Just before his inauguration on January 20th, 2001, the morning-show anchors—well, the female ones—were invited to interview the incoming First Lady at stately Blair House on Pennsylvania Avenue, where the president-elect and his extended family were staying. （I love its origin story: One night at the White House at 3:00 a.m., Eleanor Roosevelt intercepted Winston Churchill, wearing a nightshirt and holding a cigar, wandering toward the private residence, looking for FDR so they could continue a conversation. Eleanor decided it might not be a bad idea to figure out a separate residence nearby for guests.）
We’d set up in the Jackson Place sitting room. Amid the American Empire furnishings, Laura Bush and I sat across from one another, two goblets of water on a small table between us. I asked her how she felt about the big day ahead. “I’m really thrilled,” Mrs. Bush said. “I can’t wait until we’re actually on that inauguration platform and my husband is sworn in!”
If she sounded relieved, I’m sure she was, given the bruising Florida-recount drama. Of course, Tim Russert had predicted it would all boil down to the Sunshine State （the whiteboard on which he famously scribbled Florida, Florida, Florida on election night now lives in the Smithsonian）。
With her lilting Midland accent and warm, steady gaze, Mrs. Bush was easy to like. I was eager to learn what she cared about and why. I was told there were no ground rules and I could ask anything. So I asked Mrs. Bush about abortion.
It wasn’t out of the blue. Her husband had run on a pro-life platform, thought Roe v. Wade overstepped the Constitution, and had depended on evangelicals to propel him to victory. His pick for attorney general, John Ashcroft, whose confirmation hearings were underway, was fiercely opposed to abortion under any circumstances.
Me: Do you personally believe that women in this country should have a legal right to an abortion?
Laura Bush: I think we should do what we can to limit the number of abortions…and that is by talking about responsibility with girls and boys, by teaching abstinence, having abstinence classes everywhere in schools, in churches and in Sunday schools. I think there are a lot of ways we can reduce the number of abortions and I would agree with my husband on that issue.
Me: But having said that, Mrs. Bush, they’re not mutually exclusive. Even if you do advocate those things, do you believe women in this country should have a right to an abortion?
Laura Bush: I agree with my husband that we should try to reduce the number of abortions in our country by doing all those things.
Me: Should Roe v. Wade be overturned?
Laura Bush: No, I don’t think it should be overturned.
We quickly moved on to less contentious topics—how, as a former librarian, she cataloged her home library in the Dewey decimal system and the five best adjectives to describe her husband （steady, funny, smart, quick, athletic）。 Mrs. Bush seemed completely unfazed by our conversation, asking afterward if I could say hello to her mom, Jenna Hawkins, who apparently watched the TODAY show every morning. I said of course—the two sat on the carpeted stairs in Blair House as we chatted. When we parted, Mrs. Bush said we’d see each other again, when she officially became First Lady.
I called Tim in the car afterward and told him Laura Bush had differed on the record with her husband about Roe v. Wade.
“Katie, that’s huge, huge,” he said. “We’ve got to get it on Nightly News.”
I hustled back to the bureau and got the sound bite on in the nick of time.
Of course Tim was right; the First Lady’s comments blew up, creating a giant headache for the Bush administration. Pro-life groups anxiously reasserted the president-elect’s anti-abortion bona fides while Bush’s designated press secretary, Ari Fleischer, repeatedly said he would not discuss the “personal views” of the president-elect’s family. Someone on his team called Tim and claimed I had badgered the First Lady into making the Roe v. Wade statement.
Bush was steamed. When Andy Lack greeted him after the inauguration, he jabbed Andy in the chest with his index finger and said, “I can’t believe that Katie Couric asked my wife about abortion!” Looking back, I can understand his anger; he hadn’t even been sworn in and I was already raining on his parade.
Suddenly, I was persona non grata in the White House. After that, whenever there was a big interview, they swung the door wide open for Matt and closed it on me. It bothered me that NBC would let them call the shots that way, but I knew that if TODAY made a stink, we could be shut out of the rotation.
There was pressure inside the network too. Bob Wright once sent an email telling me I’d been “too tough” on Condi Rice and that they’d gotten a lot of complaints. I emailed him back and politely asked that he not interfere with my journalism.