Interviewing the presidents - NATASHA LENNARD | POLITICO CLICK
Interviewing the presidents
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Barbara Walters's interviews have offered rare insight into the more personal, human sides of U.S. presidents and their wives. | AP PhotosClose
By NATASHA LENNARD | 11/23/10 4:24 AM EST Updated: 11/23/10 4:37 PM EST
Barbara Walters has seen many presidents come and go in her 50-plus years as a broadcast journalist. And starting with Richard Nixon, all eight of the most recent U.S. presidents have found time to answer her questions in personal interviews.
On Tuesday, Walters, 81, will sit down with the Obamas for the second time (not counting POTUS’s appearance on “The View”). Two years ago, the veteran newswoman interviewed the then first couple-elect against a backdrop of election glory. This time around, in an ABC post-Thanksgiving special due to air Friday evening, Walters’s sitdown with the Obamas will be set against the Democratic Party’s considerable midterm losses.
Though she’s better known for pitching softballs than scrutinizing the minutiae of policy, Walters has throughout the years offered rare insight into the more personal, human sides of U.S. presidents and their wives. Here, POLITICO considers some of Walters’s memorable moments with presidents past.
Sir David Frost’s interviews with Richard Nixon may have been monumentalized in a play and a movie, but it was Walters who obtained the first live interview with the disgraced president. (The Frost interviews were recorded and edited.)
“He perspired tremendously,” Walters recalled of the Nixon interview, to the Archive of American Television .
She recounted how she procured a live-on-air admission of regret from Nixon:
“I asked for a one-minute cue before the end of this hour interview and I said, ‘Mr. Nixon, are you sorry you burned the tapes?’ And for the first time, he said, ‘Yes, I am.’ And he has only about 30 seconds to answer.””
Since the 1960s, when Walters was diminutively dubbed “The Today Girl,” because she handled lighter fare on “The Today Show,” the journalist has sometimes been better remembered for more frivolous on-screen moments than her many serious journalistic achievements.
For a 1981 ABC “20/20” special with Ronald Reagan, for example, Walters joined the then-POTUS on his California ranch. The special provided a personal portrait of Reagan, and at times seemed like a video postcard highlighting the rugged beauty of the mountainous West.
"[The ranch] casts a spell. There's such a sense of seclusion. I suppose it's the scripture line 'I look to the hills from whence cometh my strength.' I understand it a little better when I'm up here," Reagan tells Walters in the special.
The biblical references Reagan made throughout the interview, and his passion for the outdoors, exemplified his core values perhaps more than a straightforward political interview ever could.
Eleven years later, sitting in the White House Rose Garden opposite President George H.W. Bush, Walters proved herself capable of direct and aggressive questioning:
“Unemployment is up by 3 million people, food stamp recipients are up by 7 million. Now, you blame Congress, but isn’t your administration to blame as well?” Walters challenged. Watch more from this interview here:
In a similarly classic moment from January 2001 that put President George W. Bush awkwardly on his back foot, Walters prodded the newly elected president over personal investment decisions: 
“You took your money out of the stock market; you said you wanted to be liquid. Now, does this show a person with a lot of faith in the stock market?” she asked. Walters detailed why Bush’s actions were problematic: He pulled his own funds from the market, but said during his campaign that a portion of taxpayers’ Social Security savings should be invested in the market.
Of course, fluctuations in the national mood have affected the tone and intensity of each of Walters’s presidential sit-downs. Two years ago, the public was fascinated to hear that the Obama daughters would be making their own beds in the White House (a nugget Walter gleaned from FLOTUS); this time around, she may well bring out her tougher side.
For comparison’s sake, check out the Obamas in their first Walters interview, with POTUS looking far less world-weary than he does these days: