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During what sounds like informal banter before the interview begins, Obama is asked whether his daughters were annoyed by West's hijacking of Swift's acceptance statement, according to an audio copy that was posted online.
"I thought that was really inappropriate," Obama says. "What are you butting in (for)? ... The young lady seems like a perfectly nice person. She's getting her award. What's he doing up there?"
A questioner chimes in, "Why would he do it?"
"He's a jackass," Obama replies, which is met with laughter from several people.
The president seems to quickly realize he may have gone too far, and jovially appeals to those assembled that the remark be kept private. "Come on guys," he says. "Cut the president some slack. I've got a lot of other stuff on my plate."
ABC News has since apologized to the White House , saying it was wrong for its employees to tweet that Obama had called West a "jackass". The network said some of its employees had overheard a conversation between the president and CNBC's John Harwood and didn't realize it was considered off the record.
Word gets out
E-mails shot around among ABC employees about Obama's comments, said Jeffrey Schneider, ABC News spokesman. Before anything was reported on ABC's air or Web site, at least three network employees took to Twitter to spread the news.
One was Terry Moran, a former White House correspondent. He logged on to Twitter and typed: "Pres. Obama just called Kanye West a 'jackass' for his outburst at VMAs when Taylor Swift won. Now THAT'S presidential."
When ABC News authorities found out about it, they had the tweets deleted after about an hour, Schneider said. Moran declined a request to comment. But the news was out.
Harwood said there was no explicit agreement with the president that those comments were off the record. But he said it is broadcast tradition that such pre-interview chatter is considered off the record until the formal interview begins. Harwood is holding to that: He would not discuss what the president said before their interview and has no plans to do so on CNBC.
He said he was aware that it was likely someone outside of CNBC was listening to his conversation with the president. "It's one of those things that's unfortunate," he said. "But I think it's an honest mistake."
There was no immediate response to requests for comment from White House spokesmen.
Tweeting private opinions
Twitter, a technology that's a natural tool for reporters who love to tell people what they know whenever they know it, has raced ahead in usage before many news organizations have developed policies to govern its use, said Richard Wald, a former ABC News executive and professor at Columbia University.
"If you're sitting there with a microphone on, you don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy," said Kelly McBride, an expert in journalism ethics for the Poynter Institute. "If you're a governor or president, you know that." She also questioned whether news organizations should be agreeing to go off the record with the president.
Judging by the things written by other Twitter users since West's action, Obama wasn't in the minority, she said.
"The president calling Kanye West a 'jackass' is perfect information for a tweet," she said. "In fact, that's the ideal format. You can do it in 140 characters. There's not much else to say."
