Presidential Correspondent
Feldman has interviewed every American president from Lyndon B. Johnson to George W. Bush (including Harry Truman, in his post presidential years (1968, 1971, 1972).
President Jimmy Carter, in a 1977 interview with Feldman, hinted that efforts to promote an Arab-Israeli settlement might have to be suspended. Carter elaborated on this new approach in another interview with her that startled the Arabs. It was a generous face-saving offer to Begin by Carter, giving Israel the opportunity to accept the notions of withdrawal from the West Bank and of participation by the Palestinians in a gradual, limited process of self-determination.
As his 75th birthday approached, Ronald Reagan scheduled an interview with Feldman on the afternoon of Jan. 28, 1986. At 11:38 that morning, however, the space shuttle Challenger disintegrated after liftoff, killing its crew of seven. While the president postponed his State of the Union speech, which had been scheduled for that evening, he didn't postpone the interview.
Feldman has covered George H. W. Bush since he became a congressman from Texas in 1967. She interviewed him as Ambassador to the United Nations, as Vice President, and as President. Her 3-part series — "George Bush at 75" — was published in The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 5, 1996, was internationally syndicated, and was inserted in the Congressional Record by Senators Richard Lugar and Joseph I. Lieberman.
She interviewed President George H. W. Bush January 19, 1993, and again after a 10-day mission to the Middle East.
President Bill Clinton granted his first post-apology interview to Feldman, who did not ask him about the scandal, but about the Yom Kippur tradition of the Day of Atonement.
On August 1, 1996, the Wall Street Journal Opinion Page published a Feldman interview with President Clinton in which he said:
But the truth is, no one knows what the optimum rate of growth without inflation is. The only thing I've tried to do in dealing with the Federal Reserve was to show that I would be responsible in getting the deficit down, but I didn't want to get in the way of economic growth.
In her October 2004, interview with President George W. Bush, he said:
The true history of my administration will be written 50 years from now, and you and I will not be around to see it.
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