It was twenty nineteen when journalist Emily Matless sat down for that card crash interview with then Prince Andrew.
She described dancing with you and you profusely sweating, and that she went on to have Bob possibly there's.
A slight problem with the sweating because I have a peculiar medical condition, which is that I don't sweat.
It was the beginning of the end for the Prince.
A huge moment for the royal family. Prince Andrew is stepping back from royal duties as the fallout from his BBC News Night interview continues.
Now, Andrew mount Batten Windsor has again hit the headlines, this time for allegedly sharing secret trade documents with Jeffrey Epstein, and there's the fallout from the Epstein files threatens to take down everyone from ambassadors to prime ministers. Emily Maetless again has a front row seat as the saga unfold.
I mean, this is i would say, probably one of the biggest political corruption scandals we've ever seen in our lifetime. She has it. I'm described in the cat.
I'm Nicole Johnston and you're listening to seven AM today. Emily matelers from the Newsagent's podcast on Andrew, the Epstein files and how Trump is reshaping Europe. It's Wednesday, February eighteen. So, Emily, a lot has happened since your infamous interview with then Prince Andrew over the Epstein scandal. There's now pressure on police to investigate Andrew Mountbatten windsor why hasn't that happened?
Yeah, it's a really good question. I mean, ah, there's a phrase that's used in sort of political theory, which is slowly and then suddenly, and that feels like where we are now. Things could have started six years ago, but they didn't. And I think human nature is not to do anything until you have to. And now everyone is kind of looking at whether it's the politics, whether it's the DOJ in the US, whether it's the palace here, everyone is now looking and saying, what's going on? Why
aren't you moving quickly? And that's why things are happening. So I guess the pressure has come from the victims themselves for so long, And I guess now we've got all the Epstein files, it's on us. It's on us as journalists and reporters, and it's on the prosecutors and the lawyers and the institutions like Congress and the Metropolitan Police and the Palace to say yeah, we hear you. We're doing this now.
So emily, with that crescendo really building, how does the British public feel about Andrew now that all of this has come to light, and how does it affect how they also see the royals more broadly.
I think the tide turned on Andrew pretty quickly after that relationship with Epstein was exposed. And I would say that we didn't really understand Epstein. You know, for years there was this sort of shadowy name. We'd had our own scandal, we had the Jimmy Savile scandal. He was the worst pedophile any of us could ever imagine, and Epstein was kind of like somebody else's problem. You know, it was over there. We didn't really get it. But I think now we really understand the depth and the
breadth of the depravity and of that power. Circle.
Pictures appearing to show Andrew man Batten Windsor crouched over an unidentified woman are featured in the latest disclosure of files linked to the late American sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The images are among.
More, and I think that there is a fury. Actually, there is a few around Andrew and what was tolerated for so long. And obviously I have to say he denies all wrongdoing. That is something that every journalist still puts as an addendum in all their reporting, and we will stick to that because legally that is the case. But if you ask me about public perception, yeah, it's
not great. It's not great. And my sense is that King Charles knows that this is a really delicate moment actually for the monarchy.
King Charles' first public appearance since the latest Epstein Farles relays this was inevitable, Your.
Majesty, will your family help with the Epstein investigation.
I think there is still a proper solid majority in favor of the monarchy and the royal family, but there are more questions about transparency, more questions about the money being spent. But I do think that the King feels that this is a fairly critical moment actually, and I think that's why we've seen such dramatic steps in the last six months, even before the release of the Epstein files.
The removal of the titles, removal of the housing and Royal Lodge, and all the rest of it, I think was the King sort of saying, yeah, I'm not going to be party to this. I'm not going to let you bring down the whole.
House and look. Aside from the royal family, the Epstein files have obviously been causing huge political problems for the Prime Minister Kirs Stammer. He's been blamed for appointing Lord Peter Mendelsson as US ambassador.
I am sorry, sorry for what was done to you, Sorry that so many people with power failed you. Sorry for having believed Mandelsson's lies and appointed him.
So could you take us through what we know about MENDELSSHN and the Stein files.
So the appointment of Lord Mandelssoh in January of last year was not, and I should say it was not greeted by howls of condemnation at the time. If you look at the press, you know there were different people saying, oh, well, you know, is he the right man for the job, he's too close to Europe? Is he the right man for the job, he's too close to China. But people weren't at that point talking about his relationship with Epstein,
and I do think that's important to remember. But it became apparent last September that he had a much closer relationship with Epstein than anyone had realized. And I think the clanger was when we realized that he had been serving as Business Secretary, He'd been brought in by Gordon Brown's government just after the financial crash, and he still somehow deemed it wise to call up Jeffrey Epstein to stay at his house in New York whilst Jeffrey Epstein
was serving a prison sentence. Now, the idea that there was a person right at the heart of government who was a sort of de facto deputy Prime Minister who still thought it was okay to be hanging out and hanging in the house of Jeffrey Epstein whilst Epstein was in prison was something that I think the Prime Minister then found it impossible to ignore, and he was fired by kirst Armer and the story might have ended there. But the release of the files has shown us how
much worse it was. That it wasn't just that Manilson was staying in Epstein's house. It wasn't just that he'd lied about the length and the intensity of that relationship, but it was the fact, as we are now led to believe from these emails that Manson appeared to be pushing government business speeches, decisions, policies directly towards Epstein before the British public even knew about them. Epstein knew about the euro bailout that was meant to save the banking
system in the financial crash before we did. Epstein knew about Gordon Brown's resignation before we did, and that has
just put it in a whole different category. It is something that I don't think anyone could have imagined that you would have a de facto deputy Prime Minister working against the interests of the British government in the years following the greatest financial crash we've ever seen, when our country was absolutely on its knees, and would be taking what he knew to a billionaire before his own.
Country coming up, Why twenty twenty eight could be a turning point for the world Emily if we could move on to the unique security conference that we just had on the weekend now. Last year we had that sort of shocking speech from JD Vans to the European leaders.
The threat that I worry the most about Visa e Europe is not Russia, it's not China, it's not any other external actor. And what I worry about is the threat from within the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America and Britain and across Europe. Free speech, I fear is in retreat.
Everyone was waiting to see what would be said this time round, but the US, it seems it did tone down its message, sending Secretary of State Marco Rubio. How are European leaders, including the UK, responding to that message from the UN out of Munich, especially after what happened in Venezuela and Greenland? Are they buying any of it?
I mean, look, Marco is the sort of family friendly cabinet member. He's the one that they sort of allowed loose at Munich this year after how badly JD Vance went down last year. But I'm not sure that in substance there was anything very different.
We want allies who are proud of their culture and of their heritage, who understand that we are heirs to the same great and noble civilization, and who together with us, are willing and able to defend it.
I spent last week with an EU ambassador and a NATO foreign minister, and I was asking about the whole relationship with America now, and I'm starting to sense there is a kind of creeping distaste amongst some leaders with the way Mark Rutter is sort of handling things NATO Secretary General, because the whole sort of you know, pacification of Trump, which has been going on now for a year, and we saw it in the Hague last June, you know, the NATO gathering where Mark Ruster was sort of calling
Trump daddy and all the rest of it.
He's quite fawning.
Well, it was fawny, and it was quite Yeah, it's quite hard to listen to.
I'm let him fight for about two or three minutes, then it's easy to step up.
And then has sometimes strong language, strong.
And I think that might have worked for the week. You know, Trump went off happy in June. But it didn't stop anything, you know, didn't didn't stop Trump still turning on NATO, didn't stop Trump from still threatening to invade Greenland. It didn't stop Trump from saying, oh, I don't believe that NATO would come to America's rescue. Didn't stop Trump from virtually anything that he'd kind of considered doing.
I don't know that sort of pandering to whatever Trump decides this week is necessarily going to be a secure footing for the EU, or for NATO or for our future sort of autonomy on defense or spending. And so my sense is that people came away from Munich more relieved this year than they did last year. But I think the bigger questions, the existential questions, remain, which is is America still an active ally for NATO? Is it still a place that you would trust? Do believe that
he's going to leave Greenland alone? Do you believe he's going to leave Canada alone? And so I think that NATO would be foolish to think that everything had calmed down just because they sent Marco Rubio, and I think that they probably wouldn't do themselves any favors by thinking that things are all going to go back to normal if they do what Trump says.
And Emily, I mean, it's pretty clear that that's what the Unique Security Conference thinks. They put out that report talking about this new era with a lust for destruction, that the international order is under threat. Is Europe divided though about what to do about it? And what do you think all of this actually means for the world order as we've known it, and as Europe's known it since nine peint forty five.
Yeah, Europe's asking itself some really big questions now. I mean, the divide is between those countries that border Russia and those countries that are much further south. And if you talk to EU leaders from Spain and from Portugal and from Greece, they'll say the biggest problem for Europe is immigration. You know, the northern countries don't understand what it's like to have this implect of migrants, particularly from the Middle East,
particularly from Africa. We're right at the forefront of that. We're having to deal with that day in and day out. If you talk to the Poles and the Estonians, you know, the Finns, the people who actually border Russia, they say, we've got a war on our border. You know, our defense spending is already about five percent our defense spending.
We've already got conscription, We've already got literally, you know, young men and women in our villages who are armed, who know that they may have to respond at any moment to an incursion by Russia. And so you can see how Europe is sort of facing two different directions at the moment. Is it the end of the old order?
I was talking to somebody who was very close to the Clinton advisor actually last week, who said, twenty twenty eight is going to be the most important presidential election of any of our lifetimes, because that is the point at which we will work out whether it was Trump and it was Trump only Maga lived and died with Trump,
or whether that is the future direction. And I think that's why the Democrats know that this is this is a really risky time, you know, twenty tw If they're not in power, then then they've basically waved goodbye to the old world order.
Emily, thank you so much for speaking with us.
Absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Emily Mateless will appear in Melbourne presented by the Wheeler Center on March five, and at the All About Women Festival in Sydney on March eight. Also in the news, police are investigating after a stabbing spree that left one
person dead and two critically injured in Western Sydney. Witnesses have described sprinting to escape a man they say stabbed multiple people at random on a busy street in Maryland, a man has been arrested and the PM says he has no sympathy for a group of thirty four Australian
women and children trying to return home from Syria. The women, known as the Isis Brides, have been stuck in a Syrian detention camp for seven years, trying and failing this week to come back to Australia, but Albinizi says the government won't be repatriating the group, who have links to Islamic state fighters. I'm Nicole Johnson. This is seven AM. Thanks for listening.