Former ABC News reporter Ann Compton said Monday that she's seen President Barack Obama lose his cool with reporters on more than one occasion.
“I have seen, In the last year, Barack Obama really angry twice," Compton said in an interview with C-SPAN, speaking about the relationship between presidents and press. "Both were off the 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 and the way he’s dealing with the Middle East and Iraq and Afghanistan.
"And I don't find him apologetic," she continued, "but I find him willing to stand up to press and look them in the eye, even though it was off the record, and just give us hell."
Compton, who retired in September, became the first female to cover the White House for a network news organization in 1974, reporting on every president since Gerald Ford.
In a follow-up question, she was asked if she thought Obama had a point.
“From his point of view, he may," she answered. "But we cover what we are allowed to cover. 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."
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