Laura Kuenssberg (1:58)

So you're correct that there was the exchange of gifts which included three different kinds of flute because the Prime Minister, Karma did play the flute, but the flute was given to him by the Chinese Premier, Lee Quan. Okay, so my question again is what did President Xi give Keir Starmer?

Paddy O'Connell (2:18)

Who does she think she is? No, did. Did she give. Did President Xi give him the Shakespeare in Chinese?

Laura Kuenssberg (2:27)

No.

Paddy O'Connell (2:28)

I don't know.

Laura Kuenssberg (2:28)

Then one more guess.

Paddy O'Connell (2:31)

A small, small box for curios on the mantelpiece.

Laura Kuenssberg (2:38)

Well, it is something that could go on a mantelpiece, possibly, although I'm not sure how big it was. He gave him a copper horse.

Paddy O'Connell (2:44)

Oh, I Did that and I just forgot.

Laura Kuenssberg (2:46)

And why did he give him a copper horse?

Paddy O'Connell (2:48)

Because you could never have enough copper horses?

Laura Kuenssberg (2:51)

No, because it's the year of the horse. Blimey. Well, maybe lady of Victoria will like that because she's a big fan of the old Gigi's. So who knows? Will it go into the flat in Downing street and perhaps go on the mantelpiece above number 11, in fact, or maybe it will go into some sort of archive, who knows? But that is the conclusion of our Prime Ministerial and Presidential gift quiz. January 2026.

Paddy O'Connell (3:16)

Newscast.

Laura Kuenssberg (3:17)

Newscast from the BBC.

Gary O'Donoghue (3:18)

Fat boy, slimmer me in the classroom.

Chris Mason (3:20)

Doing our violin lessons.

Gary O'Donoghue (3:21)

I was the tattletail in the class.

Paddy O'Connell (3:23)

Can I have an apology please? I trust almost nobody that daddy has.

Gary O'Donoghue (3:26)

To sometimes do strong language.

Laura Kuenssberg (3:28)

Next time in mosque I feel delulu with no salulu.

Gary O'Donoghue (3:32)

Take me down to Downing Street.

Chris Mason (3:33)

Let's go have a tour.

Gary O'Donoghue (3:35)

Blimey.

Laura Kuenssberg (3:37)

It's Laura in the studio.

Paddy O'Connell (3:38)

Hello, it's Paddy in the studio and.

Laura Kuenssberg (3:40)

In a second we'll be speaking to Gary o' Donoghue about the. His huge dump of files that emerged late yesterday from Jeffrey Epstein. Three million pages of documents and 180000 images. And we should say, as we record just before 2 o' clock on Saturday, that there are still journalists on both sides of the Atlantic, probably right around the world, beavering away looking through of these documents. So we do not yet have a complete picture of what the most important nuggets are. But we do, do we not Paddy, Have a huge set of headlines emerging from these papers.

Paddy O'Connell (4:12)

Well, yes, because one of the words you've just used is picture.

Laura Kuenssberg (4:15)

Yep.

Paddy O'Connell (4:16)

So the emails are damning that they do not in themselves contain proof of wrongdoing. They are damning in the public, the jury of public opinion. But there are also pictures which have caused a great deal of consternation. One of them showing Andrew Mountbatten Windsor on all, apparently on all fours over a woman lying on the floor.

Laura Kuenssberg (4:38)

And I think there will be many women around the world who see that image and feel quite upset, who feel sick to the stomach about seeing that image. You can't imagine what the families and indeed the victims of Epstein will feel seeing that image. You can't imagine also what friends and family also of Andrew Mountbatten Windsor will say feel seeing that image. As you say, that doesn't give us any evidence of wrongdoing. He's always denied doing anything wrong. But the. The visuals of the kinds of behavior that was taking place. We don't know where it was, we don't know when it was. But I think there will be many people who look at that, and particularly women who just think that in itself is quite a disturbing image. Andrew Mountbatten, wizard, has, of course, already been sort of edged out of public life, but I think this image is one that will go around the world. It will be seen by everybody in the country. It adds, of course, to that image where he has his arm around Virginia Giuffre. He'd always said he didn't recognize that photograph, a smiling Glenn Maxwell in the background. But I think, reputationally, we're not talking about wrongdoing, but in terms of reputation and image and perception, those that set of photographs, I think will take their place alongside the picture of him with his arm around Virginia Giuffre, who he denied meeting. I think it will be incredibly difficult for him to escape the perception that that picture gives.

Paddy O'Connell (6:09)

One of the things as well that's important for everyone is the timeline. And at the point when Epstein was serving a prison sentence, it was a strange prison term because he was allowed to work at home and then go to prison at night. It seems extraordinary, but there were people, famous people, writing to him whilst he was serving that prison term. But, Laura, one of the other things that comes out of it is an insight into the relationship between these famous people and Epstein. For instance, Sarah Ferguson has apparently written an email thanking him for the way he praised her in front of her daughters. And I was thinking to myself, it's an insight into the grip this man had that people seemed to want to have his attention, his affection, his praise. It's something about, we keep asking ourselves, what did he have that these people wanted to get?

Laura Kuenssberg (7:03)

And in some areas, perhaps the question is answered by something very straightforward, great wealth and influence. And one of the stories that has come out overnight is that Lord Mandelson's partner, Reynaldo da Silva, was given money by Epstein to pay the fees for him to train as an osteopath. That story is there in these documents. Lord Mandelson has said he doesn't want to add anything to it, since he spoke to us at great length a couple of weeks ago. But for people like him in the public eye who've tried to move on, again, you see this damaging perception of just how strong these connections were. And it's very, very troubling, I think, in many, many regards. Not least. Also, there are all sorts of unverified, unsubstantiated allegations from an FBI tip line about what President Trump may or may not have done. Now, as you've said, being included in these documents, whether it's an email, a photograph, or from an FBI T that does not in itself confirm wrongdoing in any way, shape or form. But there's just so much in here, so much sort of shade being thrown, if you like that. Frankly, if you were one of the people who's been mentioned in it and you absolutely never did anything wrong whatsoever, and Epstein sort of duped you and you were drawn into his web and you cut off contact after he was convicted, you might have a case to feel pretty sore about it that you're being castigated by, by implication. Should we then talk to Gary o'? Donoghue? Who. I don't know. Gary, are you one of the journalists who's been up all night trying to wade through all of this, is still pretty early in the States?

Gary O'Donoghue (8:40)

Not quite all night, but we spent a good amount of time yesterday trying to make head or tail of it because it's, you know, it's like, you know, it's like wading through syrup. You know, you can't. You can't ever know quite where you are. It's sort of, you know, you don't know which way to turn, what to focus on, which bits are important, which aren't. And you end up sort of doing just sort of searches for names or places or. Or sort of dates and things like that to try and try and sift a little. There's no, there's no roadmap to exploring this stuff.

Paddy O'Connell (9:11)

So with more sifting to be done, tell us your three main headlines.

Gary O'Donoghue (9:17)

Well, there's an awful lot. That's one headline, I think there is. There. There are stacks of references to people we already know had been referenced in the previous releases. So, you know, there are thousands of documents here that mentioned Donald Trump, for example. Some of them are just articles, you know, press articles that are in this dump. Some of them are, you know, casual mentions in email. Some of them are sort of pretty personal things. There's one from Epstein where he's corresponding with a. A New York Times journalist. And there's another one where he is sort of describing how unpleasant he thinks Donald Trump is. And then there's all the ones you've been mentioning about Andrew. And there's also these curious thing. There's this one curious document that's got quite a lot of focus, which is this sort of collation of tips to the FBI, literally like crime stoppers. It's literally the, you know, the number this National Threat center that people have been ringing sounds posh, but it's 1-800-call FBI. That's the phone number.

Laura Kuenssberg (10:22)

I love America. That's amazing. Can you imagine here having a number saying 1-800-GOLF.

Gary O'Donoghue (10:27)

That is exactly it. But it's literally ring up and sp view what you think. And there's a whole bunch of these things that relate to Trump. Now, for some reason, these were collated, these random tips were collated last year and put together. And some of them are horrid, I mean, really horrible. But there's absolutely no evidence for them whatsoever. And indeed, the, the investigators at the time said they weren't credible. Now you might think, well, you know, if you're, if you believe in a cover up, you think, well, they would say that, wouldn't they? But this was already in the context of everyone knowing the heinous nature of Epstein's crime. So it's not like, you know, they were trying to do a massive cover up. They were just trying to, you know, establish the credibility of these particular stories that they were getting on these phone calls. But that will in some way fuel the continuing conspiracy because in some ways information, even this vast amount of information, that, that will never satisfy the core group who believe that the rich and powerful have kept things from them.

Laura Kuenssberg (11:37)

There's another aspect to this as well, which is some of the victims have been named publicly in this release of document. And one of the, their lawyers who represents them was furious, saying even in some cases where there's been a line through the victim's name, except you can still read the victim's name. So another aspect of this is it's another moment when the victims feel that they have been treated. Shodd and Gary, there still are more documents. I mean, it's hard to imagine they've got 3 million now already out in the public domain. But from a political point of view in the U.S. you know, some Democrats are still saying the government still hasn't published them all.

Gary O'Donoghue (12:15)

Yeah, and there's, I mean, there's a couple of things there. One is Todd Blanche, the deputy ag he actually acknowledged yesterday we will, we will have made mistakes in this release. And they have an actual email address where you can email in if you think some, your identity has been disclosed in a way it shouldn't have been disclosed. So they've already set that up. And you're right, Gloria Allred has been, has been furious about that on behalf of some of the survivors that she represents. The other thing is that there are, I mean, potentially A couple of million documents that they haven't released. Now, the way he characterized that yesterday is some of it is child pornography, some of it is medical records, some of it he rather sort of curiously alluded to as images of death. So goodness knows what that is. But the Democrats believe there are other documents that they're holding onto, whether they get a look at them or not, I suspect. And if you sort of look at the coverage even yesterday here and certainly today, if you sort of look at the coverage, there's a sort of weariness about going over, even a marked weariness compared to before Christmas. So I wonder whether the appetite sort of in terms of the mainstream media, for example, is waning on this one pretty big time.

Laura Kuenssberg (13:36)

And Todd Blanche, you mentioned there is the deputy attorney general in the US of course, and I suppose Donald Trump would be delighted if this was sort of ever to go away. But it has been a huge issue, particularly for the MAGA base, for his Make America Great Again fan base.

Paddy O'Connell (13:50)

But I suppose this goes back to you reminding us what the main headlines are. One, you said there' an enormous amount of material, millions of pages. Two, you said it relates to famous names that we already knew were already linked. And third, you told us that there was this FBI tip line. But I suppose, can I just drill further into the idea that it's also depressing and it's all making people feel weary because obviously the victims feel that it's re victimizing them. So it's not helping them, the general public, feel it. It doesn't answer the question, is there more? So in many ways it seems to have been a process which has raised as many questions by release as it has. As it has answered.

Gary O'Donoghue (14:31)

Yeah, I mean, I wasn't at the press conference where the deputy attorney general spoke yesterday and I didn't see all of it, but I was kind of screaming at the screen for those reporters to say to him, look, in this process of redaction, did you then think again about potential cases? You know, did you reassess what you were reading in order to redact it, to think about prosecution? Because of course, you know, Epstein's dead, Maxwell's in prison for 20 years. That's it. That's it. In terms of prosecutions. Now, we heard in the previous batch that there may have been potentially 10 co conspirators that they were looking at. Six of them had subpoenas. We don't know whether whether they were objects of the investigation. Certainly one of them said that he wasn't. He was just helping with information, but we have no idea really why this isn't leading to further charges. Now, I suspect if you say to them, they'll say, well, there's not the evidence. But no one actually said, when you were reading all this stuff, what were you thinking about potential future charges?

Paddy O'Connell (15:39)

Ruth Davidson, the Tory pearl, was on Radio 4, on a program with me a couple of weeks ago. She said, the only person currently in prison for Epstein's crimes is a woman.

Gary O'Donoghue (15:52)

Yeah.

Laura Kuenssberg (15:53)

But when it comes to most of the people who've been mentioned in this, or most of the people who've been drawn into this web is, there just isn't necessarily any suggestion of anything that's kind of criminal. It's about unsavory connections that are embarrassing now, particularly for those who maintained their friendships after Epstein's conviction.

Paddy O'Connell (16:10)

That's the key.

Laura Kuenssberg (16:10)

And from a political point of view in this country, top of that list, of course, which he would not want to be anywhere near, that list, of course, is Lord Peter Mendelssohn. And I think there are some unfinished questions, unanswered questions for him, and also what Keir Starmer's team knew when they gave him a job as an American ambassador. So the new revelation in these emails that we've seen so far is that Epstein sent £10,000 to his partner, Ronaldo da Silva, in 2009. And you can see quite a sort of gushing email from renowned Silva saying, thank you so much for the money it was being paid towards his training as an osteopath. Now, in 2009, there are two important things. That was one, after Epstein's first conviction, and that was two, when Peter Mendelssohn was actually back in the government. Yeah. Now, for a serving member of the government to have had their partner get a large sum of money from someone who had a conviction for sexual offences is something that people in the government and in the public may well have wanted to know. But let's just listen to how Maddelson described his relationship with Epstein when we spoke to him a few weeks ago.

Peter Mandelson (17:21)

I have to say to you, and I can say this absolutely, I can say it to you categorically, I never saw anything in his life when I was with him, when I was in his homes, that would give me any reason to suspect what this evil monster was doing in preying on these young women. Do you really think that if I knew what was going on and what he was doing with and to these vulnerable young women, that I'd have just sat back, ignored it and moved on? And said, okay, that's his life he can get on with. Do you think I would have done that? Do you think I'd have written emails like that if I had had any one iota of knowledge or suspicion of what he was doing? I certainly would not.

Laura Kuenssberg (18:13)

Now he also told us that he believed he was kept separate from the sexual side of his life, of Epstein's life, because as a gay man it was not something that was relevant to him. We should also say there's no suggestion that Lord Mandos partner Ronaldo da Silva did anything wrong at all. The email suggests he took money for Epstein for a specific reason. But that does not imply or suggest that anything untoward had happened to her. He was part of it in any way, shape or form.

Gary O'Donoghue (18:39)

Laura and I, I mean you and I were, you know, doing the sort of day to day Westminster beat through all those years when Peter Mandelson, I mean, how many times has he had to stand up, sit down and say stuff like this? You know, that that's the thing that's surprising that, that in some ways, even by 2009, 2010, Lord Mandelson kind of hadn't learned the lesson over all those years. I mean, the first time he had to resign was over the, if you remember, the loan to Jeffrey Rob from Jeffrey Robinson to buy, he had to buy a house in Notting Hill. Then there was another, obviously the other occasion with the passports and the Indian businessman, you know, and this as you say, was after Jeffrey Epstein was convicted in 2009. He was also a cabinet minister. I mean, when do you learn the lessons? When do you learn to be careful about your associations? It strikes me as, I mean tragic is too strong a word because he is not a survivor or a victim of anything here. But it is an astonishing lesson in the sort of, the weakness sometimes of people in politics.

Laura Kuenssberg (19:49)

It also just to be clear, if that had come out at the time when he was in the cabinet, that would have been a huge news story. You know, that would have been a matter of public interest. It would have mattered. What we don't know. And just to go back to Downing street these days, we don't know if number 10 knew about this, if this was one of the things that he told them before he was given the job as the American ambassador. Obviously there was huge speculation and we know that he was asked three questions by number 10 before he was given that job. He said, he said to us in that interview, I told them everything. Did he tell them that? We don't have an answer to that question at the moment.

Paddy O'Connell (20:24)

So what we do know.

Gary O'Donoghue (20:25)

So do you think that the, you know, I think this is something maybe people at home would think and I certainly think it £10,000. I mean, you know, £10,000 is £10,000. But what on earth are you doing, you know, getting connected with a businessman who's had a conviction over 10,000. I mean, it just seems extraordinary and sort of, I mean, I can't get my head around what process, what mental process would think that was a good idea.

Paddy O'Connell (20:56)

I was reflecting at the start that there was a letter, that email that apparently comes from Sarah Ferguson thanking Jeffrey Epstein for praising her in front of her children. And here you see this figure of £10,000. High stakes roulette for the sake of this osteopath bill. And I think it gets to this question. Gary, I was going to ask you, do you have any sense of the grip Epstein had over the people he associated with? Do we know what his spell was? Do we see. And it's a 10 year investigation. That's one of the reasons why the amount of material is so large, the timeline is, is long. Do you see anything when you read these emails? And of course, many people who send emails don't think that the emails you send to a dead person are going to come back in the media. So do you see anything that explains the spell he cast?

Gary O'Donoghue (21:47)

No, I'm with Laura on this one. You know, it's money. It's quite simply money. I mean, there is, you know, there's a good time to all these kind of, particularly these other wealthy people, they don't need to go to see Jeffrey Epstein to have a good time.

Laura Kuenssberg (22:04)

Right.

Gary O'Donoghue (22:04)

They have enough liquid assets to have a good time on their own terms. But the sheer kind of volume of his wealth, it's like moths around a lamp, isn't it? Money attracts people. I think that is the bald truth of all this. Or it's certainly part or a large part of the bald truth about this.

Laura Kuenssberg (22:25)

Gary, there's going to be so much more to unpick as we get through finally. Well, if we ever finally get all of the documents. But I wouldn't be surprised if there's some other mini news bombs that explode as these documents continue to be poured over. I note that there's a message of the Commerce Secretary Howard Litnick, who's of course part of the current Trump administration, possibly planning a trip to the Epstein Island. But we should say, as with him and with lots of other people named, just being in there doesn't mean they did anything wrong. But Gary, thank you very much for helping us out. Hope you maybe get a bit more sleep tonight.

Gary O'Donoghue (22:55)

Thanks, Laura. Thanks, Paddy.

Helena Merriman (23:00)

If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau. Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

Paddy O'Connell (23:36)

So we come screeching back home to a very important by election. I'm sure in the media we say every by election is very important, very indicative of changing time, but this is massive.

Laura Kuenssberg (23:46)

I mean, just allow me to be really excited for a second. It's here you have fascinating political kaleidoscope. Things changing all over the place. The two big parties both kind of in the doldrums, having a terrible time. Two insurgent parties, reform and the Greens, both chucking huge amounts of effort. Energy activists today, leaflets, all the rest at trying to win. It is possible that this might feel in the end like a race between reform and the Greens. Labor sources scoff at that and say, don't be ridiculous. The Greens don't even have a single councilor in this area. It's about us and reform. But it is going to be a really fascinating race and a short one. Four weeks, that's all. Because the longer it goes on, the longer the insurgents have to grab a foothold, the shorter it is, the easier it is theoretically for the incumbents to hold on.

Paddy O'Connell (24:35)

So it also had a psychodrama about Andy Burnham in it, but that's all been forgotten because we now. Well, it hasn't been forgotten at all. It's all been removed, set temporarily by the naming of candidates, including Labour's own choice, Angelique Stolia has been announced today.

Laura Kuenssberg (24:50)

The Greens have selected Hannah Spencer, otherwise known as Hannah the Plumber on social media. She's a 34 year old plumber who's the leader of the Greens on Trafford Council. She's been a counselor there since 2003. So we've got two local government figures from that area. The Lib Dems have chosen local academy governor Jackie Piercing.

Paddy O'Connell (25:11)

Then last week you mentioned Screaming Lord Such and the Monster Raving Loon.

Laura Kuenssberg (25:15)

I did.

Paddy O'Connell (25:16)

And the Monster Raving Loonies have been in touch.

Laura Kuenssberg (25:18)

I love that. What have they got to say?

Paddy O'Connell (25:20)

Agent Chinners, Minister of Spinning, bouncing and points says thanks for the brief shout out the other day. However, Screaming Lord such is now the spiritual leader of our party as since 1999 it has been misled by the UK's longest serving political leader ever, howling Lord Hope.

Laura Kuenssberg (25:37)

And Mr. Chinner has followed up with an exclusive scoop. We like them on weekend Newscast. This is just to let you know. First, as promised, our candidate for the Gorton and Denton by election will be Sir Oinkelot, a local resident of the said constituency. Communications from newscasters are what we always love to read. The Tories and the Workers Party candidates have not yet been announced. Nominations shut on Tuesday and as ever there is a full list on the BBC website.

Paddy O'Connell (26:01)

So there we have the slate, the names on the doors and the slate forming for the Gorton and Denton by election. You can be sure that Adam will wrap up the close of nominations on Tuesday when all those questions we did raise about who's who will be firmly answered.

Laura Kuenssberg (26:17)

What are you doing tomorrow?

Paddy O'Connell (26:19)

So we are going to be on Iran Watch overnight. Yes, yes. This is a situation which has been seen in recent weekends. Saturday night foreign policy objectives have been sought by the White House and this is one which is because there's a giant armada in the waters around Iran and we are watching to see what happens with it.

Laura Kuenssberg (26:42)

We are. And on at which point we will be joined on the panel tomorrow. Actually, I'm excited about this because we are going to be speaking to Professor John Bue who has been the security advisor to the last few governments. He's sometimes written very learned articles but he is going to be speaking to us on the tele box and also joining us on Newscast tomorrow. So we will have irrespective of what happens in Iran overnight, we'll have the benefit of a briefing from one of the most plugged in security brains in the country. So I'm looking forward to that.

Paddy O'Connell (27:13)

So a lot on the airwaves, tons. A lot in the earbuds. Thank you very much for listening to Saturday's newscast. We hope you'll join us for Sunday. Goodbye.

Laura Kuenssberg (27:22)

Goodbye.

Paddy O'Connell (27:23)

Newscast.

Laura Kuenssberg (27:23)

Newscast from the BBC.

Chris Mason (27:25)

Thank you so much for making it to the end of Newscast. You clearly copyright Chris Mason Ooze stamina. Can I gently encourage you to subscribe to us on BBC Sounds? Don't forget, you can email us anytime. It's newsstanding newscast@BBC.co.uk and if you would like to join our Discord community to talk about everything newscast related, there is a link in the description of this podcast. And don't be scared. It's super easy to click on it and then get set up. Or you can WhatsApp us on 033-01-239480 and I promise you we read and listen to every single message. Thanks. Thanks for listening to this podcast.

Laura Kuenssberg (28:05)

Bye.

Helena Merriman (28:12)

If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.