On the road with CBC’s Washington correspondents

13:35Paul Hunter:It was about an hour's drive. And the thing is, you couldn't get anywhere near it. People, journalists, the BBC tried to get up there. They were turned around and told us the tale of that. Qatar suffered some of the most significant damage to its economy of any Gulf region nation with that attack on the LNG facility.

13:54Katie Simpson:Setting it back five years or something like that?

13:56Paul Hunter:It's going to take three to five years to repair. It wiped out, I think it's 9 % of their GDP. Wow. $20 billion in annual revenue just wiped out because of the damage there. And then after that LNG, after the attack on the LNG plant, things got real quiet.

14:12Katie Simpson:Just we should add that, well, obviously, the Gulf countries have very, very strict filming policies. They're not alone. Israel, since October 7th, has also kind of changed their laws and they have restricted some filming around missile strikes. So, you know, not just the Gulf countries there.

14:32Paul Hunter:Now, Willie, so that was my journey over the past couple of weeks. You were just with Marco Rubio in France. Tell us about that. What is that like?

14:40Katie Simpson:Was I? I don't know. It was so fast. You know when you're traveling, guys, and you're on a layover, and it's like, if I put my foot outside the airport, does it count that I've been there? Yeah. This was kind of like— I mean, obviously, we're all journalists and travelers. That's a guess. Yeah. But this was kind of—

14:59Willy Lowry:My rule is, if you called your mom and your mom says, where are you? What's your answer? There you go.

15:05Katie Simpson:I did. I got a call into my mom, of course. We'll count it. We'll count it. But we took off from Andrews, Joint Base Andrews, just outside of Washington at like 3 p.m. on Thursday. We arrived in Paris at 2.30, 3 a.m., got to the hotel, and I think we checked in at 3 or 3.30. But, you know, the nice thing is it's a police escort, right? So it's a very quick trip from the airport.

15:29Paul Hunter:When you are in a motorcade, let me tell you how that ruins all transit for you. When you are in a prime minister's motorcade, oh, my, we can talk about that later. It is a thing.

15:38Katie Simpson:You get caravaned, convoyed to the hotel. I think I slept. I was in my bed for two hours. Then we were out the door by 7 to the G7 meeting. I have to say, he was there for as short or as little amount of time as humanly possible. He could not have been there less time.

15:59Paul Hunter:So when you go, you're part of what's called the pool. What is that like? And tell us what that is.

16:06Katie Simpson:Yeah. So I am a member of the State Department Press Corps. Basically, the Secretary of State travels on Air Force Three. There's like 10 to 12 press seats. So I'm there with people from CBS, Wall Street Journal, sometimes the New York Times, Washington Post. And we're basically there to cover the movements of the Secretary of State. So a few interesting tidbits about the Secretary of State's plane. It is freezing. And when I mean like freezing, I mean winter parka cold.

16:41Paul Hunter:Is it because he doesn't want to like fall asleep and he wants it to keep it cold? No.

16:45Katie Simpson:No. I have asked staff. No one knows. It was cold under Blinken. It was cold under Rubio. Also, no internet. I mean, they have internet. What? The Secretary of State has internet. The staff has internet. Journalists do not.

16:59Paul Hunter:I actually like that when you're, you know what? Because guess what? You can't get a hold of me. I have a number of hours where you can't get a hold of me. I kind of like it.

17:06Katie Simpson:It's good. Except you're working. And my job as the pool, as a radio pool reporter, right, I am gathering the tape, often plain side, under the wing. And then I have 10 minutes to get it from my tape recorder to the internet to NPR and BBC and my other fellow radio poolers. And I only have 10 minutes.

17:27Paul Hunter:That is very stressful. Very stressful.

17:30Katie Simpson:Is Marco Rubio a come-to-the-back-of-the-plane guy? He did not come this trip, but yeah, he's a former senator, right? So he's very comfortable with journalists. And he'll kind of talk off the record, kind of what's going on, loves to talk about football. He was all business this trip, though. I love those things.

17:52Willy Lowry:Katie, you've been on enough election campaigns when the leader comes to the back. You learn stuff and it's just interesting.

17:59Paul Hunter:You do, except now in Ottawa, it is a source of heated debate because some journalists won't do off the record with the prime minister. They say anything the prime minister says is on the record, which I get. Like I get. But the other thing is you learn context, right? You learn so much. When you go, when you travel with politicians and you get to meet their staff and the people who are helping them make decisions, You just get a better sense of what is actually going on in the offices and get a better sense of, you know, how this person operates. How is this person is, you know, as a leader with a team?

18:31Paul Hunter:And it just it helps color things and fill it out.

18:33Katie Simpson:But yeah, it informs all your reporting, even if you can't necessarily report on the words.

18:38Paul Hunter:Yeah.

18:38Willy Lowry:Jean Chrétien would come to the back and he would love to tell stories and they would always just be little anecdotes about things. He wouldn't learn anything, but it was entertaining. Paul Martin, by contrast, he would come to the back and he would have questions. He would point at the gear. Is that a microphone? How does the camera work when you're in a screen? All that kind of thing. Again, you didn't really learn anything, but it was very contrasting styles. But Anita Anand was also in France. Was she not a foreign affairs minister for Canada? What came of that?

19:10Katie Simpson:Yeah, so she was indeed, unlike Rubio. She was there for both days of the meeting. And, you know, not surprisingly, this was the first foreign ministers meeting of the year. The subject was, of course, Iran, Iran, Iran, Russia, Iran, Iran, Ukraine.

19:27Paul Hunter:What a moment we're existing in. If we'd gone back maybe like a year and tried to predict this, I don't I don't. Could we have maybe we could have? I don't know. But Willie, other G7 countries, they've really been walking a tightrope with the U.S. for a while now. You were at Rubio's first G7 meeting last year. How would you look back at both of those events and compare?

19:49Katie Simpson:So it's amazing. So similar. The one last year was on the heels of the 51st state comments. And the whole vibe was what's going to happen between Rubio and Melanie Jolie, then, of course, the foreign minister. You know, will it be awkward? Will it be tense? Will they be able to kind of get along? And then this time it's OK. Today, the U.S. has decided to unilaterally launch a war against Iran, and now it's asking its allies, without giving them advance warning, for help, essentially opening the Strait of Hormuz. So there's, again, this kind of awkward tension. Both times, Rubio brushed that aside.

20:28Katie Simpson:The first time saying, you know, he got along very well with Jolie. They didn't talk about the 51st state comment. This time basically saying that, quite frankly, his colleagues should be happy that he was in attendance.

20:45Katie Simpson:If you've ever wished someone would explain what's going on with reproductive rights without feeling overwhelmed and alone, hi, welcome. I'm Jenny Wetter, host of Repros Fight Back, where we make sense of the headlines from shifting abortion bans to contraceptive fights and attacks on LGBTQ rights and gender-affirming care. We talk to experts on the front lines and share real actions you can take. You'll walk away thinking, okay, this is hard, but I'm not alone, and it's all making a little more sense. Listen to ReproSiteBack wherever you get your podcasts.

21:17Paul Hunter:Okay, Paul, you are like living your dream right now. I'm very excited for you. I'm very excited to watch this through your eyes because we don't often get to do things that bring us excitement and joy. So tell us where you are and tell us why Artemis matters.

21:33Willy Lowry:There's a rocket going somewhere. It's nothing. So I'll tell you where I am. If I look over there, I see the CBS building, which is where Walter Cronkite talked about landing on the moon in the 60s. Behind me, I don't know if you can see it, it's sort of blown out because it's so bright here, but that's the vehicle assembly building where they build all the rockets and then they march. If I look over here, I see Artemis in the distance, on the launch pad, ready to go. The Falcon 9 we were talking about earlier took off from over there so it's it's like everything is all around you and it's it's kind of amazing right so what the artemis 2 is doing is going to the moon with three americans and jeremy hansen from london ontario a place you know well katie he's from london ontario no he is that's where i'm from that's where i'm from the stuff you learn on this podcast oh my goodness if it goes tomorrow they've been waiting a long time to launch this thing they've got a couple of hiccups, but all systems are go, as they say, unless the weather steps in and punts it for another day.

22:41Willy Lowry:They're going to go up around Earth's orbit. They're going to go to the moon. They're going to go around the moon. They're not going to orbit it. They're going to come back to Earth. They're going to land. This is a test mission for the next couple. The next, the one after this, they're going to go into orbit. They're going to test a moon lander. And the one after that, they're going to put, as they say, boots on the ground. We're talking about that term a lot lately, but on the moon. It's kind of incredible. I mean, there's not a lot of attention being put on this the last little while, if you ask me, the space nerd.

23:06Willy Lowry:But this hasn't happened since 1972, when the Apollo program ended. And it's all going to happen right here. It's sort of fantastic. So we had to take another exit out of here last night, because one of the gates was closed. And we drove by this massive complex. It was Blue Origin, which is Bezos, right? And it's hard to sort of describe how big this thing is. And you realize that's not even NASA. That's private enterprise, which is by all accounts, everybody you talk to here says, yeah, this is great. Going to go to the moon. But the real future in all things space is private enterprise. Where the Artemis leads eventually, and they've been saying this for a long time, is Mars.

23:48Willy Lowry:And one hesitates to say that because there's so much work that still has to go ahead of that. But this is first step that leads to putting a permanent base on the moon, which in theory, anyway, sometime down the line, leads to Mars. Like I say, it's pretty amazing.

24:05Katie Simpson:How far away are we from Paul Hunter's CBC News Mars?

24:10Willy Lowry:At least a couple of weeks. I mean, it takes some time just to get there. You know, we've been doing these stories for years. I did a story years ago on on you know can people get to mars and a lot of people poo poo it and they say not a chance there's a lot of complications but that's one of the things about i mean nasa takes a lot of heat for all its delays and its cost overruns and this that and the other but they they they try stuff and there is an it when you come here you feel the impetus to do these things be it from private enterprise from elon musk and jeff bezos um or from nasa but all you put it all together and then you see the rocket as i did yesterday take off and by the way the artemis is going to put that one to shame like i've been here for a shuttle launch and you feel it in your chest right even yesterday when that when the falcon 9 took off all the cars started to vibrate and all the the horns started going off from the security in the cars it's that loud and it's that

25:09Paul Hunter:big because it's that big a deal when you talk about that paul it's such a reminder that even Even if we are existing in this moment where so much is going on that people can we can still do big things. It really it that when you talk about driving around and seeing these massive complexes and, you know, the combination of NASA versus private enterprise, given what exists right now and how that sort of coexists. Do you have any sort of sense of, you know, what Trump's agenda is for NASA and what he sees as the future?

25:43Willy Lowry:To do this. I mean, say what you will about Donald Trump. and the politics of the day, but this gets back to the impetus that you feel here. And that is being driven by Donald Trump right now. NASA was talking about this last week. The word from above, the word from the White House, the word from Donald Trump is just get this done. One of the things that was announced last week that had an effect on Canada, by the way, was sort of pausing the so-called Gateway project. Gateway was to be, think about the International Space Station. gateway was to be a kind of international space station for the moon so the target to get to that moon base was going to be build gateway which by the way would have involved a canadarm three then use that as a gateway to the moon so get from earth to the station from the station down to the moon and build uh the moon base what trump is saying and directing nasa to do is forget that just go to the moon just do it just the term they use is build muscle memory start doing this faster get more rockets going get to the moon as fast as you can with not just another term they use is not just footprints and flags but effectively with bricks and mortar right they want to do that why china right think back to the 1960s and the space race with russia and the u.s just take russia out of the mix and put china in that's what's going on china says it's going to have boots on the ground by 2030, right?

27:09Willy Lowry:You can bet that Donald Trump wants, you know, before his time in office is up, to put American boots on the ground, to put the U.S. space industry front and foremost in all things lunar and beyond.

27:27Paul Hunter:Because we always talk about Canada, we do have a Canadian connection here, Paul, with our good friend from London, Ontario, which I did not know. Jeremy Handsome, as I believe it's pronounced. He's going to be on Artemis too. So, you know, do you think that there is a moment here where the Canada-U.S. relationship can be sort of showcased in a cooperative way? Is there something here for Canada-U.S. relations?

27:53Willy Lowry:Well, first of all, re-Jeremy Handsome.

28:00Willy Lowry:nice guy i've met him a few times now super nice just generous with very canadian right generous with his time happy to talk um but he's also very focused i mean he's he's on this for a reason like he knows what he's doing obviously um you know there was there were whispers uh uh uh when trump got back into office that nasa was downplaying the canada word for fear that like somehow trump would hear that and and like what what what why is there a canadian you know and somehow would kibosh it i don't know if that was real or not but you heard whispers there was a time we went down to houston uh for the media day last fall and we're going to have a chance to have a press conference with all the four astronauts the three americans and the canadian jeremy henson and there was no there was an american flag and a nasa flag and no canadian flag and like what's going on?

28:52Willy Lowry:Is this because fearful of Trump seeing it or something? And I don't know if it was just oversight or what, but it was kind of weird. So you think about this, like what does this mean for Canada-U.S. relations? Look, I think on its face, it can't hurt, right? He's one of the four, right? But think about it this way as well. Part of that rocket is engineered by the Europeans. Canada has other engineering involved in the Artemis program. This is an international effort. So while it looks good on counter-U.S. relations, in fact, it speaks to international cooperation broadly. I don't mean to sound all Pollyanna on this, but it's true.

29:29Willy Lowry:All of this stuff comes together. And even Jeremy Hansen, and by the way, the other astronauts, they say this all the time, right? They're doing it as a team, that this works when you work together. And if that message goes back to Donald Trump, I don't know. It can't hurt.

29:45Katie Simpson:You know, as the Canadian cheerleader on this team, he, of course, follows a pretty rich history, right, of Canadians in space. Obviously, the late Marc Garneau, Julie Payette, and Commander Chris Hatfield, right, all representing Canada up above the stars. And I'm just wondering, are we going to get a song from Hanson? Do we know? Does he play the guitar too? it's still a highlight for me i love that when are you kidding me with that mustache and the

30:19Willy Lowry:guitar in space it was amazing unlike a chris hatfield on the iss when he did space oddity

30:26Paul Hunter:some david bowie i have a david bowie i have a david bowie tattoo on the back of my leg for i'm not going to show it on the podcast but for reference i'm a very david bowie unlike chris

30:38Willy Lowry:Hatfield on the International Space Station. This is for astronauts in a tiny-ish capsule. There's no room for a guitar, Willie. I'm just going to tell you. It's not going to happen.

30:46Paul Hunter:I was also going to say, you're the guy at the bonfire pulling out the acoustic guitar. No one's going to like you if you do that. No one wants that. No one wants that.

30:55Willy Lowry:The other three are all like, oh, not again. No. Make it end.

30:59Katie Simpson:I will brace myself then for disappointment.

31:02Paul Hunter:Willie, you know what? I look forward to the day when we're talking about something that I get excited about the way that Paul Hunter gets excited about Artemis and space travel. And like, this is like...

31:13Katie Simpson:I don't think there is anything for me. Maybe if we had won gold back at the Olympics. Oh, why did I bring that up?

31:18Paul Hunter:There's nothing in there. There's nothing. I'm like, I'm just trying to think of what I would be so excited to talk about like this. I'm drawing blanks. But Paul, I'm so happy. I'm happy for you. And like, you know what? I look forward to when they find the aliens. That's when I'm going to get really excited. That's when I'm going to be invested in this and be like, okay, you know You know what? Beam me up. It's time to go. That's when I'm ready to go.

31:38Katie Simpson:That's where I'm disappearing into the Canadian wilderness. All right. This has been fun. So fun to see you, Paul, do your thing and enjoying space, which I won't lie, scares me. It's too much. It's too big. It's too big.

31:52Paul Hunter:OK.

31:52Katie Simpson:But, you know, it's so great hearing what all of you have been up to. And now we're going to go to the audience participation part of the podcast. Let's have a listen to this question from Francis Kitson in Whitehorse. As a Canadian, it's, I mean, it's really easy and always tempting to bash the United States. And there is a lot that is worth serious critique. But there's also a lot about American culture that is exuberant, creative, and courageous. And so I'm curious about what are the good things in America right now? What are the things you enjoy? Ooh. Willie, you go first. Oh, thank you. This makes it a lot easier.

32:39Katie Simpson:I mean, I think Paul's story, I mean, I think Artemis is in part such a perfect example of this. This is a country filled with human ingenuity, but also that is inspired to kind of think big and act on those thoughts in a way that few other countries are able to instill in their people. But also, it's spring, and my daffodils are already almost out of season. My tulips are blooming. Sorry, Canada. I don't think yours have even exited the ground yet.

33:15Paul Hunter:I think there was snow in Toronto in the last few days.

33:17Katie Simpson:Yeah.

33:18Paul Hunter:Uh-oh. Send all of your hate mail to Willie at Washington at CBC Pod. No. Paul, how about you?

33:24Willy Lowry:I think she's right. Americans are exuberant and creative and courageous. And I think a lot of the positives of this country, and there are a lot of them, people become obsessed with the complicated politics of the day and they forget that that's politics and there's a whole country here. You know, I've been down here long enough that one of the things I've come to love about this country and Americans is their willingness to talk about stuff. We got problems. Let's talk about it. They wear them on the sleeve, right? I mean, I've been down here so long now. I actually talk to strangers on the street.

33:57Willy Lowry:It's like it's very American. It's like I never used to do that. But it's what people down here do. And I love that. I've never had somebody turn down an interview request. Never happens because Americans want to engage and they want to participate and they have things to say. And I think that's to the credit of all Americans. And it's what I love about this country and the people who are here, in spite of, as I say, the complicated politics of the moment.

34:22Paul Hunter:I was going to say there's something about the United States that even when I was like long before I chose journalism, long before anything like that, that there was always I don't know if it's the influence of American pop culture. I don't know what it is. But Willie, you sort of talked about it. It's it's if we take a look at the Artemis example and the example around space exploration, you know, in Canada, we do big things, too. But I feel like the built-in attitude in a lot of cases, the sort of like the place people operate from, whether it's on a daily basis or thinking big, is that we can do big things.

35:02Paul Hunter:It's that like try harder. This is not any sort of like comparison to Canada. It's not in any way, shape or form. This is not something that doesn't happen in Canada as well. But it just everything is just so much bigger, so much brighter. And Canadians spend a lot of their time when it comes to a Canadian identity that we do define a lot of things about ourselves as Canadian. But so much of that is also in sort of the lens of what we're not American. And that is one thing to when I'm having this conversation, when I'm making these points, I'm not it's not through the well, Canada isn't like this.

35:37Paul Hunter:It's just it's not it's it's just the way that people think down here. It is built in you, whether it's hearing the lore of, you know, the American Revolution and big things can happen and that kind of thing. It's just it seems to infiltrate almost every aspect of life in a lot of ways. And it's magnetic.

35:58Willy Lowry:The ethos of this place is to just try. Just go for it. Just do it. Instead of you can sit back and you can talk about it over and over and over and over and over until, you know, too much time has passed. In this country, it just seems to grab it. It cuts both ways. You can fail. Yeah. But you can also succeed. And I would just end my thoughts on this, if you don't mind, Willie, with a comment from Jeremy Hansen. Because he talks about this same thing. And he's talked about it to me. And he said that's one of the values of his trip, with him in that seat on that rocket, which it says to Canada, hey, we can do this too.

36:37Willy Lowry:And if we can do this now, this thing that the Americans do so well, we're on that rocket and he's going. And he ended the thought by saying, who knows what is the lesson? Who knows what Canada can do tomorrow? I love that.

36:53Katie Simpson:And I think, you know, if there's a narrative, a Canadian narrative, it's often that we punch above our weight.

36:59Paul Hunter:Absolutely.

37:00Katie Simpson:Artistically, culturally, politically in so many different ways. But in many ways, that weight is America. They are the standard for so much of the world. And it is earned through the immensity of their ambitions. And that is impressive. Well put. Thank you, Paul. Once in a while. Now, I've also been told that before we wrap up here, we need to listen to one more thing that Frances Kitson had to say in her voice memo. So let's take a listen. Thank you so much for the work you do. It really is helpful and interesting and also kind of, I don't know, comforting to have a specifically Canadian perspective on American politics because it just means you do some of the kind of translating for my brain and give it a break from trying to understand American things through a Canadian lens and trying to like do the translation myself.

38:07Paul Hunter:Okay, stay safe, Katie. Thanks. Well, that's very nice to hear that. And that's our job, right? Our job is to translate what's going on here. And just any time that there is something that could have an impact on Canada or, you know, if we see trends emerging here that could sort of translate to Canada or whatever it is, whatever it is, that is our job. So that is such a nice thing for her to say.

38:31Katie Simpson:Yeah, Francis, thank you. Yeah, I mean, I think we appreciate you. We appreciate you, all of you who listen to us. And I mean, it is a job that at least for me, I take great pride and great honor in being able to help understand this complex country for Canadians.

38:51Paul Hunter:And on that note, I think now that I've been up for 48 hours and had like maybe two hours of sleep, I think that just to send us all off. Thanks to everyone for the feedback and for the questions as well, Francis. If you have something you'd like to ask or if you have feedback, you can send it in an email to WashingtonPod, all one word, at cbc.ca. That is WashingtonPod at cbc.ca.

39:15Willy Lowry:Or leave a comment for us on Spotify.

39:17Paul Hunter:And don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast app.

39:20Katie Simpson:Thanks, Paul. Thanks, Katie. Paul, enjoy the launch, but please don't get on the rocket. We need you back here in D.C.

39:26Paul Hunter:I think you should go. So I think you could like, honestly, we'll send you with a digero. We'll send you with a live thing so that you can do a live report. I think our bosses would be very excited about it. I think you should do that, Paul.

39:37Willy Lowry:All right. We'll see you from the moon.

39:50Katie Simpson:For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.