President Bush expressed regret Monday that the global financial crisis has cost jobs and shrinking retirement accounts and said he will support more government intervention if needed to ease the recession.

"I'm sorry it's happening, of course," Bush said in a wide-ranging interview with ABC's "World News," which was airing Monday. "Obviously I don't like the idea of people losing jobs, or being worried about their 401(k)s. On the other hand, the American people got to know that we will safeguard the system. I mean, we're in. And if we need to be in more, we will."

"It is hard for the average citizen to understand how frozen the system became and how over-leveraged the system became," he said. "And so what we're watching is the de-leveraging of our financial markets, which is obviously affecting the growth of the economy."