President Obama on 'The View' Thursday

Barbara Walters will conduct interview, her first in-studio appearance since heart surgery

By Marisa Guthrie -- Broadcasting & Cable, 7/26/2010 11:24:01 AM

President Obama will be the featured guest on ABC's The View Thursday (July 29). The occasion is the first time a sitting president has visited the show. It will also mark the return of Barbara Walters to the program.

Walters underwent successful heart valve replacement surgery in May, but was not scheduled to return to the show until September. However, she will make an exception in order to interview Obama. She appeared on the show earlier this month via Skype. But Thursday will be Walters' first in-studio appearance since her surgery.

The president's visit is part of the daytime show's Red, White & View campaign focused on politics.

"We are so pleased and honored that President Obama will be a guest on The View," Walters said in a statement.

Obama appeared on the program in March 2008, when he was a candidate for president. Now First Lady Michelle Obama guest co-hosted the show a few months later in June 2008.

"This shows that both the President and First Lady feel that our show is an influential and important source of information and news," Walters added.

According to the ABC press release, Obama's interview, which will be taped Wednesday, will "touch on topics including his administrations accomplishments, jobs, the economy, the Gulf oil spill and family life inside the White House."

However, the President is also dealing with looming mid-term elections that could torpedo the Democrat's majority in the House of Representatives as well as lingering fallout over the hasty firing of Georgia USDA employee Shirley Sherrod. And this morning he is also contending with the leak of thousands of classified documents about Afghanistan. The documents, posted on Wikileaks.org and provided to a few newspapers including The Guardian and The New York Times, are being compared to the Pentagon Papers for the bleak picture they paint of the 9-year-old war in Afghanistan.