True Patriot Love - I Anchored 9⧸11 Live for 16 Hours ft. Kevin Newman

00:00:00.000 So for two hours, there was this massive jet over Western Canada filled with fuel, filled with fuel and people that wasn't answering hails.

00:00:09.720 So Canada, and I remember reporting this on air at the time, Canada scrambled some CF-18s from Cold Lake to escort them to try to reach them.

00:00:19.420 They still didn't talk.

00:00:21.540 So the prime minister was delivered a decision to shoot it out of the air.

00:00:25.740 There were 400 people on board.

00:00:30.000 september 11th 2001 is a date that changed history of this generation and someone who

00:00:38.560 had a ringside seat to that for 16 straight hours with global news is national anchor kevin newman

00:00:43.760 and joins us kevin how are you i'm good um i'm no longer a national anchor but you were that day i

00:00:49.360 was that day and you were for a long time and so you more than anyone can speak about 25 years what

00:00:55.520 happened uh just for a little background a month before that happened i was with my brother-in-law

00:01:00.960 at yankee stadium watching a yankees game and before we start you had mentioned just a month

00:01:06.800 earlier you still had a place in new york city yeah my family was still there i hadn't yet moved

00:01:11.680 them to vancouver to begin uh building out global national so yeah they were still there a month

00:01:16.400 same time you were watching the ball game and in august of that year of 2001 being a yankee stadium

00:01:22.560 it seemed like a great city great weather no new york is a great city it is and and it just

00:01:29.520 everything seemed perfect it just seemed perfect yeah and that route that i used to take to work

00:01:33.760 we lived in new jersey yeah and i used to occasionally just for the fun of it uh take

00:01:37.920 the path or the ferry across and the terminal was actually in the world trade center oh it was so

00:01:42.960 that's where yeah where the subway is connected yeah you do your shopping you you know pick up

00:01:46.880 what you need for the day and then you transfer down the subway so i was very familiar with that

00:01:50.400 end of the manhattan september 3rd you start as the national anchor for global national based out

00:01:56.960 of vancouver eight days later 9 11 happens at 8 46 a.m eastern time when the north tower is hit

00:02:04.080 do they call you at your home in vancouver and have you raced to the studio yeah the first tower

00:02:08.800 yes and in vancouver that was at six in the morning right so their morning show was on i was in bed

00:02:15.040 i get the call you better come in we don't know what this is yet

00:02:18.480 so there's a there's a highway the north shore highway yes halfway up the mountains

00:02:22.560 and no one was on at that hour fortunately so i'm driving in and about halfway oh no wait i'm still

00:02:28.800 at home my wife kathy says something's hit the second tower and like everybody else i went oh

00:02:35.440 this is no accident right right right right right away your news instinct kicked in kevin yeah that

00:02:40.720 like some weird thing can happen once but not twice correct and so um at that point i thought

00:02:45.760 oh jesus something's going on uh this might be too much information for your listeners um i forgot

00:02:50.880 to put my underwear on i was in such a rush you just threw pants on and went i just threw on

00:02:54.720 pants and went yeah are you in studio when the pentagons hit at would have been 6 37 vancouver

00:03:00.720 time uh yes just getting on air because you have to remember global national didn't exist

00:03:08.000 before um september 3rd that's right it was all brand new it was all brand new and the network

00:03:12.960 hadn't existed the global network was regional yes for that it was going national so they hadn't

00:03:18.480 really figured out how to connect everything oh and so we had this um terrible situation where

00:03:25.360 we're a brand new network something monstrous has happened and we're trying to figure out

00:03:30.080 how do we patch in regina how do we do you know never had to do it at that network before

00:03:35.200 um everybody you know trial by fire everybody upped their game everybody rose the occasion

00:03:41.280 because everybody knew that we were covering you know the most serious story of our lives

00:03:46.240 for someone who spent seven years at abc news in new york when you're in the chair and the

00:03:50.880 pentagon is hit i'm the son of an air force brat yeah so i know what i felt what was going through

00:03:56.080 your mind there's a pattern this is a targeted attack on what the world perceives as the power

00:04:03.440 centers of america correct the financial district the pentagon likely congress was next in the

00:04:09.040 the lighthouse we didn't know that at the time but it all sort of added up but they were trying

00:04:13.360 to send a signal whoever that was and now at this time before the south tower collapses after the

00:04:18.400 pentagon of just for people watching and listening to this how much information are you getting in

00:04:23.760 your earpiece while you're on the desk all at once nothing oh still yet the reason was is the

00:04:29.040 building after it was hit all of the transmission towers were on those buildings for television oh

00:04:34.160 and so there were no pictures to tell us what was happening there was no way for um the networks to

00:04:41.600 like and nobody was down there yet because they were all racing there so all we had was a chopper

00:04:45.600 shot and then new jersey actually so was that the shot when the south tower collapses those are all

00:04:51.760 chopper shots because the transmission towers were on top of the world trade center so they had the

00:04:56.960 only route they had towards video pictures was through their traffic choppers the the site of

00:05:03.520 one of the world trade towers collapsing it is inconceivable it looked like an indestructible

00:05:08.480 building yeah how do you separate being a respected news journalist news presenter and

00:05:15.440 a human being who just lived there a month earlier and had friends that lived in worked in the towers

00:05:20.640 right um uh you stay quiet right so i mean it wasn't clear whether another explosion had brought

00:05:30.720 it down it wasn't clear that um uh that the building itself hadn't had collapsed so you

00:05:41.120 lay out what all the possibilities would be i wasn't an engineer i didn't know what a building

00:05:44.800 falling looked like yes um but i know that the people in the control room uh and we never said

00:05:50.800 it but they could see bodies on the video on the back hall uh you mean like the raw feed they were

00:05:58.080 getting yes oh yeah they had a couple of chopper shots and one of them were bodies falling and

00:06:04.320 people still haven't seen that but the people in television control rooms saw it all and how are

00:06:09.920 they getting through that morning um you can probably tell from my voice it's uh it's still

00:06:15.520 very raw for everybody yeah and um so for them it was um disbelief i remember doriana temelo who was

00:06:26.960 the producer of global national in those early days later went on to be news director

00:06:33.680 i heard her say in my ear oh my god those are bodies falling

00:06:39.520 and then as an anchor you make the decision do people need to hear that and you're also conscious

00:06:46.560 of the fact that it's 10 in the morning children are watching if somebody catches a glimpse of it

00:06:51.280 then it's up to them to decide whether to point it out uh but i never did at 10.03 a.m seven o'clock

00:06:58.880 your time united airlines 93 crashes into pennsylvania into the field which they thought

00:07:04.800 was heading for the capitol building are you starting at this point uh with the news team

00:07:10.160 gather more information more intel as the morning progresses bits and pieces yeah so we're starting

00:07:15.840 to get sources right most of them american i mean i was in a beneficial position having just worked

00:07:21.600 at abc news correct so we were tapping them hard and i was plugging into them we were brand new in

00:07:26.880 canada but i had all these relationships and i had somebody feeding me sort of um intel that

00:07:32.720 you couldn't go to air with but it it allowed me to um guide what i chose to talk about and paint

00:07:40.960 the picture for the viewer as much as you can as much as you can and also to like tell them that

00:07:46.320 like somebody has planned this this is not an accident um because of the political overlay

00:07:53.440 of what the targets were right um 25 minutes later the north tower collapses yeah uh i think for

00:08:01.440 people like myself around the world when the second tower collapsed it was a gut punch even

00:08:07.520 talking about it yeah it doesn't seem real kevin no by then there were lots of reporters on the scene

00:08:13.280 so those are all the pictures that you see of reporters turning quickly or running

00:08:17.280 it was the second tower right because the first one was like disbelief and then um and there

00:08:23.440 wasn't a lot of like reporting infrastructure around at that point that's why when you see

00:08:27.040 the first tower fall it's mostly from the air correct and when you see the second tower fall

00:08:30.800 there's lots of ground stuff and i i still it's burned in my memory the middle-aged african-american

00:08:37.760 woman yeah covered in dust and the only thing is her eyes everything is yeah is the rubble dust

00:08:44.800 yeah and uh cameramen and reporters that were there for us um said there was a um a smell

00:08:51.520 that they never had before things that were burning that shouldn't burn in that quantity

00:08:57.600 correct so when a building is falling it's releasing you know all that it was built from

00:09:04.560 and um i think it's i know in these kind of situations it's that it's the smell uh what you

00:09:12.480 hear um and uh just the absolute shock of it um it's not anything that you know your your body

00:09:21.760 or your life experience prepares you for but before we get to some of the other things that

00:09:26.400 took place especially in canada by this time kevin you you're 20 plus years into a very very

00:09:34.240 well-respected career on both sides of the border um i always think of you as a news anchor more of

00:09:40.320 a journalist than the ron burgundy type bank for lack of a better term most of my friends call me

00:09:44.720 ron burgundy yeah um can anything in a journalism career prepare you for a day like this um sadly

00:09:56.080 Oh.

00:09:57.080 You're accustomed to dealing with delivering information which can be traumatic.

00:10:04.220 And so I had done the Oklahoma City bombings when I was at ABC.

00:10:07.140 Correct.

00:10:08.140 I'd done Diana's death.

00:10:09.140 Right.

00:10:10.140 As a live special.

00:10:12.180 And it's a specialized skill because you learn not to get too far out ahead of the facts.

00:10:18.140 You can't really, from a desk, confirm anything.

00:10:21.100 You can get a couple of your sources that are in the field to try to confirm it.

00:10:24.300 But you learn to also take a great responsibility in what you share and the word you use to share it.

00:10:33.700 Now, at 9.45 a.m., something that's unprecedented, U.S. airspace is shut down by President Bush.

00:10:42.340 And by now, a lot of people have seen the infographic of all the planes getting to zero.

00:10:46.620 And the only planes in the sky was Air Force One and the fighter escort.

00:10:50.380 There was one other that people forget.

00:10:51.960 Who?

00:10:52.680 There was a Korean Airlines jet over British Columbia.

00:10:57.080 Oh, I didn't know that.

00:10:57.880 Yeah, and it was a Boeing 747, and it was coming down toward California.

00:11:02.880 Oh.

00:11:03.620 And it wasn't answering any calls.

00:11:06.160 So for two hours, there was this massive jet over Western Canada.

00:11:11.840 Filled with fuel.

00:11:12.980 Filled with fuel and people that wasn't answering hails.

00:11:16.280 So Canada, and I remember reporting this on air at the time,

00:11:19.780 uh canada scrambled some cf-18s from cold lake to escort them to try to reach them they still didn't

00:11:26.180 talk um so the prime minister was delivered a decision to we shoot it out of the air there

00:11:32.020 were 400 people on board and we were reporting this in real time um eventually they got contact

00:11:40.100 and that plane landed in vancouver but i remember being on that desk for like an hour thinking

00:11:46.020 like where's that one going you know and it's over canadian airspace so if they did shoot it down

00:11:52.240 and it's over land what are the consequences of that it's anyway kretchen made the decision he

00:11:57.460 had to make a probably the toughest decision of his uh prime ministers people forget about it

00:12:01.320 and heavy is the head that wears the crown and we don't think about that in world leaders no

00:12:04.900 no and and that that part of the story is almost forgotten see i had never heard that story yeah

00:12:10.900 yeah um this is going to be difficult for me to get through but um in gander newfoundland i

00:12:17.940 have family in the maritimes and it's a it's a small town 38 aircraft over 6 500 people double

00:12:25.940 the population you know and anyone who's seen come from away knows the story right right and

00:12:32.420 you know of all the nonsense with donald trump when those americans left they tried to pay them

00:12:36.820 money and they said no way yeah that is so american isn't it but the canadians wouldn't

00:12:42.980 accept it yeah well gander people may not realize um has an enormous landing strip yeah and it was

00:12:49.540 built by americans for you know before we could have uh transatlantic flights everyone would

00:12:54.580 refuel there and the cold war for b-52s and stuff so it was um you know it was the best

00:13:00.100 strip that they had but yeah just that town and and um you know there are very few examples in

00:13:09.060 this world today um where um the kindness of strangers has an opportunity to emerge right

00:13:17.140 and that no one expects anything for the kindness of strangers and so it's a it's a it is to this

00:13:22.180 day 25 years later a really inspiring story steve buscemi who at that point was an established

00:13:28.580 hollywood actor with lots of credits to his name uh people forget he was a new york firefighter

00:13:34.580 and you know i remember reading the story after the fact he went back to one of his fire halls

00:13:38.820 to help dig out people and didn't tell anyone it came out after the fact

00:13:46.500 are you getting any stories during the day of people doing things like that um i didn't know

00:13:52.420 about steve's yes but uh we assigned one reporter to a fire hall oh during that period just to tell

00:13:59.380 that story because we couldn't access the site itself of course yes it was a disaster site so

00:14:04.980 we hung out at uh this one fire hall and watched the comings and goings so we were able to pick up

00:14:11.620 that kind of thing um we were also um as relatives started to gather around places and hadn't heard

00:14:19.060 they would turn to the cameras and our cameramen as well and just hold pictures up hoping we would

00:14:26.020 record it and saying anyone got any information so we became we became sort of part of the theater

00:14:31.440 of that moment as well as you know desperate families had no answers you know thought i don't

00:14:37.600 know you know maybe he's got a concussion and he's wandering somewhere and someone sees him but

00:14:41.360 yeah that unfortunately was futile uh the one thing that struck me too is one of the most

00:14:48.500 enduring images now my full disclosure my cousin's a fire captain in halifax about seeing these

00:14:54.820 firefighters of all ages from the grizzled guys with the old mustache who have been there 35 years

00:15:00.640 loaded down with their bunker gear and their hoses and their equipment trudging up all those flights

00:15:05.800 of stairs where everyone else walks down yeah it to me it changed how we look at firefighters

00:15:10.220 oh for sure um you know they are among the first responders and their first responders because they

00:15:17.180 see the ugly right you know they get there first journalists typically are second responders correct

00:15:21.900 and are held away from it but um yeah full on and um just the individual stories of heroism too i

00:15:29.180 mean as we remember 25 years there's a story of a uh toronto family he was working in the tower

00:15:36.860 um his family lived in connecticut he is able to place one call from his office in the second tower

00:15:43.100 to his wife. And Mike Armstrong, my former colleague at Global National, will be telling

00:15:48.760 this story later this week on their show. But he has time to place a second call. They

00:15:55.020 have a baby girl. The only thing he says is, make sure you say every day that her father

00:16:00.040 loves her. And then his wife is in Connecticut and watches the second tarot goes down, realizes

00:16:09.000 is what's happened so they moved back to Canada and she didn't know what to do with her grief

00:16:17.880 yeah so in his name she's established this incredible charity in Africa and has

00:16:24.020 basically given opportunities and the notion of service to people who might not receive that in

00:16:34.660 societies and in the educational systems that they have so there are there are so many stories like

00:16:39.380 that um finally this week 25 years later uh the mayor of new york says that air that i was talking

00:16:46.740 about that was so stinky it was carcinogenic and a lot of firefighters um died later because of what

00:16:52.820 they were breathing and they didn't bother with the machines to help them they just got people out

00:16:58.260 25 years it took the american system to admit that like the air was bad john stewart's been

00:17:03.460 front of congress dozens of times kevin saying the same thing yeah no he's been a real champion

00:17:07.860 for that and that you needed john stewart as a comedian i mean politicians love to put their

00:17:13.220 arms around firefighters and military guys all the time and yet um it took a socialist mayor of new

00:17:20.820 york city to release the documents that they were hiding for 25 years that proved that the

00:17:25.620 firefighters were right and their families didn't get any compensation for it because you know the

00:17:30.340 the insurance companies didn't want to pay so i was just going to ask you why would they hide

00:17:34.900 something like that and we got down to dollars and cents dollars and cents yep they didn't want

00:17:38.660 to take responsibility for it and um you know even some journalists like very early on in their

00:17:44.820 coverage were getting sick because of the quality of the air in manhattan that they were breathing

00:17:48.660 and um yeah it's just like when you see when you see john stewart with the firefighters families

00:17:57.300 behind him and you think what does it take in politics sometimes to do the right thing you know

00:18:03.780 as um as from a firmatic standpoint as an anchor i think the longest i was ever on the desk was

00:18:09.380 during a stanley cup triple overtime final game six hours 16 is unheard of yes without underwear

00:18:18.020 but what are you able to get a coffee or something to eat or a bathroom break

00:18:22.340 during that day people give you coffee okay uh i was younger than i am now so i could hold it a

00:18:27.460 long time oh yeah i can't so i'm in my early 60s i can't hold it yeah yeah but um there have been

00:18:34.420 times that um again too much information but i like peed in a cup right you know the same way

00:18:39.780 that um cops do on on stakeout yes they have a like jet pilots there's no bathroom no no so yeah

00:18:47.380 they have so yeah i learned that from a cop and um i did finally get a um uh a break about

00:18:55.460 eight or nine hours in but my adrenaline was on fire right right and my body responded to that

00:19:01.780 and it didn't it didn't end up being an issue i didn't eat i thought i couldn't eat right right

00:19:07.460 right um you had mentioned 16 hours you're finally cleared yeah how do you even are you

00:19:16.900 able to drive home yeah great question um well it's surreal right you've just spent 16 hours

00:19:24.820 with your head into um horrible stuff and you know that you have friends in the building that

00:19:32.100 have probably died and um and you've experienced it um indirectly through television through the

00:19:40.740 anxiety that you feel and then i stepped out of the studio and it was one of those days in

00:19:46.020 vancouver that is somewhat rare but um bright blue skies the north shore mountains were like gorgeous

00:19:53.780 with a little bit of snow on top excuse me and i was driving on um trans canada highway and uh

00:20:01.380 the beauty upset me right and uh so i pulled over and once i started crying

00:20:07.220 uh i couldn't stop for what happened i just needed to sponge it yeah and i felt guilt um

00:20:16.020 i felt sorrow and i felt fear do you mind if i ask why guilty that i could see this and all those

00:20:27.700 thousands of people couldn't right survivors guilt okay because you had friends that yeah yeah or

00:20:34.260 just like the people people yeah you know that um and journalists actually who cover things

00:20:40.740 internationally carry that for a very long time because we insert ourselves into these terribly

00:20:46.740 traumatic moments for people we we make a connection because we have to because we have to

00:20:52.100 write about it honestly and then your plane lands and your family's at home

00:20:57.220 and there's plenty of stuff in the store and you don't have to worry about you know getting shot

00:21:01.780 out at a stoplight yeah um so um anybody who's a good journalist that i know when you start talking

00:21:11.380 about that guilt um that first world guilt yeah um it's the thing i think it's you know i don't

00:21:21.060 like to use ptsd because i think it's being used too freely now correct but i think it is the um

00:21:26.420 lingering trauma of the profession uh but thank god we have it because we understand

00:21:32.980 uh uniquely in these rich wonderful societies how rare they are and how lucky we are

00:21:38.420 about 15 years after 9 11 i went to the memorial and i sought out ace bailey who was wayne gresky's

00:21:45.940 best friend who was uh leaving boston to go to la as a scout for training camp and was in the tower

00:21:53.140 And to me, it was just names until I saw that name.

00:21:56.380 And that really kind of hit me.

00:21:57.720 And I still have a photo of it to this day.

00:22:00.020 And we'll put it up as B-roll on the interview.

00:22:02.700 Can I tell you about the one-year anniversary?

00:22:04.180 Please.

00:22:04.940 So we went back to ground zero, which was a big hole in the ground at that point.

00:22:09.600 And we were all lined up right across from there.

00:22:12.380 There was going to be a ceremony.

00:22:14.140 The families were taken by, they were taken into the pit.

00:22:18.320 because they wanted to be as close to their loved ones as they could possibly be oh and i break up

00:22:27.020 on this story so here's all the you know television cameras and reporters and they're all

00:22:31.980 looking at the pit the buses roll in when the towers came down it created um a wind tunnel

00:22:40.320 amongst all the other buildings so it changed the course so as the families are standing

00:22:47.000 in the pit the wind kicks up on the Hudson River like choppy choppy choppy and because the towers

00:22:54.700 no longer existed that wind you know came down the street and created a dust devil that

00:23:02.140 obliterated and surrounded their families and that dust devil like just went up into the heavens

00:23:09.800 wow and uh there wasn't a reporter that had words for it and we just sort of we were uh looking at

00:23:17.960 each other and going what did we just see you know at almost the exact moment you know the

00:23:24.120 the 9 17 moment when the towers went down these families were surrounded by um fury

00:23:33.480 and um uh yeah i'll never forget that uh you know kevin i there's so many things from 25 years ago

00:23:44.120 that's been posted this week in social media that i i guess human nature i've tried to forget

00:23:50.720 and then i'm reminded and um you know you realize how precious life is my wife was pregnant with

00:23:58.040 our first child and she was born adriana was born three months after 9 11. we've had both our kids

00:24:04.460 born um and it's history to them yes post 9 11 um you know i hope i know our children now in their

00:24:12.260 20s you know they'll they see the commemorations i just hope future generations never stop being

00:24:19.900 emotional about what happened that day uh they will in the same way that you know if you talk

00:24:25.140 your grandparents about the second world war right right um you need that first person connection

00:24:30.900 to somebody to tell you the story and um but i mean they've had think about these kids our kids

00:24:37.700 yeah um their lives began with um this moment and i i knew it at the time i remember i had to give a

00:24:47.380 speech to some people the day after the day after yeah and so i didn't have time to write a speech

00:24:53.140 So all I did was I stood in front of them and I said, nothing will be the same from now on.

00:24:58.820 And the reason I know that is because I just spent 10 years in America.

00:25:03.420 So I understood what the American reaction would be, which would be throw up the walls.

00:25:08.180 Oh, yeah.

00:25:08.680 We're not safe.

00:25:10.020 We had had a unique relationship where you could cross over the border with a driver's license up to that point.

00:25:15.500 So the Americans were going to clamp down.

00:25:17.820 That would slow down trade.

00:25:19.300 There'd be, you know, all that kind of stuff.

00:25:20.880 But when I look at it now with the benefit of 25 years of hindsight, it really was the beginning of the era of disruption.

00:25:32.060 That if somebody could drive a jet airliner into a building, then anything was possible.

00:25:41.260 And it created so many ripple effects that are all destructive that we are still living in now.

00:25:51.780 We are still in this area of disruption.

00:25:54.540 What we're struggling to find out is what comes next, 0.98

00:25:58.680 because all we've been doing is tearing shit down. 0.98

00:26:01.740 And so when I think of 9-11, I think of it, 0.98

00:26:05.140 even in the news business, before 9-11,

00:26:08.600 the stakes were not that high.

00:26:11.340 Correct.

00:26:11.740 It was slower.

00:26:13.120 You covered politics.

00:26:15.840 But after 9-11, we went to war.

00:26:20.880 We had security problems that we had to take care of ourselves. 1.00

00:26:26.240 We ostracized people that were brown and black. 0.79

00:26:30.180 People got nervous around people who were brown and black suddenly. 0.79

00:26:35.960 And then our institutions became filled with, perhaps not ours as much, but with vengeance. 0.94

00:26:47.280 And you had ridiculous wars in places that couldn't be won because somebody thought this

00:26:52.100 was an opportunity to massively disrupt the world order.

00:26:55.740 And we're at the end now, I think, of that 25 year with Trump and the amount of disruption

00:27:02.440 going on.

00:27:03.680 And we are seeing now finally the realization that, well, now we've got to build something

00:27:08.820 new, hopefully without the war that was required to build the last understanding of how the

00:27:15.560 world works.

00:27:16.560 said uh i just want to repeat a quote that you had one time um 9-11 quote immediately hardened

00:27:24.020 the newscast dispatching young reporters into war zones you're on the desk in vancouver and you have

00:27:29.940 young junior reporters in afghanistan that's all we had um what was it like to throw to them these

00:27:35.780 young men and women these young reporters uh wearing a flak vest and a helmet that were

00:27:40.560 susceptible to rocket attacks yeah and there was no training for these guys like now they put them

00:27:45.140 through conflict training oh i didn't know that yeah so anybody who goes into a conflict zone

00:27:48.960 in canada now gets conflict training from the military okay how to react if you're held hostage

00:27:53.780 things like that um we didn't know what we didn't know um but everybody up until that point in their

00:28:01.860 careers had only been a local news reporter and so we were putting them in very very difficult

00:28:06.580 situations so i i had the most experience of our news organization in uh conflict reporting

00:28:12.360 so I would spend a lot of time talking to them I would absolve them of any feeling that if you feel

00:28:18.080 fear you don't do it like there's no heroes here and I will be pissed if you have taken too big of

00:28:24.380 a risk um good for you because there wasn't like they weren't insured even like at that time like

00:28:29.700 uh for that kind of stuff we we were fortunate in that we had embraced digital storytelling

00:28:34.940 so when we moved it was the way they move now with you know um a digital camera a computer

00:28:42.080 laptop editing system we were actually the first newscast in the world uh to cut our stories on

00:28:48.080 final cut pro for instance oh is that right yeah so we were very nimble and whatever so to get into

00:28:52.960 places where you know in my era at abc you'd have a driver you'd have a truck you know you'd have

00:28:57.840 that they could hop in a bus and still report and they were largely invisible in the places that

00:29:02.880 they went so that was a benefit but i would talk to them almost every day and ask them to you know

00:29:09.440 tell me what your plan is who are you teaming up with find you know a few other reporters that have

00:29:15.280 and certainly find someone who has combat experience and um admit that you're a newbie

00:29:20.880 here and just like hopefully they will share the knowledge you need to have some instinct

00:29:27.440 for what you're in even though they had none really and think about the seismic paradigm shift

00:29:33.360 going from what you dealt with September 10th to post 9-11 to having to counsel young reporters in

00:29:39.660 a war zone yeah yeah because they were gung-ho well yeah right and so with most of them it was

00:29:47.200 like um tell me your plan for how you're going to get there who are you talking to um who looks like 0.93

00:29:52.700 a translator how who do you trust what happens when you hit the first checkpoint what happens

00:29:57.900 if somebody asks for your equipment.

00:30:02.100 If you have a digital file,

00:30:03.680 are you downloading that digital file every day

00:30:05.340 in case the authorities come in and take your laptop away?

00:30:07.620 So it was all these kind of things

00:30:09.460 that you learned over a lifetime

00:30:12.360 that I had to impart those guys with. 0.98

00:30:14.800 Unfortunately, close to 200 Canadians

00:30:16.900 lost their lives in Afghanistan.

00:30:19.120 And as tragic as that was,

00:30:21.480 I think to me, something as a Canadian,

00:30:23.680 I'm deeply proud of is the highway heroes.

00:30:25.680 and seeing them come and get repatriated back to Canada.

00:30:32.020 Do you know what I love?

00:30:34.160 Yeah, tell me.

00:30:35.220 The only thing that works as far as,

00:30:42.120 like that was a spontaneous thing that happened.

00:30:45.140 Just the people doing it, right?

00:30:46.860 Right.

00:30:47.280 In the same way as today,

00:30:49.220 people are looking for American,

00:30:50.820 not to buy American food.

00:30:52.060 Yes.

00:30:52.960 Not to buy American booze.

00:30:55.680 That Highway of Heroes told me that we have a spine and the harder the fight got in Afghanistan and the more we lost soldiers, the more support for that went up.

00:31:08.300 Now, a lot of people assume that, you know, when soldiers die, people go, oh, no, no, no, that's not the Canadian nature.

00:31:14.900 And we don't get many opportunities because we live in a very peaceful part of the world to show that spine.

00:31:19.540 But the Highway of Heroes was one and we're in the middle of the one right now.

00:31:23.660 25 years later um what is better about canada from that event yeah

00:31:31.820 not much not much interesting it unleashed so much racism um it unleashed um

00:31:41.820 well the policing may be better because vetting and checking and yeah because uh 0.94

00:31:49.580 the police forces were forced to develop relationships with imams at muslim temples 0.71

00:31:57.020 and that intelligence and and that relationship i think has done more to keep us safe than anything

00:32:07.340 because the imams hear from the families who are growing worried about the radicalization

00:32:14.620 of their sons and it's like this distant early warning system that says like we gotta we gotta

00:32:21.580 intervene here here here um the americans didn't do it the same way uh they didn't um honor the

00:32:30.380 imams or temples they saw them as people who might be radicalizing muslim youth themselves

00:32:36.140 but um that is i think i think that's that's better that we have relationships with

00:32:43.420 communities that are other than white people i think we may have overlooked some of the

00:32:47.740 radicalization in the white community by the way of young men well said um you know we're so tuned

00:32:53.980 into the radicalization of young men who aren't white that we've sort of turned a blind eye to

00:32:58.460 our own race but um but mostly it it's not better you know we um um we felt less safe

00:33:09.660 the world seemed scary and we embarked on this quarter century of disruption that has

00:33:19.980 raised the anxiety level i think of just about everyone and um hasn't been as fun you know

00:33:28.500 kevin we've seen uh incidents that are in a grande concert in manchester england a paris

00:33:34.860 around the world is it correct to say that it's only a matter of time before something

00:33:41.340 of that nature happens in Canada probably but we're just learning to live like the rest of

00:33:48.880 the world lives already with the notion of yeah if you go to a big outdoor gathering

00:33:54.040 somebody could let something off right um so in in that way um we've had to toughen up too

00:34:01.880 You know, we've had to assess risk in new ways and in places that we never had to before, like most of the rest of the world does.

00:34:11.400 The one that I worry about is cyber attacks, taking down the grid.

00:34:17.740 My old boss, Ted Koppel, who did Nightline, he wrote a book called Lights Out about 15 years ago, which opened my eyes to this.

00:34:25.020 but just how vulnerable we are to really low-tech disruptions of our power grid

00:34:32.340 and how nobody understands how profound that will be.

00:34:36.320 Even my own kids, because I'm a catastrophist, as most journalists are,

00:34:43.120 I would say, okay, so what are you going to do?

00:34:46.040 What's the plan?

00:34:47.080 What's our plan?

00:34:47.940 Do we have a route out of the city?

00:34:49.980 And they said, no, we're going to stay here.

00:34:51.460 And I said, okay, so your toilets don't flush.

00:34:54.040 no running water there's no running water you can't walk down ozington avenue to get buckets

00:34:59.460 of water to clean your kids your cell phones aren't working yeah you have no heat in and you

00:35:05.140 know 10 months of the year you need heat here um and they can't believe it like they can't imagine

00:35:10.420 that yeah you know so yeah yeah i'm not i'm not a fun member of my family my poor family like

00:35:15.860 they do roll their eyes um and i'm usually um first to get there when i like with all that's

00:35:23.740 going on now i'm usually first to get there but um it's a very lonely place to be and i have to

00:35:30.600 sit around in fear which i'm not terribly pleased with myself um uh our daughters are in their early

00:35:36.680 mid-20s i assume your children are adults as well yeah yeah my son alex lives in australia he's 40

00:35:41.360 oh wow and uh our daughter 36 uh he's here in toronto with two grandsons and she erica uh works

00:35:47.880 as a producer in children's animation do you um after 9 11 did you look at your kids differently

00:35:53.560 well you have to yeah so one day kathy my wife uh caught me taping up um the windows in the house

00:36:04.560 and the reason was um the attorney general of the united states had put a warning out

00:36:09.880 that a dirty bomb could arrive by cargo from another country and it would arrive at a port

00:36:16.680 and i'm looking out at my window in vancouver and i'm seeing nothing but container ships waiting in

00:36:22.320 harbor and i'm thinking okay so they have one okay i'm going to tape up the windows so i did they

00:36:27.840 still laugh at me about it but you know i get it you just don't know right and if it's brand new

00:36:35.520 and and there's lots of fear in your life um and i mean you know look at people rushing out to buy

00:36:41.920 toilet paper for covid the next time right i remember the year after night 11 my sister-in-law

00:36:49.040 and her husband got married and as we flew out of new york out of la guardia it did a hard bank

00:36:54.400 and everyone in the plane looked at the big hole in new york it was it was the quietest i've ever

00:37:00.000 been on a commercial airplane yeah yeah it was wild and then how it would like well i remember

00:37:08.080 like this is how privileged our lives were i remember the first time i went to washington dc

00:37:12.400 as a reporter and being very aware that that's where the nuke is going to go first and you sort

00:37:18.960 of arrive in there and you're going like oh i've never been in a city that could be annihilated by

00:37:22.880 a nuclear weapon because i grew up in toronto right you know and um so it was it was a little

00:37:29.040 like that it was you know our naivete about the nature of the world we got a we got a little taste

00:37:35.360 of um the life and relationship with violence and risk and uncertainty that um 95 of the world

00:37:45.360 lives with every day you know and it's funny you say that because just recently um my partner and

00:37:51.040 i we were at patricia and i we were at the cne my dad was in the air force i wanted to see the

00:37:56.080 snowbirds yeah and i it was so emotional to me because every kind of canadian from every country

00:38:01.520 and every culture was there clapping and cheering as they put on one of the best shows i've ever

00:38:06.400 seen and i'm thinking a lot of these people probably came from countries that had experienced

00:38:10.880 stuff like that yeah it makes them tense it makes them scared but they were so grateful to sit on

00:38:14.800 the lawn and lakeshore and cheer on the snowbirds although i have to say watching the air show at

00:38:19.840 the cne you know when the american f-35 comes over and you go oh i think about that differently now i

00:38:26.400 don't go wow that's a cool jet yeah yeah is that going to be a common sound someday you know yeah

00:38:32.000 so um you know i know this is not easy kevin talking about what happened 25 years thank you

00:38:37.120 for thank you for the invitation yeah it's deeply appreciated for all of us i appreciate my friend

00:38:41.680 Thank you.

00:38:42.300 You're welcome.

True Patriot Love - September 10, 2026

I Anchored 9⧸11 Live for 16 Hours ft. Kevin Newman

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