[0:00]It's Tuesday, February 24th. He's got allies in the room, but he needs more of them around the country. We start here. President Trump prepares his State of
[0:12]the Union address. >> This is a chance for him to make his case about his sweeping policy goals directly to millions of Americans. >> His approval rating has never been worse. So, what can he say tonight to
[0:23]turn the tide? Police in the UK have arrested another huge name in connection with Jeffrey Epstein. >> Peter Mandlesson is alleged to have sent
[0:33]sensitive market information to Jeffrey Epstein. >> Charges are not the only consequence here. This is rattling Britain's entire power structure. And who's running these tourist towns? The government or the
[0:45]gangs? >> The Americans who are truly in the hot spots right now, they are stuck where they are. Cartels have taken the fight to the Mexican government in ways
[0:54]scarcely thought possible. From ABC News, this is Start Here. I'm Brad Milky. Hello and good morning from the frozen
[1:11]Brooklyn bureau after a blizzard walloped the east coast from Maine down to Washington DC. But regardless of the weather tonight, we know one thing. We know President Trump will make the drive
[1:21]down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House to the Capitol to give his first official State of the Union address since being sworn in last year.
[1:29]>> And to my fellow citizens, America is back. >> Obviously, a ton has happened over the course of that first year. A ton of
[1:41]events that would happen regardless of who was president. those things you got to deal with, but also many seismic events that arose specifically out of this president's own policies.
[1:50]>> The Supreme Court's ruling on tariffs is deeply disappointing. >> Right now, there's a back and forth over tariffs that has thrown American finances into question. Judges are
[2:02]weighing questions about deportations and shootings by federal agents. The leader of Venezuela is sitting here deposed in the US. Strikes against Iran are being considered as we speak, and we
[2:13]are two weeks away from the first primary voting in this country. So, how is President Trump about to pitch the American people on his next year in office? Well, ABC's chief White House
[2:24]correspondent, Mary Bruce, joins us this morning from the West Wing. Mary, what's it like around the White House right now, and what should we be expecting going into the speech? Yeah, this day is always interesting, Brad, because it is sort of the calm before the storm. That
[2:35]sort of hurry up and wait kind of feeling as the president puts, you know, the final touches on what we know will be a wide, expansive, and likely lengthy speech. I think uh the White House hasn't given much by way of a specific
[2:47]preview, but certainly, I think we can expect the president to touch on all of those issues that you just laid out. I I think big picture it's important to remember that this is a chance for him to make his case about his sweeping
[2:59]policy goals directly to millions of Americans. It's likely the largest audience he's going to to have ahead of the midterms when you consider how many people will be tuning in for this tonight. And it's a chance for him to
[3:10]sway skeptical voters. We know that he is going into this uh based on our latest ABC News Washington Post Ipsos poll uh with a disapproval rating at 60%. That's an all-time high during his
[3:22]second term. And we know what most Americans want to hear from him, and that is about the economy, about prices, about affordability. >> They caused the affordability problem,
[3:32]and we've solved it. And we're going still lower, but we've solved it. >> The president has now taken full responsibility for the economy, even declaring last week that he quote one on
[3:42]affordability. So, he's sure to go out and sort of tout efforts that his administration has made to lower costs. Uh certainly some goods, eggs and gas are down, but but there's so much
[3:53]uncertainty now, especially uh given the Supreme Court decision last week in validating his sweeping tariffs. And as so many people are still seeing such high prices uh at the grocery store on
[4:04]those basic, you know, household goods, produce, beef, coffee, all those prices still remain high. >> This happened during a Democrat administration and it's when we first
[4:14]began hearing the word affordability. It will be interesting to see the tone the president strikes. He hasn't been particularly uh empathetic when talking about the economy in the past, but he
[4:26]essentially, I suspect, will go out uh into the chamber tonight and argue that his policies are working and urge Americans to stay the course, to continue to give what he has done so far
[4:36]a chance uh to work in the weeks and months to come. But of course, all of this uh is coming as Republicans are out there, you know, eager to make a case to voters ahead of the midterms. Yeah, I
[4:47]was going to say I assume we're about to see Speaker Johnson, the speaker of the house, standing and clapping a lot this evening right alongside Vice President J. D. Vance. Does that pretty much tell the story here? Is the GOP party are
[4:57]they in lock step behind Trump right now? >> I think certainly while you will see Republicans in the chamber supporting the president, uh the president has also sidelined Congress in so many ways. I mean, just look at what he's doing on
[5:08]tariffs. president is adamant that he can use other authorities uh to make up the difference essentially and to continue to have tariffs be the cornerstone of his economic policy despite the Supreme Court's ruling and
[5:20]he's not going straight to Congress to try and do that. There are also questions about foreign policy. >> What I want to see from our commander-in-chief is clear purpose, clear intentions, clear directives, and
[5:31]I think he owes the American people that answer before engaging in military action. The president uh we know right now he is weighing potential strikes on Iran. He hasn't really made the case
[5:43]publicly to the American people though about why that would be necessary. What's the overall objective here? Is he just trying to halt Iran's nuclear program? Is he also seeking regime
[5:52]change, something he has suggested in the past? And why would additional strikes in Iran be necessary given that the president uh after the US strikes last June was adamant that Iran's
[6:03]nuclear program had been obliterated. So there are lots of questions about how and if he makes the case for further US involvement in the Middle East, >> right? And what's the plan from Democrats, by the way? Like who's giving
[6:15]the Democratic responses, but also how are are people going to this thing? Are they going to sit with their hands in their laps? What >> the official Democratic response is being given by the Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger. Of course, we we
[6:26]talk about this every year, Brad, about what a difficult task it always is to come on after the president and give the response. I stand before those who made it possible for a woman to also
[6:36]participate in that peaceful transfer of power and take that oath. She's an interesting choice, not surprising, right? She's the first woman to hold uh the governorship in Virginia. She of course was a national security
[6:48]professional. She then flipped uh that red seat blue in 2018. And she really is, you know, a moderate Democrat. Uh someone who's thought to appeal to to a broad swath of voters. someone, you
[6:59]know, who Democrats are hoping represents the future of the party. And remember, Democrats are going into this very much feeling emboldened, right? They feel that they have the wind at their back, at least now as we head to
[7:08]the midterms. >> There are many Democrats who are opting out of going to the speech. They are planning to participate in some sort of counterprogramming. >> I think we'll be watching closely to see
[7:20]how many Democrats uh may sit this one out if you do see some empty seats there in the chamber. And they're also doing a Democratic response uh in Spanish. California's first Latino US Senator,
[7:30]Alex Padilla, will deliver the party's response in Spanish. >> Yeah. Which tells you sort of everything you need to know about where Democrats are at right now that they feel like they are specifically winning on the economy, but also some of these
[7:41]immigration proposals, at least to their bases. Uh Mary Bruce, strap in. We'll see you later. >> Thanks, Brad. >> Next up on Start here, Al Capone was
[7:52]taken down for tax fraud. Well, now some of Jeffrey Epstein's associates are being arrested for possibly sharing inside information. We'll take you to London after the break. Ever since the US government released a
[8:08]trunch of documents related to the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, United Kingdom authorities have not been hesitant to hold people of power to account. Perhaps the most iconic image
[8:18]over the last week was that photo of the man formerly known as Prince Andrew slumped in the back of a car leaving a police station. Well, yesterday there was another
[8:30]arrest. Lord Peter Mandelen might not be a member of the British royal family, but he was once the ambassador to the US. If we're going to rebalance and
[8:40]rebuild international trade uh in a way that serves all our interests, then we're better doing that together than separately. >> And his arrest is not only galvanizing
[8:51]the UK, it's also raising questions about just how far Jeffrey Epstein's reach went. Let's go to ABC's chief international correspondent, James Long. And James, first off, can you just
[9:02]remind me who Peter Mandlesson is? Yeah. So, Peter Mandlesson is a huge figure in the contemporary history of the Labour Party. He's kind of an elder statesman
[9:12]of Labor. Remember, the Labour Party were in power under Tony Blair from 1997 to 2010. And all through those years, Peter Mandlesson was seen as one of the
[9:24]power brokers. He was seen as, you know, he was a good political messenger. He was one of the kind of architects of making Labor electable again. And one of the first things that the new Labour
[9:35]Prime Minister Kier Star Dalma did was to make this elder Labour statesman Peter Mandlesson the ambassador to the United States because he was seen as
[9:45]this great political actor, a fixer, an operator, this kind of adept political animal who was seen as someone who could be sent to Washington DC to deal with
[9:54]Donald Trump to get the allimportant trade deal that Britain is so hungry for. and he was seen as someone who could go up against Donald Trump or work with him. This is a guy who was known as
[10:06]the prince of darkness by the UK tabloids. He had that name because Right. >> That was the name. >> Yeah. They literally called him the prince of darkness because he was known to be this political operator in the
[10:17]shadows fixing things, making things work, pulling levers, pushing buttons. And you can kind of see, Brad, why this kind of person might be sent by Britain to DC to work with Donald Trump. because
[10:29]there was a sense that you wanted someone who was going to get down and dirty with the president of the United States to make things happen, >> right? So, but why was he arrested then? Because I know he was in contact with Jeffrey Epstein even in the years
[10:40]following his conviction for sex crimes, but emails don't necessarily make you a criminal. So, I mean, why the arrest? >> I think the key thing to recognize with both Peter Mlon and Andrew is that this has nothing to do with the allegations
[10:52]of sexual assault and rape and sexual misconduct that surround Jeffrey Epstein. This is about using public office and the allegation of misconduct
[11:03]in public office for financial gain. When he was business secretary under the previous Labor government, Peter Mandlesson is alleged to have sent
[11:12]sensitive market information to Jeffrey Epstein. And the allegation is that that was for financial gain. To learn that there was a cabinet minister leaking
[11:23]sensitive information at the height of the response to the 2008 crash is beyond infuriating. >> That is why he looks like he's been arrested. We're not crucially getting
[11:34]much detail from UK police. They actually don't officially name an individual when they arrest him. We just know that a 72-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of misconduct in
[11:44]public office and that like Andrew, his properties are now being searched. Mandlesson hasn't publicly commented in recent weeks on any of these Epstein files, even after they were released and
[11:55]he was fired as ambassador. >> I regret appointing him. If I knew then what I know now, he would never have been anywhere near government.
[12:04]>> The BBC, the public broadcaster here, they keep repeating that his position has consistently been that he has not acted in any way criminally. It continues to strike me, James, that not
[12:15]only are you seeing criminal arrests, like Mandlesen was released last night. So was Andrew as these investigations continue, but even more broadly than that, it's not just them that could suffer consequences. Kier Starmer, the
[12:25]prime minister, is under pressure, not just for this, but also because he hired this guy. And then there were questions about the whole British royal family, like the concept of it. I mean, all of
[12:35]this has raised huge questions about trust in public institutions, trust in political elites and trust in the monarchy. Questions that Brits are
[12:46]asking themselves at the moment? What did Andrew tell his brother when the Virginia Jafrey allegations became public? What did Andrew tell his mother, the late queen? How did he secure the
[12:57]money that was needed to pay her off in that settlement? He did not admit any wrongdoing, but he paid her off in a settlement. >> Oh, when these guys get money from like the British public, right? >> Exactly. That goes to the heart of it,
[13:09]Brad. Public money may have been spent by the UK monarchy to protect Andrew when in fact what should have happened was that he faced these consequences
[13:20]much much earlier. >> And this could speed up the reduction of the UK monarchy in public life. The British monarchy is a huge institution. like all the cousins and the second
[13:32]cousins, all them, >> the cousins and the great aunts and the grand old juke of this and the countest of what's it all these people are taking public money. Now they do it because
[13:42]they work in inverse commas on behalf of the king or the queen and they're out in public uh to represent the monarchy. But the issue that goes to the very heart of
[13:52]all this is when there are other people around the monarch who are never going to be king, who are never going to be queen, but who need to work for them in some way. If they have no purpose for
[14:03]themselves and they go out looking for stuff to do, you're going to end up with a system whereby privilege is corrupted and is used for the wrong reasons.
[14:15]a sign of of the world we live in where power has no responsibility, no ethics. >> I thought he'd go into hiding and get away with it. Yes. So, no, that's all
[14:27]I've got to say really. I'm pleased. >> The UK monarchy has already been shrunk down from what it was just one generation ago. We used to have a lot more a lot more hangers on, if you like, a lot more members of the larger
[14:38]extended royal family. But could it be that finally the time has come to shrink it right down to just the monarch and the heir? And beyond that, if this Andrew scandal gets much worse, could it
[14:50]be that we just don't have a monarchy at all? >> Wow. Or at least not one that that's so prominently paid for by British taxpayers. You want to lower that footprint if you're not so proud of your monarchy anymore. Wow. James Longman,
[15:01]fascinating stories coming out of the UK. Thank you. >> Thanks a lot, Brad. A few years ago, the president of Mexico, Andre Manuel Lopez Odor,
[15:13]basically told the world he wasn't going to war with drug cartels. The juice wasn't worth the squeeze. He actually had a slogan for the strategy. Hugs, not
[15:21]bullets. Hugs for the cartels. This has not been the approach for his successor. This weekend, Claudia Shanebomb's government launched an aggressive operation that killed one of the most
[15:32]infamous cartel leaders in the country. And while we described some of the fallout yesterday, it's only grown more devastating in the hours since. Soldiers are dead, tourists are trapped, and
[15:44]ABC's Shannon Kingston is covering it all from the State Department where she covers global affairs. Shannon, what is happening in Mexico right now? Have things calm down at all? >> Look, Brad, there's no doubt about it. the Mexican government, Mexican
[15:55]President Claudia Shanebomb, she's facing was probably the biggest, most dramatic challenge of her presidency right now. And that's containing this widespread fallout from that very
[16:05]consequential decision she made under great pressure from the Trump administration to go after the leader of the largest, most feared criminal group in Mexico, Halisco New Generation
[16:16]Cartel. The most important thing at this moment is to guarantee peace and safety of all the population of all of Mexico and that is being done. Mexican authorities were
[16:28]prepared for some backlash, but I don't think they were expecting it to be this widespread, this intense. And on the US side, I don't think officials were ready
[16:37]for it to be so focused on these big tourist hubs, these transportation centers that are teameing with Americans this time of year. So, what we're talking about are
[16:49]widespread uh roadblocks, blockades put up by members of this criminal organization, this cartel, as they're fighting back against Mexican
[17:00]authorities, literally taking on members of the Mexican military in the streets. And we have seen dozens of soldiers killed, dozens of members of this gang as well.
[17:11]>> But that's Costco right there. Major buildings lit on fire. People stuck in zoos overnight just taking shelter wherever they can.
[17:23]>> There are 1,080 people here. We have people ranging from infants to elderly adults. >> And we're seeing slowly city life start to resume in some places. But Brad, in
[17:34]Porto Viarta, where this has really been centered, uh there was still smoke lingering over the city. >> Wow. So, it sounds like like this is the stuff I would expect from a foreign war or something where now you've got like
[17:45]an occupying army saying actually we run these streets. We're going to do checkpoints. We're going to start blowing up government strongholds here, but instead this is just like, you know, these huge gangs, these huge cartels
[17:55]doing all of that. You mentioned a lot of this is focusing on tourist hubs. I mean, how specific is that to American tourist hubs and and what are we seeing from American travelers? Well, the Americans who are truly in the hot spots
[18:06]right now, they are stuck where they are. And the US embassy in Mexico is encouraging them to continue to shelter in place. >> We're not allowed to leave the resort
[18:16]under any circumstance. So, we're locked down in the resort. >> Not only because that's the safest thing to do. But for many of them, there just really is nowhere to go, no way to get out.
[18:27]>> They're lighting buses on fire, so there are explosions. And yeah, I can see I saw five of them from my room. >> And in the major airports that service Porto Viarta, there are flights that
[18:38]have been cancelled. There's been trouble getting crews there to even fly these aircrafts out. The State Department is in contact with hundreds of Americans who are calling in from Mexico looking for guidance. But because
[18:50]they are spread out and because the situation is just so volatile, uh really right now it doesn't appear that there's any plan to put together evacuations, government chartered flights, create
[19:01]more travel options for Americans on the ground right now. >> Hey, and you mentioned President Trump when describing Claudia Shane Bomb's push on this. I mean, how much of this owes itself to pressure from the American government and what is what
[19:12]would the pressure campaign look like exactly at this point? >> Well, right now, I think they're looking for a show of strength. They want Mexico to be going after these cartels and they
[19:22]want Mexico to demonstrate that they can handle it. They're looking for security to be stepped up on the other side of the border. And don't forget, there's always been this underlying threat, this
[19:33]concern that if Mexico doesn't take care of, you know, their side of the street, the Trump administration could do something to send in their own firepower
[19:43]to do this. So, they have every motivation to do that. one, just to maintain their own autonomy here, and also because their economy really does
[19:54]depend on it. Mexico, it's no secret, has had these major problems with drug cartels for years and years now, but there have always been these cities that feel safer
[20:05]that still attract many American tourists, and Porto Viarta is one of them. So having this big sense of insecurity now that's going to rattle uh
[20:16]their tourism economy for sure and also the question of whether they can have stability security going forward because even if this initial backlash this wave
[20:27]of retaliation from this criminal organization if it calms down it could still resurge. We could be seeing a period of great instability going forward. >> Right. In fact, we've seen professional
[20:38]soccer games canceled in Mexico over the last few days because officials couldn't guarantee safety there. This is a country co-hosting the World Cup just over 3 months from right now. Wild
[20:48]stuff. Shannon Kingston, thank you so much. >> Thank you, Brad. >> Okay, one more quick break. When we come back, in horse research circles, this was considered the main event. So, if you're thinking of trotting away, I say
[21:00]nay. One last thing is next. And one last thing, what would you call this noise?
[21:12]I would personally call it a nay. Horse experts though call it a winnie. >> We're talking about a winnie. >> This is Elie Briefer from the University of Copenhogen where she researches bioacoustics,
[21:24]sounds animals make. Do you have an impression of a horse Winnie at this point? >> Yeah, that would be her. >> Wait, the the zoom actually thought you were an animal and tried to filter you out right there. Could you try that one
[21:34]more time? >> She says horses create a lot of noises. There's the brusk snort, the gentle knicker, even sigh and groans and
[21:44]screams. But the winnie, she says, is special because the horse is making multiple sounds at once. >> So horses when they wenie, they do two sounds at the same time. Um, so we knew
[21:55]that. So at least suspected that strongly, but we didn't know how they were produced. >> That's right. For all the nays you've ever heard, scientists didn't actually know how horses did them. At least they
[22:05]didn't get half of it. So, let's listen. Here's the usual horse nay. Now, I'm going to ask our producer, Kelly, to isolate just the low frequency
[22:15]sound. So, these are the lower tones in that sound you just heard. That sound, Briefer said, is made by air passing over the horse's vocal cords.
[22:25]Same way we talk. But at the exact same moment, the horse is making another sound. This sound. You hear that? Most big land animals cannot make a noise that high. So, how
[22:37]does a horse do it? >> The low tone didn't shift up, but the high tone did shift up. So, that was the kind of very strong suggestion that the high tone is a whistle.
[22:47]>> For years, Briefers team studied horses voices. They put cameras down near their vocal cords. They studied horse cadaavvers. having veterinarians putting an endoscope inside the nose of a horse
[22:58]that goes to the throat so you can see what's going on. That's something that is commonly done to check if they have breathing issues. >> Well, yesterday her team put out a paper in the journal Current Biology. The
[23:09]horse Winnie she says is part shout, part whistle. >> We we didn't know that it was a whistle before we this study. So actually the the high pitch was labeled as you know extremely high compared to what vocal
[23:20]folds of of the size of a horse could produce. Um, and it's indeed what we show here that it's not by by vocal fold, but by whistle, which is produced in the throat, which has for now been shown only in rodents.
[23:32]>> Horses are incredible for lots of reasons. They're pack animals who are also individually unique. They're known for emotional intelligence and long-term memory. They've pulled our plows.
[23:42]They've led us into war. They've served as our travel companions and our therapists. But anyone who's worked with horses will also tell you they're exceptionally communicative. And now,
[23:52]for the first time in thousands of years of coexistence, humans have only just begun to learn how they talk. It's kind of like how like a bag pipe
[24:04]can make different sounds all at once. That's what we're talking about here. So, mad props to birds, uh, Tibetan throat singers can do this, and now horses. Hey, good job. ABC is going to
[24:14]be your one-stop shop tonight for all things State of the Union. Pregame 700 p.m. Eastern on ABC News Live. Speech begins right around 900 p. p.m. Eastern on all ABC platforms. And of course,
[24:25]full recap and analysis here in the morning. I'm Brad Milky. I'll see you tomorrow. I thought it was going to be more like a
[24:33]like a something like that. No.