and later hl hillary clinton alks about middle east issues. >> starting december 22nd on c-span. >> this week, our guest is ann compton. she recently retired after 40 years of covering the white house for abc news. she talks about gerald ford and barack obama and shares her personal experiences with these men and her opinions on their administrations. >> after 40 years of covering the president of the united states at the white house, who had the best and worst press operations?

>> the press operations, they were pretty much stable through all of them. i do think that marlin fitzwater, who was a particularly good press secretary under the george herbert walker bush administration, tended to have less good number twos and threes. the best press operation was pretty even. when barack obama became the president, they reorganized it. when you walk in from the press room where we were to the lower office, there were twice as many people and people who specialized in each issue. if i had a health question, i knew exactly where to go. if i had an immigration or national security question, the

division of labor meant there were more people to reach out to and e-mail made that almost instantaneous in getting answers back. >> which administration was the hardest to get information from? >> each administration had times in which it was difficult to get information. towards the end of the carter administration, we did not have e-mail. it was handed in paper or announced over loudspeaker. the administration was on the ropes and defensive. it got hard to get routine things from them. the best time for any of the

administrations, it was certainly true of george walker bush and barack obama. when they walked in, they had an agenda and the transition was so orchestrated. president bush had an issue a week planned. points of light. education. there were paths to get to the information they wanted out. for every administration, during a time of war, being able to get their foreign-policy and national security council people has been really a top priority. i have to give high marks to most of the administrations. you could reach a real human being. >> why did you quit? >> because i felt it was the right time. there is honor in being able to stand up and walk away from something you have really enjoyed that may not still deliver the same satisfaction. it has come to something of a pausing moment. it is not a presidential campaign year. i never would have left during one. it is coming up on the market

-- mark of where i would have finished 41 years at abc news. almost all of that was covering the white house. it comes up to the time in broadcasting when there are new people coming into abc news. a new president and a new anchor of abc world news tonight. there is a new style of reporting where more and more young people -- the digital journalists -- the young people who come in. they are doing so much more and getting on the air. having tutored and encouraged on so many, i saw this lineup of new faces that are now a few years older than i was when i walked up to the white house driveway at age 27. >> we have videotape of you from 1988. it is the first we could find where you appeared on the network. let's watch it and get your reaction.

[video clip] >> would the agenda in 1998's political election be any different if donna rice had not gotten onto the airplane and confided to a stewardess that she was going to visit gary hart for the weekend? would it have been different if dick gephardt had not designed his campaign logo to look like the chrysler emblem? would it have been different if the network had given difficulties to jesse jackson in the early stages of the campaign? we are here to talk about who sets the agenda. >> do you remember that? >> i don't. i still own the blue sweater. >> what do you think you are saying? >> that is the kind of on the

ground, footsoldier covering politics, role that i always relished the most. it is talking to people who would care what dick gephardt and jesse jackson are doing. i look at the midterm elections in 2014, where some say it is an election about nothing and others say it is an election about everything. somebody pointed out that abc has done almost no stories about it in 2014. looking in depth at the men and women who make decisions that would guide the country, i like those days. >> you mentioned gary hart. was that the beginning of the coverage of personal lives of politicians? >> i do not think so. when gary hart dared reporters to follow him and got messed around with "monkey business," a boat that he took a weekend on, politicians realized their

private lives were fair game. it is not just the reporters. the managers, the executive producers, the management of network television news decided, yeah, we can go after the stories. >> what do you think the impact is on the population? do they care? >> unfortunately. i think the general viewing audience love stories like that. they like to see the high and mighty, when they become hypocritical, take a fall. they like to see public figures on a pedestal.

they like to see gossipy and personal, coverage of men and women as men and women and their personal lives. the public has an appetite for that and it has spawned news-like broadcasts, hardcopy, slimecopy, the ones that look like newscasts. it has lower the common denominator. >> what has happened since you have been reporting over the years? >> i love twitter and the immediacy of social media. it does not all pan out as a positive for us. to be able to write in 140 characters is an art. it is done quickly. it still has lasting power because the tweets are out there, and the facebook posts, instagrams, and other messages.

what they do not have is a reporter who has thought carefully and called sources, gotten in editor to make it better -- an editor to make it better. in the last 10 years, and certainly in the last five, i spent less time perfecting good writing. >> where did you learn to write? where did you learn to write? >> writing is a lifelong lesson. and, i do not know how well i wrote when i first came. i have never applied for a job.

i have never written a job application. i was an intern when a local television station in roanoke, virginia offered me a job as a reporter for $100 a week. four years later, abc news in new york called and offered me a job as a network correspondent. they very smartly moved me to new york. one of the things i did was sit at radio and right and anchor hourly newscasts. a six-day war broke out in the middle east and i had the instant lesson and middle east politics -- in middle east politics. they help me write 2-4 minutes as to simply as possible. -- as succinctly as possible. when you like what you have written, it is easier to deliver it. the first year at abc news was a huge ramp up in writing.

>> born where? >> the south side of chicago from parents who were longtime south siders. my mom and dad raised me, for the first five years of my life, in a house around the corner from barack obama's house in hyde park. at age five, we moved to a suburb and lived inside of lake michigan. rode my bike to school. the village was the home for the rest of my growing up years. i went to a high school in illinois in an era when there were wonderful thriving women's colleges.

i applied at wellesley and was deferred. hillary rodham applied and got in. i looked hollands college. i fell -- hollins college. i fell in love with it. >> where did you meet your husband? >> he walked up to the car as i was leaving a market on wisconsin avenue. i was in a hurry to get back to the white house because i was the lead story on the 6:30 p.m. news on saturday. he said, did you know that somebody i had went to college with was mad at me. he was so handsome. i called my best friend and said, i just met the man i am going to marry. we were married seven months to the day. >> how many children? >> three boys and a girl. i timed them really poorly.

the first was on the 1980 campaign. i was sent out to cover john anderson in 1980. by election night, i was in maternity close with the second baby. i took things easy and annie was born during the reagan years. abc sent me to capitol hill to take charlie gibson's place when he went to anchor "good morning america." it was so easy. people came to work on tuesday and i had another baby on thursday. michael was born the night that graham passed the senate. >> how hard is it for a woman

with child to do this business when you are on airplanes and not sleeping? >> well, it was easy for me. i was in good health and i had four normal pregnancies. i had a wonderful husband at home and a full-time housekeeper who is happy to spend the night if i was going to be late or out of town. i had the means at home to feel secure about the family there. i had normal pregnancies. at the reagan inaugural, they brought me a chair. the first crisis in my first pregnancy came the night -- it was -- i think i was halfway through the pregnancy when i started covering politics into the 1980 elections.

i would not be able to travel through the entire election. they asked me to cover republican candidates and i stood in front of the house and senate doing a report. i said, i will talk about the house and senate. he zoomed out. you could see both ends of the capital, dulles airport, and you could see that i was out to hear pregnant. the producer said, i do not ever want to see your elbows again until a baby is born. i was not ashamed of it. but, it was distracting. >> you are asking a question. >> we read your lips, no new taxes. despite the pledge from reagan, in each of the last five years, some taxes have gone up. now, that is money out of people's wallets. isn't the phrase, no new taxes, misleading to voters? >> i have pledged to that. some taxes have gone up. taxes have been cut. income is up to the federal government by 25% in the last three years.

so, what i want to do is keep the expansion going. >> what is the value of these debates? >> what is remarkable about that particular debate and that question that i asked was that nobody was listening. all they remember is the first question that was asked by the moderator, who asked michael dukakis if he would support the death penalty if kitty dukakis was murdered. we had urged him not to ask that question. >> bernie shaw. >> we thought it was a "gotcha" question. by using the governor's wife's name, it was personal. we heard a gasp behind us. i think the debates are important. i think the panel debates are dinosaurs now.

i think they are good. the journalists can ask a question that the president or vice president cannot get around. he has already said, "no new taxes." taxes are going up. i understand why town hall debate are popular. you like to have citizens asking questions. they ask, will you keep my taxes low? they will not give the candidate a mandate to sharpen the issue. that is the achilles heel in the

town hall formats that are popular. >> what do you think of with george herbert walker bush? >> kinder and gentler. he had been vice president for eight years and was the head of the cia. he had been a member of congress and the ambassador to china before we had an embassy there. he had done so much. he came to office at the end of the reagan administration, in what i consider the third reagan term. he did not have a broad agenda. he wanted 1000 points of light. he wanted private sector and charitable efforts to be recognized. these were not big issues. what he will be remembered for is three things.

he had been in office a few months when the berlin wall fell. an indoor miss opportunity to encourage mocker see in eastern europe. -- an enormous opportunity to democracy in eastern europe. he tried to walk around saying, i care. nobody believed him. >> did you cover the campaign? >> i did. >> did you know his son? >> i knew four of his sons. >> did you think that george walker bush would become president? >> i was surprised when they both decided to run for governor. the morning of the election, two of the sons are running.

i go into starbucks and there is marvin bush, one of the brothers. i said, marvin, why are you not out campaigning? he said, i am the only smart brother. jeb did not win. george w. bush did when. -- did win. my greatest moment with george w. bush was when he was still the smart alec son. he was playing golf. we would see him go off on the first and come in on the 18th. he made 18 holes in one hour and 53 minutes. he said, one hour and 53 minutes. write that down. that is a record. the white house doctor said, "aerobic golf." >> 1992, what was it like to be chosen to do this and how much preparation did you do to ask questions at the debate?

[video clip] >> we were told that we were chosen. i was on lloyd bentsen's campaign. ann compton had a phone call. i was given a number. the head of the debate group said, will you be on the debate tomorrow night? i said, can i call new york and ask their permission. he said, yes. i got almost no preparation time. i did spend that night staying up and writing questions. the second time, we had at least a week or two notice. at that point, when i was asked to be a debate questioner, i cut off contact with the campaigns and those who were trying to influence the questions. i wanted to be able to have a clear head and clear thoughts and look at it with fresh eyes.

>> here are a couple of questions that you asked back in 1992. [video clip] >> mr. president, how can you watch the killing in bosnia and the ethnic cleansing or starvation and anarchy in somalia and not want to use american might or the military to end the suffering? governor clinton, can you lock in a level on where middle income families can be gearing to eat a tax cut or, at the very least, where they can begin -- families can be guaranteed a tax-cut or, at the very least, where they can begin having no

tax increase? >> we knew there were areas we wanted to cover. there were three women. peter jennings called me and he had done the vice president of the bay. he said, make sure you have enough questions for 90 minutes. everybody met in my home till room -- in my hotel room. we had yellow sheets. we asked, who would ask about the supreme court. andrea wanted to ask about the nuclear triad. we had every base covered. >> the public things that reporters are biased. >> the fact that many audiences think that reporters are biased means that we have already lost an important battle. the mainstream media does a wonderful job. we have editors to keep us on track. the audience things that much of the mainstream media is liberal

and not in the mainstream. since i started getting that question 40 years ago from audiences, what i get now are audiences who feel that they have a place to go. they have a comfort zone to go to on cable television. if they are more conservative, they can go to one channel. if they are more liberal, they can go to the pundits on another channel. the main newscasts and prize-winning newspapers do an exceptional job of telling the entire story without shortchanging the opposition view. >> who was the maddest at you for something you reported? >> i think -- two press secretaries come to mind.

jay carney reamed me out because assuming i put in a report because he believed that he had put something off of the record. i thought it was integral and included it. for minutes, on a cell phone, almost melted my hair. we were on our way to newtown,

connecticut to visit with the families after the shooting. it was a long drive. it was something about how he would deal with the families and what their plan was. i considered it important to what the president was doing. i remember another time when ari fleischer called me to the office under president bush 43 and he was furious. there was nothing i had said on abc news. a local -- maybe he was syndicated -- right-wing talkshow host had taken a story i had done and broken it up into little pieces, inserting commentary and ran it. i had not heard it and had never heard of the radio personality. it was on whether president bush should have come directly back to washington after the 9/11 attacks.

i was with him for 10 hours on the plane. i was allowed to stay. ari was angry. i explained to him that what he had heard was not reflective of what i had said on the air. >> i have heard you talk about this before. start with 9/11 and where you were. >> we were in a place of innocence on the most routine white house trip effort. there were only a small group of us traveling with the president to several stops in florida, where he had been giving the same education speech over and over. we got to sarasota very late and it was hard to find places. we went to a tennis club that had a country club-style dining room. i set with sanger from the new york times. andy card and the president were eating near us. he came by and said, good night. it was a 28 year anniversary for me being at abc. david said, why do we do this? i said, we cover the president because anything could happen. the next morning, we are in the small group of reporters at the cafeteria in the school waiting for the public remarks.

we listened to a group of second graders go through their drill. andy card came and interrupted the president. he whispered to him. i was stunned. i wrote in my notebook. 9:07. nobody interrupts the president, even in front of second graders. the president said, he had to go. then, we had discovered that two plane crashes had happened in new york. ari fleischer came out to the pool. we were in the parking lot outside the school. he said, stay right here. i said, no.

there are live cameras in the cafeteria. the president has to speak there. he did not want to scare the children. he did speak. he said he had to go to washington. the pentagon was hit. with did not know that as the plane took off. -- we did not know that as the plane took off. >> how many people were on the airplane? >> there were 12 reporters and camera crew there, including a magazine newspaper. and, the staff was small.

karl rove was with us. karen hughes was not with us, she would usually travel with us. condoleezza rice was not with us. it was a skeleton staff. i said, what you have on here for dinner? he said, we have one sandwich on board and enough fuel to get to washington. we stopped in louisiana. the head of the strategic air command brought us down into a bunker where they had telecommunications. the press remained upstairs. he held a national security meeting at 1:00 in the afternoon. we went upstairs and ari fleischer told us that we are returning to washington and we could tell our offices that. the only way we knew what was happening was that i had a clam cell phone and was able to get a signal out. i would dictate to our desk. peter jennings will put me live on the air. i knew that the tone of my voice, the clarity of detail, and specificity without a motion

-- without emotion was the best way to tell the world that the american government had not been brought to its knees. -- had been brought to its knees. we left washington around 10:00. we were on the ground at the air force base around 7:00. the president flew to the white house. they had a helicopter and allowed to reporters to stay on. they allowed a reporter from the associated press and me as the broadcaster. we took off and flew on the potomac river with the smoke

from the pentagon still rising. we landed on the ground of the washington monument. a beautiful golden afternoon. we went inside the white house. we went into the press area. our colleagues were working. i saw my first e-mail. it was from my sons at vanderbilt university. it said, mom, our friend was on the 93rd floor of the first tower. it was a handsome young man who had just gotten his first job. i set down and i cried. >> what did president bush say to you? >> he said one thing.

he came back to the press cabin and there were five of us sitting there. he waved away our notebooks. he made it clear that this was not on the record. at this point, any president had to choose his words carefully and we knew that he was going to address the american people. he had reached his wife and family. he had talked to the white house several times. he said, something along the lines of -- we are going to get those thugs. those lines were not reportable. we did tell reporters he came back to teh door of the cabin -- but we felt the frustration and edge -- we are going to get

those thugs. the cbs camera crew, a veteran crew from cbs. doug mills, the new york times photographer. you had five journalists who knew, inside and out, how to cover the white house. i told andy card that that was the smart thing to do. i had already said, do not push all of the white house press off of the plane. it would be the wrong message to show the president disappearing into the wild blue yonder. you needed voices to get his message out. >> how did things change after 9/11? >> i do not think that 9/11 changed anything in the way that i do things. in the next two years, it had a significant effect in how we covered national security. there was a time where we gave tremendous latitude to the president, the pentagon, to those writing the patriot act on civil liberties, to the congress, which justified moving in the directions it did.

we were asked to keep things for guidance and not make them open to the public. the president's's schedule used to be published and public exact times when the president would be where. they would have more planning for afghanistan and iraq and we gave them leeway to keep much of that off of the record. maybe too much. >> here you are with president obama. it was 64 days into his presidency. he called on you in a press conference. [video clip]

>> ann compton. hey, ann. you sound surprised. >> i am. can i ask you about race? yours is a historic presidency. i wonder if, during the debates in the white house, the issue of race has come up or in the way that you have been perceived by other leaders or the american people? has the last 64 days been a colorblind time? >> i was criticized by african-american reporters because they thought i did not approach it the right way. i thought it was interesting that the first black president had gone for 64 days with the economy hanging off of the cliff. he was so consumed with that. he goes on to say that he is handling the economy for all americans because the tide will raise all boats. i got e-mails and criticisms online. people said that he should look out for blacks more because they are suffering more than the majority of whites in the weak economy. >> were you surprised that he called on you?

>> thank you for asking me. the president, all presidents in recent times, get a list from the staff that suggests which reporters. it is a variety, newspaper and

etcetera. that night, he had called on all of the television networks and he had called on a website. he had never called on a single newspaper reporter. the new york times is there. all of them are there. i was in the third row. it was late in the news conference. i said, i will never get called on. he had to go to a print reporter. instead, he called on me. i had a question ready. i was surprised. >> you are no longer there and do not have to worry about the future. we hear a lot of grumbling from reporters that this is a terribly difficult administration to get information out of. put it into perspective. >> before i walked out the door on september 10, i was a strong voice for complaining that this particular administration has been more opaque than any i have covered about what the president does in the oval office every day. he is far less accessible on photo ops with meetings. even meetings on the record, the roosevelt room or on issues with environmental groups, with public opinion leaders, i think most presidents have been more forthcoming than the second obama term, in terms of what the president is doing every day.

i went through a time of 3-4 months where i was never in the oval office once. part of this may be that the president feels a little bit on the ropes. his job approval rating is down at 40% consistently for the last couple of years since his reelection. he is the first president with his own journalistic tools. he has his own photographers and videographers. he has a newscast on friday mornings anchored by his former deputy, josh earnest. it is fine if the president wants to present his own version of what he did all week.

most of it is behind the scenes shots of him with supreme court justices and leaders coming in from wall street. it is fine that he puts it on the internet and that everybody can see it. those same elements should not be blocked from the white house press corps. >> does all of that work for him? >> i don't know. it certainly hasn't brought in the -- they have done the newscast for years. i think the reach out to his own constituency -- the people who would bother to go online to whitehouse.gov on friday morning to watch a four minute newscast are more his supporters then detractors. it may hold the base. that is something has always

been a hallmark of his campaigns in 2008 and 2012. his campaign rigorously went out for those who had reached out to him, giving him money or putting information online to get out the vote. >> you have covered seven presidents. let's go through them quickly. let's go to gerald ford. >> accessible and press-friendly in a post-watergate era. i came in when gerald ford came in and he was open and accessible. he was not afraid of the press. >> jimmy carter. >> jimmy carter was too trusting, in a lot of ways. he felt that the american foreign-policy, if we were open and honest with our adversaries and friends, the world would be a better place. it did not work out. iran became a nightmare for him.

but 21 years later, after losing reelection, he gets the peace prize. >> ronald reagan. >> um, i have heard him described by journalists as the captain of the ship of state. he knew where he wanted the course to be. he was not going to worry about how the engine ran down below. he had his eyes on the horizon. >> george herbert walker bush. >> kinder and gentler. thousand points of light. >> this is a man who took us to war. >> he took us to war and out of war. he did not notice when the economy got worse and worse. he seemed incapable of working without greenspan at the fed and his own treasury secretary, nick brady.

he want to keep the united states recession from hitting. and, his reelection campaign, i did not recognize him. he was harsher and more shrill. >> bill clinton. >> he is -- i want to say this correctly -- he has a compelling personality, incredible political smarts. he overcame something that surprised me. i thought the impeachment and the personal stain of the monica lewinsky episode was something that people would not forget him for. it has been more than a decade. it seems that americans have very much forgiven him. >> who was, behind the scenes, kind of controlling what the message was?

>> one of the more affected people behind the scenes. bill clinton had a good staff. i think mike was a good choice to take over from myers. he did two things. mike did two things. i accuse him of being able to see around political corners. he would not stand at the podium and say something if he worried that, down the root word -- down the road, he would have to eat those words. he always thought out policy beyond the day or the week. he also knew that the president of the united states needed to have an identity separate from the scandal that was now beginning to become red-hot. he had the white house counsel office appoint someone from

their ranks who became a spokesman for the scandal. that way, he could continue to be the press secretary and let the nitty-gritty of those questions be handled by a separate chain of command. abc had a separate reporter assigned outside of the white house, jackie. she took over ownership of and the hours that it took to work on that story. from that point of view, the clinton structure and the second term -- in the second term, was handled as best as a could have. >> what about george walker bush? he was misunderestimated. that is his word.

he thought that up and then slipped up and used it in a public statement. he said, "don't misunderestimate me." he was underestimated. he lost the faith of a lotta people who support him strongly in 2000 -- of a lot of people who strongly supported him in 2000. and, i think, after 9/11 and the two wars, he felt very strongly that his worldview was right. what he was doing was right. that these wars would make the middle east solvable, something that had not been done for generations. george w. bush misunderestimated the economy and it teetered on the brink of depression. >> barack obama. >> it is hard to capture a president while he is still there. he is not a complete picture. "hope and change" was what he campaigned for. he had a solid election victory. he won reelection convincing people that he was the right answer.

i think that americans now second-guessed whether he took his hands too much off of the control on the middle east, on health care.

getting it to actually happen. the way i would sum it up, barack obama likes campaigning. i am not sure that he is enjoying governing with the same gusto. >> a lot of americans think that presidents are lying to us. how can you tell if somebody is telling the truth and when they are not, as a reporter? >> i think i can tell a president is telling the truth when two things happen. when the words coming out of his mouth do not make sense -- "i never had sexual relations with that woman." as bill clinton said. and #2, when the body language betrays them. they get down in a subservient or submissive position. that phrase is the biggest lie i

have ever heard from a president. we were in the roosevelt room where he made a statement. jim lehrer was interviewing him for the news hour. the president denied it. the president came outside and talked to our cameras. madeleine albright and donna said the president said this did not happen and they believed it. none of the reporters did. >> what about weapons of mass destruction? from george w. bush. >> i think the president bought into a lot of intelligence at was not convincing. he and his advisers will tell you that other countries agreed with us. they said the intelligence shows that there are weapons of mass destruction. where do you think they got the intelligence? i assume it was the united states. he wanted to badly go in and end iraq as a problem in the middle east. he said, we will never settle

israel and the palestinian state -- he and bill clinton endorsed a palestinian state. george bush said, you will never get that to happen until saddam hussein is out of power. he believed it. >> biggest mistake? >> i hope it is not retiring. the very night i retired, my family took me out to dinner and i held my granddaughter on my lap. the president said, "warplanes into syria." i was not there. a little pang. i have never had a "oh my god" moments.

when a story i have done turned out to be absolutely wrong. i have never had a pit-of-your-stomach moments. trent lott called to complain that i had to democrats -- two democrats and only one republican. moments like that count. every time you do not have complete confidence or what you are reported does not pan out completely, that is a chink in the armor. >> here is some video of you on air force one and 9/11. it is about one minute. [video clip] >> i am ann compton of abc news. i have covered presidents over 40 years. today, my last ride on air force one.

way in the back, where the press has 12 nice first-class seats, there is an office. we can spend the night on the plane. more than anything else, we have a electrical power at our seats and television screens. on september 11, we used 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. on september 11, we were the only airplane up there. there was a jet fighter right outside teh wing on my side. most of the people have been dropped off. i think that, if i ever felt fear, it was the idea that the president could run and could not hide. i was not afraid for myself. i was worried about the country.

>> which president traveled the most? >> gerald ford, although we only had 2.5 years, traveled more than any other president. he spent 250 days a year campaigning and enjoyed getting out. he came along at a time when richard nixon had been so reclusive. there was lack security back then. i was covering a banquet. i walked up to the president and said, this is the seventh saturday night in a row that the only guy i have been out with is you. and he said, "don't tell betty." >> what was the longest trip you ever took? >> the longest foreign trip was

one of the africa trips. when you get over there and you are moving around, you are gone for two weeks. the longest campaign trip was a difficult one. it was the last weeks of the 1988 presidential campaign. i was the full-time abc correspondent on the democratic vice presidential nominee, lloyd bentsen. i had little kids at home. halloween is a favorite holiday. i remember calling home on halloween and the kids were so angry that i was not going to be there. i actually found, as a mom, it hard to call home at night. i felt so bad about being gone for so long.

>> you brought something with you. i do not know what it was or what it is. >> a human being, as well as a president, i am asked for favorite moments. george herbert walker bush goes to camp david and convenes a war cabinet. he stops in front of my camera and says, the arab world is united against saddam hussein. i said, arab leaders have flown to baghdad and embrace temp. -- embraced him. president bush barked at me and said, "i can read. what is your question?" before he sends american troops to the war, he writes me a letter and said, he was not pleased with his a below his signature, he drew a happy face. wearing a frown.

a magic and president taking a moment to apologize to the press. -- imagine a president taking a moment to apologize to the press. when i retired, he wrote me. two apologies from the president of the united states. >> how many presidents were that aware of what they said to you and how many did not pay attention? >> i think most presidents realize -- they have a personal connection. i did not think that we were ever in a confrontation-type moments where they felt unable to apologize. i have seen barack obama really angry twice. both were off the record times. one was profanity-laced. he thought the press was making too much of scandals that he did not think were scandals. another was where he took us to task for not understanding the limits that he has with foreign policy and the middle east, iraq, and afghanistan.

i do not find him apologetic. but i find him will to stand up and look them in the eye, even if it is off the record. he is willing to give us hell. >> does he have a point? >> from his point of view, he may. we cover what we are allowed to cover. when presidents are not accessible and do not take questions on a regular basis, they reap what they so. -- what they sow. >> what is ann compton going to do in retirement?

>> i have good health and speaking engagements. i have a plan that i would not except from a politician -- accept from a politician. i would scoff at politicians say they are leaving office to spend more time with their family. it is true. i am 67 years old. i have a husband who has supported me. he is a medical doctor. he has never traveled. he was always home. four kids who are wonderful young professionals. a doctor, a lawyer, an entrepreneur, a business executive. i want time to do things with them. honest truth. >> ann compton, 41 years at abc news and 40 years at the white house. thank you. ♪