[0:01]Moving day at the palace, or should we say moving night. The former Prince Andrew exiting Windsor Castle under [music] the cover of dark for his brother's private Sandringham estate in
[0:12]Norfolk. The latest document dump [music] about late financeier Jeffrey Epstein proving providing more lewd allegations around the former royal. [music] Also out, but not yet stripped of his
[0:23]title, uh, ultimate Labor Party insider, Lord [music] Peter Mandlesen, was under criminal investigation over the leaking of state secrets to an Epstein who had
[0:34]many friends and acquaintances. From the Kremlin to the Clintons, it seems from far-left thinker Noom Chsky to far-right agitator Steve Bannon. Will the current
[0:44]occupant of the White House himself face a reckoning or simply shrug off the latest allegations with a C? they all do it attitude to entitled elites that
[0:54]further fans the flames of populism. Can the age [music] of massive data dumps meet the promise of transparency or overwhelm and cloud the issue of accountability for all? Today in the
[1:06]France 24 debate we're taking a look into Epstein's world with us and Mut columnist for the Daily Telegraph. Thanks for joining us. Thank >> you. Uh from Washington, journalist and
[1:16]historian Andrew Yarrow, who served as speech writer in the Clinton administration. Welcome to the show. >> Thank you, France. >> And from Florence, Italy, Brooke
[1:26]Harrington, professor of sociology at Dartmouth College and the author of Offshore Stealth Wealth and the New Colonialism. Yeah, a lot of this is
[1:36]about money as well as power. Thank you for being with us. >> Thank you. your reactions on the # F24
[1:45]debate. Yeah, the move was already planned. Still, it's a change. Dine, the village of Wolverton in Eastern England,
[1:54]where the locals have a new neighbor, Andrew, the disgraced younger brother of King Charles, moving into his new digs
[2:04]at Sandringham. >> Obviously, the royal family have got property here. They've lived here for generations. Um, where else can he go? Basically, he's
[2:16]got to go somewhere. >> Can't he go somewhere else? Really? >> No, not my cup of tea. I think I think he needs to go somewhere else in my
[2:27]opinion. But yeah, that's about all I've got to say. Nicely. >> All right, she said it nicely. And
[2:34]Elizabeth Moute. Uh I is Andrew ancient history for the British or is this still nonetheless a shock that now he's stripped of his title and kicked out of
[2:46]Windsor Castle? >> I think this is damage control when they finally took his sty style and by they I mean Prince William egging his father on. Um Charles was finding it difficult
[2:58]to to uh uh to sort of to attack his brother so much and William has been pushing for month and month and month to strip him of title, house, everything.
[3:07]Uh because he realized probably earlier than than uh Charles how dangerous it was uh for the British monarchy. The the the entire image is wrong. uh the abuse
[3:18]of women, the uh uh the sort of the uh both uh both Yorks, I mean his ex-wife who was still living with him until today, Sarah Ferguson, uh all of this,
[3:29]they they they he she paid money to her on Andrew's request because however many she's got, she spends more. Uh and u so there's a whole trail of emails from
[3:41]Sarah Ferguson thanking Jeffrey Epstein privately while she was saying that she wouldn't speak to him anymore after the accusations. U and then of course she was shown to have spoken to him
[3:50]afterwards. Um it's it looks sleazy. It looked like the royal family was not caring about the women who were abused.
[3:59]And Andrew himself destroyed himself in 2019 with an interview he gave to the BBC to Emily Mateless which was a complete car crash. He appear exactly
[4:11]the way he is in real life which is entitled, pompous, arrogant and completely unable to emphasize with anyone. It was I mean it is a car crash for the royal family. It's which is why
[4:22]now he is being kicked out of everything and he no longer has a name or rather he's now known as Andrew Mountbatton Windsor which is the family name that practically nobody else uses in the family.
[4:33]>> Right. Uh let me ask you Andrew Yarrow uh for someone like Jeffrey Epstein who
[4:42]makes his made his money as a networker as a to a large degree. Uh having a um
[4:51]royal in your company you know do we have any idea of how much that served his purposes?
[5:02]Well, I think it's very mysterious um how Jeffrey Epstein made all of his money. I mean, it's, you know, certainly
[5:11]striking, overwhelming the number of uh wealthy, powerful men, some women who he was associated with. um you know the
[5:22]talk of uh perhaps him being a spy for the Russians as Donald Tusk has alleged
[5:30]you know certainly that um becomes more and more plausible when you see the array of powerful figures you know in
[5:39]Britain in the United States uh even in France in Israel with lehood Barack um so you know the idea that that Epstein
[5:50]could have been conveying uh compromising material to the Russians on uh the British royals on others. Um I
[6:01]think is is compelling. >> Oh yeah. And of course uh in Zabet Mut's publication, it's not Andrew Mountbatten who's been splashed across the front
[6:11]page all of this week so far. It's the former number two in the Labor government of Gordon Brown, former UK ambassador to the United States under
[6:21]current PM Kier Starmer. We're talking about Peter Mandelen. Uh there was a headline on Monday. There was a headline
[6:31]on Tuesday. Uh this is the Monday headline. There you see him in his underpants on the front page. Uh uh the the the more most recently there's
[6:42]brands man Gordon Brown's fury at Mandelen over allegations of leaking state secrets uh to Epstein at the time of the 2008 financial crisis and at the
[6:53]current government for failing to open an inquiry last fall when the former EU commissioner was sacked as ambassador. Now in the House of Commons this Wednesday, the prime minister answering questions about the vetting of
[7:05]Mandlesson when he chose him as ambassador. We went through a process. There were there was a there was a due diligence
[7:15]exercise uh and then there was security vetting by the security services. What was not known was the depth the
[7:27]sheer depth and extent of the relationship. He lied about that to everyone for years. A new information was published
[7:37]in September showing the relationship was materially different to what we've been led to believe. When the new information came to light,
[7:48]I sacked him. But we did go through a due diligence exercise. >> So M. There's no good answer if you're the current prime minister. either you stink
[7:59]at vetting people or uh you gave a free pass to again a guy a man who was kind of an ultimate insider it seems
[8:09]>> it's very complicated I mean I you know I hold no brief for kasta but he didn't want to appoint Peter Mandelson as ambassador but everybody said look uh
[8:20]Trump is somebody who really needs a strong personality to sort of hold his own against Trump uh Mandelson can can do it. He's got more connections than anybody else. The diplomats you had were
[8:31]a bit weak. You need him. So, there were lots of people in favor of Mandlesson who's a hold over from the Blair years and the Blairite wing of the party still exists. Bit battered now, but still
[8:41]exists. Uh, and I also think that they discounted what Matt Olsson could get wrong. This is somebody who famously has been fired three times from the British government for various reasons. And, um,
[8:52]people thought that, you know, the worst they could know about Mandlesson was behind them. They didn't realize that there was much much more to vet on this. Uh but it is terribly embarrassing.
[9:03]Mandelson is seen in the Epstein files and that's not the latest one. The latest batch of you know cading plane tickets or rather plane rides on the
[9:13]private plane of Jeffrey Epstein to spend gorgeous holidays at you know at no expense in Epstein's island. Uh the uh the plane the private plane was
[9:24]nicknamed the Lolita Express because it fed so many beautiful young girls to the island. Uh Mandlesson actually was going there with his partner or now husband.
[9:35]Uh so it was not the girls who attracted him. I think what attracted him was the proximity to influence with um Epstein
[9:43]who knew everyone uh and um the and and you know the luxurious holidays. He also asked for money for his partner and his partner was paid uh I forget whether
[9:53]it's 30 or $40,000 but just because Medelsson asked oh >> for an osteopathy class I think >> whatever it was it was money and so it looked bad from every every in any
[10:05]possible direction and now we find out much worse much what's much worse is during the financial crisis um Mandlesson told Epstein uh decisions that the British government had not
[10:16]announced yet. That's that's uh insider trading that facilitated insider trading and I was betraying the secrets of the financial secrets uh of decisions taken
[10:27]by the government, the bank of England, the prime minister and I mean it is uh it's illegal uh but it's also very dangerous in in terms of international relations. So that that's a big big thing
[10:38]>> and and Brooke Harrington uh the sort of these back channel discussions between Peter Mandelson and uh the CEO of a
[10:47]major US bank JP Morgan this the Lolita Express aside as an Zabet put it um this sort of uh idea of
[10:58]getting freebies of getting stuff paid for you what are your thoughts on that when you look at the the Peter Mandlesson story. >> The whole story reminds me so much of
[11:10]the Panama Papers and the Paradise Papers and the Pandora Papers and what we learned from them, which is that above a certain level of wealth.
[11:20]Everybody seems to be doing this. Um, just as we learned that even the British royal family has offshore accounts. Um, even uh the prime minister, David
[11:31]Cameron, had offshore accounts when the Panama Papers broke. Um, everyone's in on it. Everyone's expecting to sort of get these little freebies and be above
[11:42]the law like like sharing advanced knowledge of of British policy with Epstein. I mean, like, who was he?
[11:51]He was just some American who didn't even go to college. Like aside from his wealth, like what right did he have to know any of this stuff, you could pick
[12:03]someone off the street in New York City and find someone more with more of a right to to know what are you suggesting that he didn't do it as a favor for
[12:14]money, but rather because they were in this rarified uh atmosphere where behind closed doors you tell each other stuff?
[12:24]>> Yeah. This is this is what I've learned from almost 20 years of studying the ultra rich and their behavior offshore. Um the money is actually a means to an
[12:34]end and and the end is this sort of chummy bro network where powerful men do favors for one another and they compete
[12:44]with status from one another. And one of the ways they compete for status with one another, unfortunately, is by um having sex with attractive
[12:55]women and in Epstein's case, girls, children. Um and it's it's part of their sort of general
[13:06]disdain for the law and and for social norms. part of their expression of status and the way they use their money is to get away with violating the law
[13:17]and social norms. And that's that is the purpose for them to be to be rich. It's not just to kind of sit on a pile of money and enjoy it. They have to engage
[13:29]in these acts of impunity in order to be part of this network. That's that's the price of entry. And in the 1990s you hung your hat in New York City, the
[13:41]financial capital of the world. Was it that at the time uh it was preeme2 and you didn't have this kind of
[13:50]transparency that you do now or is it what was just described there by Brooke that there is it's about not the public
[13:59]at large but the elites. I mean I lived in New York in the 80s and 90s and this is the time when the movie Wall Street is made and you when
[14:09]Michael Douglas has this great speech go he's Gordon Gecko the trader and and he says greed is good. So you already you had this sort of very sort of heated up
[14:19]atmosphere about making money and most of the people who succeeded very well and honestly on Wall Street didn't go to college anymore than uh um Epstein did.
[14:29]So I it's a very French attitude to say, "Oh, but he didn't go to university. He didn't go to Kul." But uh if you if you really look at it, that wasn't the problem. He certainly was very clever.
[14:39]He certainly had a a good game. And also probably when he promised and he said, "I will give you advice is it's going to be good advice." I would assume that the the people whom he advised who were not,
[14:49]you know, either stupid or or or naive got something out of him. They didn't realize the price ultimately. But it was not just the girls. the girls were to to some extent and it's going to sound
[15:00]horrible but it was first I think the connections the influence and the money and the girls were part of the commodities uh that went with it and it started as as this horrible sex with
[15:10]miners uh uh affair but I think in the head of Epste what was really important was uh the I mean he gets given a house that was probably $10 million when he
[15:21]received it 15 years ago it's it's the largest townhouse in New York in Manhattan and it's in the best neighborhood in Manhattan or at least the most expensive and it's now a house
[15:31]that costs probably a hund00 million because inflation. Uh so we're talking about really pots of money and this man who says I can connect you with Putin. I can connect you with other people. I can
[15:42]find out things for you. Uh and I can give you investment advice. And the investment advice cannot have been so bad because again he was talking to the heads of banks, he was talking to
[15:52]financeers. Um, we we can't detract from this the fact that presumably he had a talent and there was a horrible flip side to the talent, not just girls, but also the the spying for Moscow.
[16:04]>> Brook Harrington, was that investment advice or tax avoidance advice? >> Those things are often uh entwined with
[16:14]one another. Um, I have a a colleague in sociology who does research on uh wealthy people as I do and she was actually able to get deep
[16:25]enough into the the stories of people who are like Epstein adjacent in in the world of real estate investing and she found they actually engage in uh in
[16:35]orgies together and if you if you want to be part of the real estate deal you have to engage in the orgies because they don't trust you if you won't essentially create comprom mat on
[16:46]yourself. They they won't trust you unless you are willing to put yourself in a compromised position so that everybody has some dirt on each other. And that's that's how they maintain what
[16:56]you might call honor among thieves. Um and how they get away with making multi-million dollar handshake deals over properties and and other valuables
[17:07]that they trade with each other. So I I would say that um the girls were currency to them and it it was part of their their networking system that you
[17:18]could not be trusted unless you participated in what normal people might call depravity. And you heard AniseB Mut
[17:27]talking about those uh uh state secrets leaked by allegedly leaked uh by Peter Mandelen to Epstein at the height of the
[17:37]financial crisis in 2008. You heard her also mention uh Russia Poland's prime minister demanding a full inquiry not into Epstein's ties with
[17:46]Mandles but again with the Kremlin. James Visina has that story. Suspicions are growing and action is now
[17:56]being taken. For Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, the latest information included in the release of over three million files add to concerns that the Epstein pedophilia scandal was
[18:07]co-organized by Russian intelligence. This has pushed the prime minister to ask for a probe to be conducted into Epstein's possible links with Russia's
[18:16]secret services as well as to Tusk's own country. A growing number of commentators and experts assume that it is highly
[18:27]probable that this was a premeditated operation by the Russian KGB. This so-called honey trap set for the elites of the Western world, primarily
[18:38]the United States. This can only mean that they also possess compromising material against many leaders still active today. suspicions that are fueled by the
[18:49]release of emails showing the lengths Epstein and his associates went to recruit young Russian women with documents including requests to book flights from Moscow to Paris and to New
[19:00]York, a honey trap designed to blackmail the global elite. Vladimir Putin is named over a thousand times in the latest documents. Exchanges
[19:11]discussed appointments to come between Epstein and the Russian president, including after Epstein was convicted of procuring a child for prostitution. Previous emails also appeared to show
[19:22]Epstein offering advice to politicians on how to deal with Donald Trump. The question as to whether he was working for Secret Services isn't a new one. For years, some have suggested
[19:34]Epstein was in fact working for Israel's MOSAD. Donald Tusk said that he would encourage others to pursue an international investigation.
[19:43]>> Andrew Yarrow, uh, your thoughts? Uh, how strong is the ties is the is the link to the Kremlin?
[19:54]>> Well, it makes one think of the allegations in the 2016 American campaign that uh the Russians that Putin
[20:03]had something on Donald Trump. And you know, I'm not one prone to conspiracy theories in general, but you know, there seems to be increasing evidence. You
[20:14]have uh an MI6 figure uh Christopher Steel who's made the same kinds of allegations uh in Britain. Um so, >> but those have never panned out. And
[20:26]again, there's this question of uh again, how much of this is water cooler chatter and how much of this is concrete evidence?
[20:36]Well, you're right. And the question is, how do we get that concrete evidence at this point? You know, we have the Clintons testifying
[20:45]uh in a week or two here in Washington. I mean, there's still millions of pages of the Epstein files that haven't been
[20:54]released. They're all the redacted files uh in what was released of the pages that were released. Um, how will we find
[21:04]out? Um, you know, will Gileain Maxwell testify or will she be pardoned and um not testify? We we just don't know how
[21:15]we could ever get this information out. >> Anise Boute, you you heard earlier Brooke Harrington talk about this idea of uh compromat being necessary for uh
[21:26]for there to be, as she put it, honor among thieves. your thought on on this the these ties to the again this is speculation right >> it's speculation although it you know if
[21:36]the kind of story goes it it probably means something and I was always amazed by the world of American real estate and uh I live in France I'm French and and the French real estate world is not
[21:48]absolutely sort of u uh held up as the the the most sort of incredibly honest in the world but there's nothing like American real estate which is for in many reason for many reasons including
[21:59]the fact that very often depending on where the buildings are, depending what they house, uh the mafia is involved. Uh you know, everybody says this is this is this is bad for Trump. We have to remember that and therefore for the the
[22:11]next election, but everybody that you see on the screen right now was a was a Democrat at the time, first of all, because if you're in real estate in New York or in New Jersey, which Trump was for instance, uh everybody's a Democrat.
[22:22]you need to have building authorization. You need permits for casinos, which was the case of of Trump. Uh you first of all, it is a Democrat administration. And second, if it's casinos, you also
[22:33]deal with a mafia. Uh so that you know, the idea that I hold you with blackmail, I pro I believe it. It's it's the kind of atmosphere that you'd find.
[22:42]>> All right. So with this latest documents also uh we're getting uh new light on the breakup of a marriage and include
[22:52]our allegations that the man who was once the richest in the world still among the top five. Bill Gates caught a sexually transmitted disease through Russian girls met through Epstein.
[23:03]Gates's spokesperson has been categorical calling the claim quote absolutely absurd. Now, speaking to National Public Radio, the billionaire's now ex-wife, Melinda Gates answered this
[23:14]to allegations that he tried to secretly give her medication to stave off disease. >> For me, it's just sadness. Sadness for,
[23:24]you know, I I've left I had to I left my marriage. I had to leave my marriage. I wanted to leave my marriage. I had to leave the I felt I needed to eventually leave the foundation. So, it's just sad.
[23:34]That's the truth, right? and [sighs and gasps] and it's kind of like uh at least for me I've been able to move on in life and I hope there's some justice for those now women right we see
[23:44]them standing up in front of microphones in DC um what they went through is just unimaginable I think >> yeah Brook Harrington
[23:55]what does this story tell you because uh we've been you know we've had this picture of Bill Gates as uh the man who's helping to uh stave off disease
[24:07]around the world and filling in where the uh the United States uh isn't giving as much to the World Health Organization for instance. It's uh
[24:21]it it makes me think that you know the sexual exploitation of women is like a a hobby among the most powerful men of the
[24:30]world across all walks of life, business, science, education, politics. Again, I keep going back to the what the
[24:41]Panama papers told us, which is like above a certain level of wealth and power, everybody's doing it. Everybody's in on it, crowned heads of Europe to to
[24:52]business leaders. Um, and it's the the Gates Revelations in particular made me feel kind of resentful about the
[25:02]fact that uh as part of my work, I have to engage with this man's product. I I have no choice but to use Microsoft
[25:13]products for for my work. It's required by my employer. And um there's a a kind of inescapability about this. And I've yet to see anyone in the press really
[25:24]contend with what this means for for women. We're the minority the majority of the world's population. And where can
[25:33]we go where we don't have to deal with rapists and predators? It's uh it's like there's no escape country where
[25:44]>> you allude to the Panama papers papers more than a decade old. Ha. Haven't times changed in that decade? >> Well, in in what sense? Um, there's
[25:57]still a lot of, >> you know, they say sunshine is the best is the best disinfectant. Uh, the fact that you have, you know, the much, you know, you have all this this
[26:07]transparency now with with these these massive leaks that we're seeing. And in this case, it's a document dump, which has its flaws, what with a lot of it
[26:17]being redacted and it coming in fits and starts. But the fact that there's more information out there than
[26:26]before, does that help to uh again push back? And is the me too movement uh in in has it changed anything?
[26:37]You know, I think a lot of people, including me, thought that the the big leaks from offshore, like the Panama Papers in 2016 and the Paradise Papers in 2017 and then the Pandora Papers in
[26:48]2021, would sort of put a stop to the use of offshore, really dramatically decline its use. But that hasn't happened at all. All it's done is it's
[27:00]it's shown a spotlight on a few countries and a few companies, but then the offshore business has continued to grow in other places that offer better
[27:10]secrecy protections. And we've all seen what happened to the Me Too movement. You know, there were a few high-profile cases. Harvey Weinstein is in prison,
[27:19]but it sort of fizzled out. Um, and same with the the offshore leaks. There were there was a lot of fanfare, but not a lot of prosecutions and even fewer
[27:30]convictions. And I think many people con concluded it was a big nothing burger because well, if if you're going to be transparent and reveal all these misuses
[27:40]of the legal system but not do anything about it, why should we care? And I'm I'm hoping this time with the Epstein files will be different.
[27:50]>> Andrew Yarrow, will it be different? Well, I think it's it's very tragic that, you know, we're seeing figures that um
[28:01]many people, myself included, once admired. Um, you know, Bill Gates, his philanthropy was so impressive. Um, I
[28:10]mean, you see, uh, Sergey Brin, even Mandelen, you know, who, um, you know, redirected the Labor Party in positive
[28:20]directions in the mid to late 90s. And you know it a and Bill Clinton for that matter. You know are these men feeling
[28:31]that they can kind of paper over their misdeeds with philanthropy with good public works? And you know, will this, you know, will these revelations stop or
[28:43]in some ways hinder a powerful man from um taking these really kind of reprehensible actions in the future? I
[28:53]don't know. I don't know. It um you know, it seems uh you know, is this a dark side of human nature that uh
[29:03]we're just just going to have to keep living with? And you know, positive movements like me too, you know, make a little bit of difference for a while,
[29:13]but then, you know, it all seems to fade away as, as Brooke mentioned. >> All right, let's talk about that dark side of human nature. Uh, a New York
[29:22]mainstay since the 1980s, who as editor-inchief of Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, The Daily Beast, is a journalist called Tina Brown. And here's what she had to say in a recent interview with
[29:34]the New York Times. I was invited to um a dinner after he had been convicted. The publicist called me in the office at the Daily Beast and she said, "Tino, I want you to come to
[29:45]this great dinner we I'm hosting." And she said, "It's at Jeffrey Epstein's house." And the other guests are Charlie Rose, Woody Allen, and Prince Andrew. It's very funny because Lloyd Grove, who's a journalist at the Beuit,
[29:56]reminded me whenever I see him, he was sitting right there when I yelled into the phone, "What the hell is this? The predator's ball?" you know, because I was outraged that she had seemed to have read our pieces, you know, about this
[30:08]guy. No, thank you very much. I decline. You know, I don't want to have dinner at Jeffrey Epstein's house. >> Tina Brown refusing to go to the predators ball, anonym.
[30:19]>> Well, Tina Brown gave as editor of the Tatler in London and Vanity Fair and then the New Yorker and then she created the Daily Beast. I mean, her whole job was going to parties, right?
[30:31]>> All the best parties. She gave the best parties. >> I mean, those parties were infred compared to what she gave and the people she had at her parties because she was the queen of both sort of glittery
[30:40]journalism and and and parties. Uh and and she's a great writer. She's a great journalist. Um she can look down at this, but most people in New York would have been wowed by the by the the people
[30:51]who were there. Uh it also depends when and very obviously if she says it's the Predator's Bull and and Woody Allen is there, uh that's after Woody Allen was accused by me of her. This was after his conviction.
[31:03]>> She and and and you know, fine. I'm not sure she would have reacted in the same way to Woody Ellen being president if it had been before the accusations against Woody Ellen, for instance, because that's glittery enough. But she knew
[31:14]everyone. She didn't need to go to those parties. That's the big difference. Um and and >> were there people in the >> She would have been a catch for Jeffrey Epste. I I bet she knew it. Were there
[31:26]people among the high and mighty who would have refused to go to a Jeffrey Epstein party back then? >> Probably probably certainly any anybody who's not named for instance, you know, they are they are certainly innocent
[31:37]until proven guilty. So that still is a lot of people uh and and it depends how people perceived Epstein and and information must have circulated. I
[31:47]would have said that ever since the maid off case uh there must have been sort of you know chariness weariness about going to see yet another finance here that
[31:58]nobody knows exactly how he made so much money that would be something if you had an instinct for danger uh in New York he would have asked one or two questions and people might have said look he's a bit weird in which case that was the end
[32:10]of it but most people would not have reacted like that >> so humans do they have a moral compass uh Brooke Harrington. [laughter] >> Okay. Full disclosure, I'm a
[32:22]sociologist, not a psychologist. Um I some some obviously do and one of the the things that really gives me hope in the last year, which has been so full of
[32:34]depressing events is France has really stood up. Like thank God France is going after Elon Musk because my own country's government won't touch him. they just
[32:44]keep shoveling taxpayer dollars at him. Um, so thank you France and and also thank you France for for prosecuting the
[32:53]Jizelle Pelico case to to the full extent of the law. Um, right now France is really a beacon for what it means to have a moral compass as a society and
[33:05]just as an individual I'm incredibly grateful for that. There is in the United States uh uh meanwhile a a lot of performative politics and there's going
[33:15]to be more at the end of the month. The former US President Bill Clinton, his wife Hillary staving off a contempt of Congress threat by agreeing to answer to a subpoena to testify at the end of
[33:27]February about the Epstein files. One condition that the proceedings be publicly televised. Now, Donald Trump was asked on Tuesday about the
[33:36]Clintons's testifying. Note the tones very different from that those campaign rallies in 2016 when he'd lead chance of lock her up talking about Hillary
[33:47]Clinton. >> Today we heard that the Clinton set deposition dates to testify before the House Oversight Committee. Any reaction to that related question?
[33:56]>> I think it's a shame to be honest. I always liked him. Her yeah one she's a very capable woman. She was better in debating than some of the other people.
[34:07]I will tell you that she was smarter, smart woman. I hate to say it in many ways. I hate to see it, but you know, then I look at me. They went after me like uh you know, they wanted me to go
[34:18]to jail for the rest of my life. Then it turned out I was innocent. Very innocent. >> Yeah. And Andrew Yarrow, uh you listened to to Donald Trump. First of all, your
[34:30]reaction to hearing hearing that comment now. Uh and again, it's a question about the Epstein files in which he's saying, "Well, I kind of like the Clintons."
[34:40]>> Yeah, it's very striking and and really very bizarre when you think about it. Uh as you said, I mean, he repeated over and over had people at his rallies in
[34:51]2016, you know, scream out, "Lock her up." Um, you know, you look at this whole scandal with Epstein and the
[35:01]Epstein files and what it's done for Trump or how it's hurt Trump. I mean, you see polling that half of Republicans
[35:10]are not happy with uh disapprove of Trump's handling of the Epstein files. First calling for releasing them, then holding back, then being forced to
[35:21]release them. uh independent support has cratered for Trump. Uh I think I saw one
[35:29]poll that about 22% of Americans uh supported Trump's handling of the Epstein files. One wonders, you know,
[35:39]will this be the you know the many people wonder is this the the nail in Donald Trump's coffin? Um and you know
[35:50]has but on the other hand has he kind of dodged a bullet by having his justice department Pam Bondi you know decide
[35:58]what files are released what's redacted. So you know his comments in that context about the Clintons start to make some
[36:07]psychological sense. All right. So to to you have different media echo chambers these days and Moute you have uh the news feeds of Trump v uh voters
[36:19]which uh have a different spin on the latest revelations. Earlier in the day we we looked at Fox News's uh website. Uh there were no stories about Epstein
[36:29]above the fold as it were. Uh it was about ICE about uh uh transgender uh athletes. the attention was uh
[36:40]elsewhere. At the same time, and this speaks to Andrew's point, uh the name that appears the most prominently uh
[36:49]even in this heavily redacted batch of 3 million documents is that of Donald J. Trump. Uh everything from water cooler
[36:58]chatter to an unproven rape allegation. At the end, does he just ride this out? >> I don't know is the answer. Usually he's written out things that nobody would
[37:10]have expected him to get away with. So I'm I'm sort of it's almost as if everything has been discounted before. But it is such a big case and I think it's going to hang hang on on the
[37:21]Russian allegations. I think the Russian allegations when you when you look back that is the most dangerous because there's always been talk of Trump being a Russian agent. uh and uh if that feeds
[37:31]back into it then it's it's a major thing because that means that uh the worst accusation of Trump being basically the manurian candidate turns out to be true. I think that's that's
[37:42]more important. Will the headlines be about that and not about the abuse of women? I do not know. Uh but I would say worldwide is the thing that's going to most sort of weigh with it. And I might
[37:53]add that this this is why the the prime minister of Poland, Donald Tusk, is saying uh uh you know, is paying much attention to that. That is something that all of Eastern Europe is is looking at right now because that means a great
[38:04]deal on the negotiations with on Ukraine with the Russians on on the place given to Putin in in Trump's uh uh diplomacy.
[38:15]Uh to me, that's really a major thing. It's it that that is the the proof of it is going to be you know how it comes out. >> Brook Harrington. So we have Peter
[38:24]Mandlesen again who's uh want who's uh under scrutiny uh over allegedly leaking state secrets uh at the height of the
[38:34]financial crisis to Epstein. You have as an M uh mentions just now this uh uh Russia angle. We don't know how far it
[38:44]will go. We don't know how much the Justice Department will release, how much will be leaked perhaps elsewhere. Uh at the end of the day, uh you know,
[38:54]we saw, for instance, uh the uh former Trump loyalist, uh turned opponent of his, the former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green, who stood with the victims
[39:05]of Jeffrey Epstein. At the end of the day, is it going to be about still about the victims or is it going to be more about affairs of state?
[39:16]That is is the $60,000 question as we say in the US. Um it's it's almost like a horse race now. You know what what
[39:25]will win the attention sweep stakes? Will it be the sexual abuse of girls or will it be the financial corruption? So far, it's been remarkable how little
[39:37]Americans have cared about the financial corruption or about the possibility of Donald Trump being, as an Elizabeth says, a Manurion candidate. Um, it's
[39:47]almost like they've been inoculated against either believing that or considering the implications of that. Uh, I I was struck in in that clip you showed of Donald Trump praising Hillary
[39:59]Clinton um and and how that relates to your initial question about networks among elites. He was saying, you know, she's part of
[40:10]my club. And in fact, she attended Donald Trump's wedding to Melania Trump. And you know, Donald Trump is is easily understood
[40:20]through things like professional wrestling where contenders come out on the public stage and pretend to be at at odds with each other, but then they go backstage and slap each other on the
[40:31]back and they're the best of friends. So my fear is that the power of that elite network which Trump was signaling there
[40:40]will sweep the the morally embarrassing parts of this under the rug. the the mass sexual exploitation of girls part
[40:51]and then Americans will just be either unable to comprehend or in a in a state of permanent
[41:01]disbelief about the possibility of a manurian candidate in the White House. And of course, the thing you didn't mention is Donald Trump's getting very old and he doesn't appear to be in very
[41:10]good health. So, he may beat all of this by simply shuffling off this mortal coil before anything is made to stick. >> And and just one quick final question on
[41:20]this, Brooke. Uh how do voters react putting Donald Trump aside? How do they react at the next election cycle? Do they as we say in France just say
[41:31]they're all rotten? Uh or uh do they reform? Well, initial bi-elections like the the one that was
[41:41]just held in a very red district of Texas that went for Trump by like plus 17 and then just swung amazingly to the
[41:51]other side to go for a Democrat, I think plus 14. Those are harbingers of voters being ready to come out to the polls and
[42:02]if not vote for Democrats, vote resoundingly against Donald Trump. But as I'm sure you know, Trump is already trying to preempt this by um
[42:12]unconstitutionally nationalizing elections. That is taking it out of the hands of the individual 50. Does something like the Epstein does something like the Epstein files at the
[42:23]end of the day fuel more populism or bring people uh uh or or or bring more accountability into the system?
[42:34]I think the populism might lead to demands for more accountability because an amazing number of people who identify as Trump supporters are apparently very
[42:44]committed to the Epstein files being released and they're now really angry at Trump in a populist way and they may demand accountability and come out to the polls on that basis.
[42:55]>> We'll have to leave it there. Brooke Harrington, so many thanks for joining us from Florence, Italy. I want to thank Andrew Yarrow in Washington and then Moute. Thank you for being with us here
[43:04]in the France 24 debate. [music]