think still do an exceptionally good job of telling an entire story without shortchanging the opposition of you. c-span: over the years who is the matters to you for something you reported? >> guest: i think to press secretaries come to mind. jay carney brings me out by phone because of something i put in a pool report which

he believed he had put off the record. i thought it was an integral part of knowing what the pres. was doing and so i i included it and he just for minutes on the cell phone almost melted in my hand. c-span: do you remember what it was? >> guest: on our way to newtown connecticut. it was a very long drive. and it was something about how he would deal with the families and what their plan was. i considered it an important part of what the president was doing. i do remember i do remember another time when allie fleischer, to his office under president bush 43. he was furious. nothing a headset on abc news. maybe he was syndicated, right-wing talkshow host had taken a story i had done and

broken it up into little pieces and inserted his own commentary into it and run it. i had not heard it had never heard of this radio personality for command it was on whether president bush should have come directly back to washington after the september 11 attacks. i was with them for ten hours on the plane. i was allowed to stay. our he was angry and i explained to him that what he heard on someone had sent in this radio diatribe was not reflective of what i had said earlier. c-span: ler on that, and i have heard you talk about this before, start with september 11 and where you were. >> guest: in a place of such innocence on the most routine white house trip ever. ever. there were only a small group of us traveling with the president to several stops in florida where he

was giving the same education speech over and over and over again. the again. the last off, we flew in and got they're late. it was hard to find a place to stay so they had us in an aging tennis club with an old country club style dining room. later at night. a late bite to eat and president bush and his brother jeb and andy card or eating in a private room. and he came out by the table and said good night. i said, tonight's 28 years the anniversary for me being years, the anniversary for me being at abc news. why do we do this? you are in the pool and cover the president on the road because anything can happen next morning. we are the small group of pool reporters who will pull our information with those back at the hotel clerk who were in the cafeteria at the school waiting for the pres.'s presence public remarks. we watched and listened to a group of 2nd graders. and he came in and drop to the president and whispered to him, and i was stunned.

9:07 a.m. and he whispers. no one interrupts the president. he stood and said that he had to go and went into a side room and then we discovered that it was two planes down to play crèches crashes in new york. ari fleischer came out to the pool now in the parking lot outside the school and said stay right here the pres. will come talk to the pool. no, they're, they're alive to have large cafeterias -- live cameras in the cafeteria. cafeteria. he went and said it is an apparent terrorist attack. i must return to washington. the washington. the door slammed and in the pentagon was it. we did not know that as we took off. no way the pres. to go back to washington. c-span: how many people were on that airplane at that time? >> guest: air force one has 79 seats, the press section has 12. twelve reporters and camera

crew including magazine newspaper two wire services, tv camera crew. the staff was small. karl rove was on board. karen board. karen hughes was not. she would usually travel with us. andy card, condoleezza rice. it was a stolen's gaffe for even a trip like that. we circling. i went back to the galley crew in the back. back. what do you have on here for dinner? it was clearer going to be out there for a while. one sandwich on board enough fuel to get back to washington. ..

i would call the abc news and data for reports or desk and jennings would put me live on the air. i knew the tone of my voice, the clarity of detail and specificity without any emotion would be the best way to tell the american people and in fact the world that george bush didn't want anyone thinking the american government had been brought to its knees. c-span: what time did you get back to washington? >> guest: we left florida around 10:00 in the morning. we left the first refuel at

1:36 in the afternoon eastern time. we were back on the ground at andrews air force base at 7:00. the president flew to the white house and for the first time ever they had a helicopter and allowed two reporters to stay on so one per reporter and the associate press and it tv crew. we took off in her own helicopter and flew along the potomac river the pentagon smoke still rising and we landed on the lawn of the national monument, beautiful golden afternoon. my job is reporter was over. we were whisked to the white house into the white house press area where colleagues are working on an open my computer. i saw my first e-mail. i have two sons at vanderbilt university.

the e-mail said mom, our fraternity brother was on the 93rd floor of the first tower and at that moment the day of crashing steel and doomsday scenarios have a human face and this young man who had just gotten his first job. i sat down and i cried. c-span: what did president bush say to you behind the scenes that was not for the record? just go one thing he said. he came back to big press cabinet just before we landed in washington on our way back to washington and there were five of us sitting there. he waved away our notebooks made it very clear this was not on the record. i think at that point any president his words had to be chosen carefully and we knew he was preparing to address the american people that night.

he had reached his wife, yet reached his family, yet talked to the white house several times and then he said something along the lines of we are going to get those thugs. and that line was not reportable reportable. we did tell reporters that he came back to the door of the press cabin but that frustration and that edge we are going to get those thugs. c-span: who was on there from the press with you? >> guest: sonia ross was the senior wire press person on board. she was from the "associated press" read the cbs camera crew a veteran crew from cbs george christian and eric washington and doug mills at "new york times" photographer so you had on board five journalists who knew inside and out how to cover the white house and i later told andy card that i thought i was the smart thing to do. i had already before we made the first landing not pushed all the

press off the white house, all the white house press office think it would be the wrong message to show the president to disappear into the wild blue yonder. you needed the press to get the word out and i think andy made the right call on that. right now how did things change for you and covering the white house after nine 9/11? >> guest: i don't think 9/11 changed to what i do in the way i do it. certainly in the next two years it had a significant effect on how we covered the united states national security. i think there was a period of a couple years where we gave tremendous latitude to the president, to the pentagon to those writing the patriot act on civil liberties, to some extent to the congress which justified moving in the directions it did. i think we were often asked to keep things for our guidance only, for our planning and not make them public trade everything from the daily

presidential schedule which used to be published in the "washington post" public material no longer remains public exact times up when the president would beware. i think very often they would have were planning for afghanistan and were planning for iraq and we gave them a tremendous amount of leeway to keep much of that off the record record, maybe too much. c-span: here you are this is with president obama and it was 64 days into his presidency and he calls on you in a press conference. >> ann compton. hey ann. >> you sound surprised. >> i am surprised. could i ask you about race? >> you bet. >> yours is a rather restored presidency and i'm i'm wondering in any of the policy debate to have had in the white house the

issue of race has come up or whether it has in the way you feel you have been perceived why other leaders were by the american people or has the last 64 days been a relatively colorblind time? c-span: do you remember that? >> guest: i was criticized by some african-american reporters for that because i guess they thought i didn't approach it the right way. i thought it was interesting that in the first black president of the united states we had gone for 64 days with an economy hanging off the cliff and he felt so consumed with that, his answer goes on to say that he is handling the economy for all americans because the tide will rise or raise all boats. i got e-mails and some criticism on line from people who said we should look out for blacks more

because they are suffering more than the majority of whites in a very weak economy. c-span: were you surprised that he called on you? >> guest: thank you for asking me. the president all presidents in recent times get a list from their staff suggesting which reporters and it's the variety. its newspapers and that night he called on all the television networks. he had called on a web site but he never called on a single newspaper reporter. "the new york times," all of them are there. all of of them are there in the first and second row. i was in the third row and i thought we'll make out to that point it was a late news conference. i said i will never get called on now. he's got to go to a print reporter and instead he called on me. so yes i have a question ready but that was why i was surprised. c-span: so what is the current atmosphere? you are no longer there and you don't have to worry about the future getting access to the white house. we hear a lot of grumbling from

reporters that this is terribly difficult administration to get information out of. put it into perspective. just go before i walked out the door on september 10 i was a strong voice for complaining that this particular administration has been more opiate than any i have covered about what the president does in the oval office every day. he is far less accessible. photo ops at the meeting said meetings on the record meetings in the roosevelt room with wall street or issues with environmental groups with public opinion leaders. i think most presidents have been far more forthcoming than the second obama term in terms of what the president is doing every day and we almost never get photo ops. i think i went through a period

of three or four months where i was never the oval office once on my pool day. part of the reason may be that the president feels a little bit on the ropes. his job approval already has been down to 40% consistently for the last couple of years since his re-election. he also has -- he's the first president i covered who has its own journalistic tools trade they have all had photographers. he has his own videographer. he has his own newscast on friday mornings on whitehouse.gov. it is anchored by his former deputy now press secretary josh earnest. i think it's fine that the president of the united states wants to present his own version of what he did all week including most of it is behind-the-scenes shots of him with supreme court justices or with financial leaders coming in for wall street traders find that he puts that on the internet and find that everybody

can see it but those same elements shouldn't be blocked from the white house press corps. c-span: if he is only 40% popular does all that stuff work for him? >> guest: light on know whether it works. it certainly -- they have done a newscast for years. i think to reach out to his own constituency, the people who would bother to go on line to whitehouse.gov on friday morning and watch a four-minute newscasts are probably more his supporters and his detractors. so it may help told up or hold the presidential base. that is something that has always been a hallmark of his campaigns in 2008 and 2012 trade his campaign rigorously one out for those who had reached out to them either giving money or seeking information on line and use the core base to help motivate getting out the vote. c-span: you have covered seven

presidents. let's go through them quickly and see what the first thing that comes to mind is when we mention them. let's go back to gerald ford. just go accessible impress friendly in a post-watergate era. i didn't cover any of watergate. i came in when gerald ford came in and he was open and accessible and wasn't afraid of the press. c-span: jimmy carter. just go jimmy carter was too trusting in a lot of ways. he felt with american foreign-policy poor open and honest and straightforward with their adversaries as well as our friends that the world would be a better place. it didn't work out. iran became a nightmare for him but 21 years later after losing re-election he gets the nobel peace prize. c-span: ronald reagan. >> guests:i have heard him described he was the captain of

the ship of state. he knew exactly where he wanted the course to be. he wasn't ever going to worry about how the engine were in down below. he had his eyes on the horizon. c-span: george herbert walker bush. >> guests:kinder and gentler a thousand points of light. c-span: this is amanda took us to war. >> guests:he took us to war and die before and then didn't seem to notice when the economy got worse and seemed incapable of working with alan greenspan of the fed, his own treasury secretary nick brady wall street to keep the united states recession from hitting and in his re-election campaign i didn't recognize him. he was harsher and more shrill than i've ever seen him and his re-election campaign which he

eventually lost. c-span: bill clinton. >> guests:bill clinton is i want to say this correctly. he has a compelling personality, incredible political smarts and overcame something that surprised me. i thought the impeachment and the personal stain of the monica lewinsky episode is something that people would not forgive him for. it has been more than a decade now and it seems that americans have very much forgiven him. c-span: who is behind-the-scenes kind of controlling during that time. period what the message would be? >> guest: one of the more effective people behind-the-scenes, clinton had a good staff but i think mike mccurry was an exceptionally good choice to take over from

dede myers as the press secretary. mike did two things. mike mccurry i accused him of being able to see around political corners. he would stand at the podium and say something when he worried that three weeks or three months or three years down the road he would have to eat those words that he was always very cautious and always thought out policy beyond just the day or the week. mike also knew the president of the united states needed to have an identity separate from the scandal that was now beginning to really become red-hot trade so we have the white house counsel's office appoint someone from its ranks, a lawyer at the white house who became a spokesman for the scandal. that way mike could continue to be the president's press secretary and let the nitty-gritty of those questions be handled by a separate chain of command and abc had a

separate reporter assigned outside the white house, jackie judd who took over ownership of and the hours it took to work on that story. i think from that point of view the clinton structure in the second term handled it as best as it could have. c-span: george walker bush. >>guest:george walker bush was mis-underestimated. that's his word. he thought that up for one of those comedy dinners that the house to speak like at the white house correspondents' dinner. he actually slipped up and used it in a public statement the day before the dinner as i recall. he said don't mis-underestimate me. he was underestimated. he was mis-estimated but he also i think lost the faith of a lot of people who supported him

strongly and 2000 as being a new phase and somebody who was the right cuts for the country at that point economically and in charisma. and then i think after 9/11 and the two wars he felt very strongly that his worldview was right that what he was doing was right, that these two wars would make the middle east solvable, something that hadn't been done for generations and he lost a great deal of support and then of course at the very end george w. bush probably mis-underestimated the economy and it teetered on what he was told was the brink of depression. c-span: barack obama. >>guest:is hard to capture one president while he still there and i'm not afraid to say something about it. he's not a complete picture yet create hope and change was what

he campaign for and i think people did feel a sense of hope and change. he had a very solid election victory. he won re-election still convincing people that he was the right answer. but i think americans now second-guessed whether he took his hands too much off the controls. on the middle east, on iraq, on the economy, on isis health care reform, getting it to actually happen and i guess the way i would sum him up, barack obama clearly likes campaigning and i'm not sure he is enjoying governing with the same gusto. c-span: a lot of americans over the last 40 or 50 years think presidents are lying to us. how can you tell if somebody is telling the truth and when they are not?

as a reporter. >> guest:as a reporter i think i can tell when a president is telling the truth when two things happened. one, when the words coming out of his mouth don't make sense. i never had sexual relations with that woman as bill clinton said and two that but when the body language betrayed him. they head down and kind of those subservient submissive position. i think that phrase was probably the biggest lie i heard from the president and after the roosevelt room where he was making a statement that he was asked about it and jim lehrer was interviewing him for the news hour and the president denied it. some of his cabinet members came out. it was raining outside and they came out the west lobby door and talk to our cameras ready they

were convinced madeline albright and donna shalala said the president said this didn't happen and they believed him. none of the reporters did. c-span: what about weapons of mass distraction for george w. bush? >> guest: i think the president ought into a lot of intelligence that wasn't convincing. he saw what he wanted to see and he will tell you and his advisers will tell you other countries agree with us. they said this intelligence shows there are weapons of mass distraction. where do you think they got that intelligence? i sammy came from the united states. i think he wanted so badly to go when and in iraq is a problem for the entire middle east. he often said we are never going to be able to settle israel and a palestinian state and he was the first he and bill clinton came out and endorsed a palestinian state. george bush said he will never

be able to get that to happen until saddam husein is out of the picture and waited. reich of the biggest mistake you have ever made. >> guest: that i have ever made? c-span: yeah and reporting. >> guest: i hope it's not retiring. the very night he retired my family took me out to dinner and i held my first granddaughter on my lap and the president sent warplanes into syria and i wasn't there for her. a little bit of a pang that night. i don't think that i ever had one of those oh my god moments where a story i had just done turned out to be totally wrong, where i hadn't checked it off. i have never had one of those pit of your stomach goes -- awful wrenching moments. i think there have been times, i remember trent lott calling me once. i was coming to the white house and he called to complain. he was a republican leader of the senate. he called to complain that i have had two democrats voices in

my spot and only one republican. little moments like that count. just one senator one phonecall but every time you don't have complete confidence or what you are reporting doesn't pan out completely that's a in the armor and mine minus a long career where there had been things. c-span: here's some white house video of you writing on air force one and the 9/11 transition. it's only about one minute. >> i am ann compton abc news and i have covered presidents of the last 40 years. seven presidents and today my last ride on air force one. way in the back where the press have 12 large nice first-class seats it's really an office. we can doze off. sometimes we spend the night on the plane but more than anything else we have electrical power at her feet. we have tv screens on the front wall of the cabin and on

september 11 we actually use those screens to know what was happening on the ground. i have never been frightened on air force one not in bad weather, not in trying circumstances but on september 11 leiweke knew that we were the only plane up there. it was a jet fighter and f-16 right off the wing of my seat. most of the people have been dropped off and there were a handful of us left on board. i think that i have ever felt fear it was the idea that the president could run but could really high. i wasn't afraid for my own self but i was worried for the country. c-span: this was actually an abc clip. which president traveled the most? >> guest: gerald ford only got two and a half years in office and traveled far more than any other president. he spent 250 days a year traveling around the country campaigning for members of congress.

he enjoyed getting out. he came along at a time when richard nixon had been so reclusive as a president so gerald ford traveled constantly. one night such lax security back then. it was a saturday night. i was covering him at some banquet somewhere around the country and i walked up to the head table i said said mr. prezant this is the seventh saturday night in a row that the only guy i had been out with this you. he said don't tell daddy. [laughter] c-span: was the longest trip you ever took? >> guest: the longest foreign trip was probably one of the africa trips where once you get over there and you are moving around we would be gone for a little over two weeks. the longest campaign trip was a difficult one. it was the last four weeks of the 1988 presidential campaign. i was the full-time abc correspondent on the democratic vice presidential nominee lloyd

bentsen. i remember i had for little kids at home and halloween is of course one of the favorite holidays. i do remember calling home on halloween and the kids were so angry i wasn't going to be there. we were in houston and not in washington. i actually found as mom it's hard to call home at night because i felt so bad about being gone so long. c-span: before we run out of time coming across something with you and i don't know what it is. what is it? >> guest: every president is a human being as well as a president and i am often asked for favorite moments. saddam husein invaded kuwait. president george herbert walker bush goes to camp david had convened his war cabinet, comes back to the white house stops in front of my camera and says the arab world is united against saddam husein and i'm word about

mr. president arab league -- leaders like king husein have embraced him. president bush barked at me and said i can read. what's your question? the next day before he sent american troops to war he writes me a letter saying he wasn't pleased with his answers to me and below his signature on his initials gb be your happy face. imagine the president of the united states taking a moment in history like that to apologize to the press and just recently sent me a retirement letter and said now about that bark i'm horrified. are you sure it wasn't just a little yelp? in any case, have you forgiven me dear and go? two apologies from the present of united states. c-span: other than that experience how many presents for that aware of what they had said to you and how many just didn't

pay any attention at all and you have no personal reaction from them? >> guest: most presidents realize they have a personal connection. i don't think they were ever in a confrontation type moment where they felt a need to apologize. i have seen in the last year barack obama really angry twice both off record times. one profanity laced where he thought the press was making too much of scandals that he didn't think were scandals. another where he took us to task for not understanding the limits he has with foreign-policy in the way he is dealing with the middle east and iraq and afghanistan. i don't find him apologetic but i find him willing to stand up to the press and look them in ie even though it's off the record and just give a cell. c-span: does he have a point?

>> guest: from his point of view, he may go we covered what we are allowed to cover and when policy decisions and presidents are inaccessible and don't take questions from the press on a regular basis i think they reap what they sow. c-span: what is ann compton going to do that would be you what is ann compton going to do in retirement? >> guest: i'm going to take my time to figure that out. i've got good health. i have got some speaking engagements. i have got i have got a plan that i would not accept from a politician who told me. i have scoffed for years of politicians who say i'm going to leave elected office to spend more time with my family but it's true. i'm 67 years old. i have a husband who supports me for all these years of travel for brilliant children. my husband bill hughes is a medical doctor and has never

traveled so he was always home. four kids will ted annie and michael who are wonderful young professionals a doctor, lawyer and entrepreneurs and a business exec does and i want time to do things with them. honest truth. >> host: ann compton 41 years with abc news, 40 years of the white house. thank you very much. >> guest: thank you.

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