Presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, his wife Michelle and their two daughters sat down with Maria Menounos of Access Hollywood for a quick interview that focused on their family life. Access Hollywood happened to be covering a birthday party for Obama’s older daughter, Malia, who turned 10 on the Fourth of July. Menounos described how the interview happened, and said she was just planning on covering the party, but that the family casually agreed to sit down with her for a quick interview.

The segment aired on Tuesday and is below. It was the first time Obama’s two daughters have spoken to the media. Both Malia, 10, and Natasha, 7, were given leeway by their parents to speak and they were super cute. Malia told a story about how she had to tell her dad not to shake hands when he met her friends because kids don’t shake hands. And little Natasha said her dad doesn’t like ice cream, but that he likes pie. She also said he doesn’t like fruity gum, he likes minty gum.

It’s clear that Michelle and Barack were comfortable having their girls on camera and that it didn’t occur to them that they were putting their daughters at harm in any way or that they had somehow made a poor decision about letting them speak to Menounos.

Yesterday pundits at the cable networks threw a huge stink, airing clips from the interview and questioning Obama’s decision to expose his daughters by putting them in front of the media. When questioned about it, Obama admitted he wouldn’t do it again given the fallout.

Menounos said that the Obamas were so easy going about the interview because they got the chance to get to know her first. The girls are also big Jonas brothers fans and were hoping to say something about them. It sounds like the girls showed up and inserted themselves into the interview and that their parents just accepted it and went with it:

Maria Menounos, the “Access Hollywood” reporter who conducted the interview, told MSNBC’s Dan Abrams Tuesday night while guesting on his show that that she only expected to be interviewing the couple.

“And I had time to hang out with them before. And it just became something where it was just that kind of a chill situation. And they just jumped into the interview. We had no idea.”

“….It was not something that they had told us was going to happen in any kind of way. We showed up that day. And they said, you know what, the girls really love The Jonas Brothers, and they`re kind of intrigued at the fact that we`re going to be doing this interview, they may want to say something at the end about The Jonas Brothers.

“And I said, hey, anything from the girls will be great, you know, wonderful. And the senator and his wife sat down, they were right next to each other, and all of the sudden after their miked and we`re about to go, the girls pop in.

“And Sasha sits in between. She like wedges her way in. And the senator goes, you look like you figured out where you want to sit….. So it just kind of happened. And I know that they may have discussed the possibility of it behind the scenes before, but it was not something that was intentional. When I first met the girls, they were very sweet but very shy and quiet.

“We had the whole day to kind of — not the whole day, but at least an hour before where a friend of mine who had traveled with me was taking them on a tour of the Mining Museum and had great rapport with them. And they kind of got comfortable with us. That`s just how it happened,” she said.

CBS’ Russ Mitchell, asking if the girls will be seen more, was told no by Obama on Wednesday.

“We had a unique situation in Montana where it was Malia’s birthday, and all of us, I think, got caught up in the festivities. And so they had a chance to be their adorable selves on TV, but generall y we’ve been very protective of them. And, you know, in retrospect, I think if you’d asked me, we probably wouldn’t have done it then, and we wouldn’t do it again.

While the Obama daughters have been on occasion campaigning with their folks for a year—they spent July 4, 2007 in Iowa—their parents have never put them in front of a microphone.

NBC’s Matt Lauer wondered if the Obamas made the right call in giving up some of their private life for the sake of exposure on the show.

“You know, I think that we got carried away in the moment. We were having a birthday party and everybody was laughing, and suddenly this thing cropped up. And I didn’t catch it quickly enough. And I was surprised by the attention it received as well.”

Would he do it over again?

“We wouldn’t do it again, and we won’t be doing it again.”

[From The Chicago Sun Times]

You understand how they’re campaigning as a family and aren’t always super careful with their daughters. They don’t see the need to be hyper vigilant, but the media sure reminded them. The ironic thing is that if there was any danger to Malia and Natasha by letting them speak on camera, the news channels made it much worse by focusing so much on that story.

Barack Obama’s family on Access Hollywood

And Here’s Access Hollywood’s coverage of the media’s attention to their interview.

Photo Credits: Obama is shown speaking to students in Taylor, MI on 6/17/08. Photos below are from Obama’s official Flickr. Header photo courtesy Access Hollywood.