Global News Podcast - Epstein files: New revelations about Trump

Episode Date: December 23, 2025

In a newly released email, a US government investigator says that President Donald Trump flew on Jeffrey Epstein’s plane many more times than was previously reported. Also: Ukraine says it's suffering widespread power cuts after another night of deadly Russian air attacks; US regulators approve a pill version of the weight loss drug Wegovy; we hear what it's like to have a baby in Bethlehem; and how can you ensure that you'll keep your New Year's resolutions?The Global News Podcast brings you the breaking news you need to hear, as it happens. Listen for the latest headlines and current affairs from around the world. Politics, economics, climate, business, technology, health – we cover it all with expert analysis and insight. Get the news that matters, delivered twice a day on weekdays and daily at weekends, plus special bonus episodes reacting to urgent breaking stories. Follow or subscribe now and never miss a moment. Get in touch: [e-mail] Picture Credit: US Department of Justice/PA

This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Andrew Peach and at 16 hours GMT on Tuesday the 23rd of December. These are our main stories. The US Justice Department publishes thousands of new files relating to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Ukraine says it's suffering widespread power cuts after another night of Russian air attacks. Regulators in the US approve a weight loss pill. Also in this podcast, the latest on the... bidding war for one of Hollywood's oldest studios, Donald Trump's year through the eyes of one of

his friends. There's mass deportations underway, and a lot of people feel that that might be extreme. You want to remove the people that are criminals and gang members, but you don't necessarily want to forcibly remove everybody. And how do you stick to New Year's resolutions? So a smart use of friction, make it easy to follow through, make it difficult to fail, is the way forward. The US Justice Department has released its largest batch yet of files relating to Geoffrey Epstein. He was the sex trafficking US financier who befriended a huge number of rich and famous men over the years and who died in prison in 2019. Our investigations correspondent Andy Verity is among the BBC team coming through this enormous data dump by the DOJ.

He's been telling my colleague Tim Franks about the latest revelations. The thing that leapt out at me first was, email which indicates that Donald Trump traveled many more times on Jeffrey Epstein's private jet than was previously reported. And it reports that he flew with Jeffrey Epstein and Gillen Maxwell during the time for which they expected to bring charges against her. Now, of course, his presence on the flights doesn't indicate wrongdoing. This email was sent on the 7th of January 2020 when he was still in his first term of office, Donald Trump. It's from an assistant U.S. attorney on the team investigating Epstein who took.

tells colleagues that flight records received the previous day reflect that the former president, the current president, traveled on Jeffrey Epstein's jet many more times than previously reported. In particular, the email says the U.S. President is listed as a passenger on at least eight flights between 1993 and 96, including at least four, where Gillen Maxwell was present, and another on which the only three passengers were Epstein, Trump, and a 20-year-old woman whose name's been redacted. And on two other flights, two of the passengers, were women who would be possible witnesses in a Maxwell case, the email says, adding that the team didn't want any of this to be a surprise down the road.

Now, Donald Trump has consistently denied any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein. We've approached him for comment. I haven't got anything specifically on this, but the DOJ has said that 30,000 documents have now been released. And it says that some of the documents which pertain to a time just before the 2020 election contain inaccurate sensationalist claims. There's also some other stuff here, though, about someone closer to home. There is this email from somebody who signs himself A.

Somebody signs himself A from Balmoral, Tim, yeah, who in the email is asking Gillesne Maxwell for inappropriate friends, in quotation marks. This is what they show. So there's an email sent to Epstein's associate, Gillen Maxwell, from an email address titled The Invisible Man, sent on the 16th of August 2001, saying, I'm up here at Bar Morrow's summer camp for the royal family. Bormoral being the Scottish castle where the royal family head to.

Yes, and spend their Christmases, mostly. So A is, from this, the assumption that A is, is who? Well, there's a suggestion that it could be Andrew Mountbatten, Windsor. And part of the reason that suggested is he says, have you found me some new inappropriate friends? The sign-off reads, C, yeah, A, X-X-X-X. Now, it comes from an email address, this is the reason, ABX-17 at dial.pipex.com.

And now, at an email address sent on the same day, Gillen Maxwell writes, so sorry to disappoint you, however, the truth must be told, I've only been able to find appropriate friends. But a different email address, A-A-C-E at dial.pipx.com, is listed in Epstein's phone book under a contact labelled Duke of York,

which was an image shared in an earlier release. Now, we've contacted Andrew Mountbattenworth's of comment. He's repeatedly denied all wrongdoing. He didn't come back to us yet, but he says he didn't see witness or suspect any behaviour of the sort that subsequently led to Jeffrey Epstein's arrest and conviction. Andy Verity, talking to Tim Franks. It's just above freezing in Ukraine today, but thousands of people may be unable to heat their homes or cook their food as Russian airstrikes have again damaged the country's power grid. Moscow has targeted Ukraine's energy infrastructure throughout the war, but it's been ramping up its attacks as winter

has drawn in. On Tuesday, Kiev announced emergency power cuts in several regions after hundreds of drone strikes overnight. This woman lives in the city of Odessa. Many parts of the city are still without proper electricity. And that's quite a strange feeling because you have a city full of lights, all the Christmas decorations, and suddenly you have a totally black city. But with the latest attack, that's brought additional problems because Odessa is the old city. So the whole downtown If you don't have electricity, it means you don't have heating. Then in many places it means that you don't have water because pumps are working from the electricity as well.

Russian drones have also hit residential areas and killed and injured civilians. Our correspondent Samira Hussein has been to see the damage in Kiev. I'm at the site where a drone has hit this apartment complex and five people were injured here. There are crews that are taking pieces of plight. and they're covering it with plastic. What they're going to do is they're going to go and install them into the windows that have just been completely blown out.

You can see shattered glass all over the ground and just so many windows were blown out. And that's from the force of this blast. It was so big that this entire apartment complex, one side of the roof, is completely taken out. One woman who has been living in this building for her whole life was describing what it was like to be in the apartment, this thunderous blast and all this debris falling inside her apartment. I was also speaking with two women who described what it was like when the blast happened, but also saying just how angry they are. They are angry that they were targeted by Russia. They are angry that this war continues. and they are angry that this particular attack happened during Christmas.

Now, before Samira went to see that apartment complex in Kiev, I asked about the latest Russian attacks and the damage to Ukraine's power grid. Because of these Russian attacks on power stations, you see that there are rolling blackouts, but also damage. And some regions of Ukraine have been without power for several days. Now there are more people that are without power. And as you rightly pointed out, it's winter, it's cold. And it's freezing temperatures here.

And so the situation is quite difficult for many residents in Ukraine. And if you listen to President Vladimir Zelensky of Ukraine, he'll say that this is in Russia's nature to ramp up these attacks around the holiday time, around Christmas time, that this is what they do because it is cold and because it is the holiday season. And so the insinuation there that we could see more attacks in the coming days. And as well as a stepping, up attacks on the power grid. There's also real Russian focus on the port city of Odessa at the

moment. Just set that in context for us. Yes, for the last several days, we've seen some repeated attacks in Odessa really targeting the port infrastructure. So Odessa is a port city along the Black Sea. And what Ukraine says is that Russia is really trying to eliminate Ukraine's ability to be able to access the sea and to restrict movement. not only of people, but of course, of goods as well. And so this week and last week we saw a lot more damage. Seven people died in one of the attacks. We've seen more of attacks in Odessa overnight.

This time, no casualties. But certainly you're seeing a kind of shift in the war towards that area. And we've got Poland scrambling fighter jets to defend its airspace. So more and more fears in Europe about Russia testing the boundaries. President Zelensky made it clear that there were more than 650 drones that were launched by Russia all over Ukraine. And so Poland activated its defenses out of caution, but also remembered that Poland has accused Russia in the past of violating Polish airspace. And so there is a bit of a reason why Poland would take this kind of action. Our correspondent, Samir Hussein, who's in Kiev, and for a more in-depth look,

what's happening in Ukraine. You can go to YouTube, search for BBC News, click on the logo, then choose podcasts and the global news podcast as a new story available there every weekday. As Christians prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem, today the West Bank City is considered to be under Israeli occupation by many. Women giving birth there now often turn to the Holy Family Hospital run by the Catholic Order of Malta. Our reporter Fahima Abdul Rahman has been following one mother's journey. When you think about Bethlehem, you think about childbirth and looking after babies. Because of the Bethlehem, the nativity scene, and so babies are sacred here.

Dr. George Zurbi is the head of the new natal unit at the Holy Family Hospital, the busiest maternity facility in the West Bank. We followed mothers and doctors here for a year to experience what's like to bring babies into the world while living in the occupied West Bank. Palestinians are frequently delayed at checkpoints and face potential raids on their homes by the Israel Defence Forces. I was waiting for God to give me one baby,

but he blessed me with two. Amani Hamdan gave birth here to premature twins, a boy and a girl, at 27 weeks. I asked if something was wrong. I asked if the boy had died. They said they were sorry for my loss. The boy had died. His heart has stopped.

In the end, I have to be strong. God talked one, but he left me with the other. But baby Matele has also suffered from complications of a premature birth. Mateel developed a complication that a lot of extreme premature babies develop. They grade three hemorrhage. We grade them from one to four. It's unfortunately a very bad scenario. But things could turn around with her.

Mateel is now six weeks old, and Dr. Zubbi brings worrying news for Amani. Doctor, yesterday when I held her, I felt that her head was a bit enlarge. You're right, we had to extract some of the fluid. The problem is not only that her head is getting bigger, but also that the fluid is exacting pressure on her brain. They'll have to wait a month and a half before they can decide. decide if she'll need an operation. Ideally, she would go to Jerusalem, but the political situation makes that very difficult.

Dr. Zurbis concerned that anxiety experienced by expecting mothers in West Bank could itself be a danger. The psychological pressure on the mothers, above all, the fear. When a pregnant woman is afraid, it can lead to a premature breath. Twelve-week-old Matil no longer needs an operation. but still depends on oxygen. I just want her to come home with me. Yeah, he's suckling.

He needs some milk. Dr. Zurbi reflects on what it feels like to help these babies in the new native world. The most rewarding moment is when you actually work with the baby for three or four months and then you finally get to see the light at the end of the tunnel and the baby is finally right there getting ready to go home. Come on, let's get dressed.

After 85 days, Matil is finally allowed to go home. It's true my happiness is incomplete. I wanted to take them both home. Returning home with Matil, Amani considers their future. Above all, I hope we will have peace and safety, that we will live like a family altogether, that Matil will grow up in front of my eyes, and that she will be the smartest girl.

Art School. That report from Fahima Abdul-Raman. Regulators in the United States have approved a pill version of the weight loss drug Wigovi. It's the first time the US Food and Drug Administration has given the go-ahead for daily oral medication to treat obesity. Here's Stephanie Tillotson. Appetites suppressing drugs with brand names such as Azempic, Wegovi and Monjaro have become popular in recent years because they help people to lose weight. But some can be put off from taking them because they're not very convenient, having to be administered by injections, and they have to be stored below a certain temperature. Professor Giles Yo, an obesity expert, says taking a daily tablet would make the drugs more accessible, but at the

moment there are drawbacks. The injectable at the moment for Wagovi is 2.4 milligrams, so that's how much you take once weekly. What the dose that they're reporting it to be effective and have been approved for is 25 milligrams, so 10 times that per day. So you have to take 70 times more, shall we say, to get past the stomach. As a result, it will be significantly more expensive. Professor Jason Holford is a clinical psychologist who specialises in obesity. He says taking a daily pill could revolutionise treatment. We have been looking for effective anti-abesity management pills for 50 years and we've historically had lots of failure. Now, this is the first first peptide pill to come out, which would be easy to use, which is going to produce weight

loss of between 15 to 17% according to the clinical trials. Now, that's a significant degree of weight loss compared with what we've seen previously. It's not quite that the levels of bariatric surgery, but it's getting there. The decision by the Food and Drug Administration is a major boost for the Danish manufacturer, Novo Nordisk, which hopes to begin selling the medication in the US next month. Other pharmaceutical companies are developing their own versions. Stephanie Tillotson reporting. Still to come in this podcast,

one of the world's best marathon runners weighs in on Kenya's problem with performance-enhancing drugs. Men and women doesn't value the sport. And that's what brings all these menace and the thinking about purely taking drugs. The bidding war over one of Hollywood's, biggest studios has become a bit more complicated. Warner Brothers accepted an offer of more than 80 billion dollars for its film and streaming businesses by Netflix. But before that deal

could be approved by regulators, another Hollywood institution, Paramount, counted with its own offer to buy Warner's outright for over $100 billion. Paramount is owned by the media mogul David Ellison, whose father just happens to be Larry Ellison, one of the richest men in the world. And Larry Ellison has just announced that he will personally guarantee 40, billion dollars of Paramount's bid. So what does that all mean? We asked the investment manager Judith McKenzie. The Board of Warner Brothers had said that they were going to reject the Paramount bid, even though it was for the whole company and a 22% premium to the Netflix deal. And they said that they were going to reject it on the basis that they didn't believe that

the Paramount deal was properly funded. So now Larry comes over the hill with his 40 billion and is underwriting the deal. I think the Warner Brothers Board are really going to have to take that seriously. So that means that it could get into quite a hostile situation and, well, maybe good for shareholders because you'd like to think that if it's hostile, then there could be a better price. Now, whatever the outcome, the sale of Warner Brothers and its properties like HBO will likely mean a single company, Netflix or Paramount, will own an even bigger chunk of the world's media production and streaming businesses. Paul Fleming, head of the UK Entertainment Workers' Union Equity, says that could have a big

impact on people who make film and TV and those of us who watch it. There is an anxiety about a sort of closing market for employment opportunity is what that might mean in terms of royalties and ongoing payments in particular, and also about the volume of content that's made in this country and around the world which our members work on. Fewer players means fewer opportunities to sell product on. And that's one of the principal mechanisms in which artists make royalties. That's how they get their secondary payments. and that's the main source of income for workers in that sector. And we do worry too for audiences and what it means in terms of subscription

platforms, subscription payments, and whether audiences can get best value for money in a sector that becomes less competitive. Paul Fleming, an international review of hormone treatment for menopause symptoms has found no evidence that it either increases or decreases the risk of dementia. The team of researchers from the UK, Ireland, Switzerland, Australia and China examined 10 studies involving more than a million women. Professor Amy Specter from University College London spoke to Tim Franks about what they found.

The key factor is that dementia disproportionately affects women. So even if you account for women living longer, there is a higher incidence of dementia in all age groups in women. So the estrogen hypothesis suggests that a loss of estrogen, which we see in menopause, may have a clear link to dementia. We often see brain fog in middle age. And there's ideas that this may progress to dementia. So one of the theories is that therefore if we replace these missing hormones through HRT,

this may reduce dementia later on. There was also a competing hypothesis that HRT might increase the likelihood of dementia. Yes, and I'm not sure what the rationale for the hypothesis is. There was some research that's showing that it might increase the risk of dementia if you give people the hormones too late. You called for more research. What sort of research would be useful? The problem at the moment is that most of the research is observational.

So you'll look at a bunch of women who've got dementia and a bunch of women who don't have dementia and you'll look at how many of them took HRT. And what we find often in observational studies is that people without dementia are more likely to have taken HRT. But that doesn't mean that the HRT prevented the dementia. They might be more educated or have more access to other healthcare. So what we need is these randomized controlled trials

where we randomly assign people to either receive HRT or not, and then we can really compare the differences in a more robust way. It is proven that HRT can be very helpful to women who are going through the menopause. I totally understand that the idea of a randomised controlled trial is you don't know whether you're getting the drug or you're getting a placebo, but it might mean that whilst the science is good, the outcomes for those women aren't necessarily good. Yeah, it's a really, really good point. and that's one of the big problems. Once something's been around for a long time,

it becomes harder to do trials because we know more and more about both the benefits and also the potential risks. So people may be more reluctant to sign up. That's absolutely right. And I suppose you might get a bias in the sense that the people who are signing up to these kind of trials

and maybe the people who don't have such severe symptoms who don't mind as much, whether they get the treatment or the placebo. Professor Amy Specter. Elliot Kipchoga is considered one of the, the greatest long-distance runners of all time. An Olympic champion who reinforced Kenya's reputation for producing some of the best marathon runners in the world.

He retired this year after more than two decades of competition, but in a BBC interview, he said he's deeply invested in the future of Kenyan athletics. Peter Goffin was listening. Elliot Kipchowke was just 19 years old when he ran his first Olympic race, a bronze medal finish in the men's 5,000 metres in Athens in 2004. He went on to win gold in the marathon at the 2016 and 2020 Olympic Games, as well as a slew of medals and broken records in world championships and city marathons. But for all that success, he has not forgotten what it's like to be a young runner

in need of training and support from Athletics Federations. Old federations, actually, as never put a 1,000 of their mind, on nurturing the talent, on managing the talent, giving them knowledge, taking care of them. If they do all those things, people will be happy. We'll have a great talent to actually skyrocket our sport in this country. Turning a young runner into a champion is a process he likens to squeezing a diamond from a stone. I think all the vibrations actually doesn't know how to mold or how to craft a talent. You know, they don't nurture the talent.

And that's why they don't respect the talent, the fullest. Kenya is renowned for its long-distance runners. But several of its track and field athletes have been accused of using performance-enhancing drugs or PEDs. 19 Kenyans were banned from competition by the Global Athletics Integrity Unit this year. In October, the World Anti-Doping Agency put Kenya on its watch list for failing to comply with requirements.

Kipchoga says Kenyan authorities are not doing enough to stop PED use. We need to do more through education and true actually doing the right thing to tell them, to show them legally that they are wrong. He says young runners must be taught to value their sport and its legacy, not just shoot for easy glory on the track. We are in a state whereby sportsmen and women want to rush for ridges. we're in a state whereby men and women doesn't value the sport. We're in a state whereby men and women doesn't see beyond the sport.

And that's what brings all these menace and the thinking about clearly taking trucks. Elliot Kipchowke. Donald Trump came to power at the start of this year with a frenzy of energy and the support of many Americans who had high hopes for his second administration. As the end of 2025 approaches, his approval ratings are low and his base is annoyed about a whole range of subjects from the Epstein files to

inflation. Chris Ruddy is a friend of Donald Trump, who runs the conservative media group Newsmax. He's been talking to Justin Webb, and they started by talking about what some see is Mr. Trump's greatest achievement this year, closing the southern border. President Trump thinks that issue was the number one issue and why he got elected. He told me that personally. And his number one goal has been to close down the border. And, you know, he's really close down the border. It is not the level of crossings there was. And now that they're doing active deportations, there's even less, right? So that issue is under control. The question now is the immigration issue here. There's mass deportations underway, and a lot of people feel that that

might be extreme, because the idea would be you want to remove the people that are criminals and gang members, but you don't necessarily want to forcibly remove everybody. The universities, I mean, he really went for them, didn't he? And his line was that they were not free. He weren't free to teach properly. You weren't free to talk about sex and gender in an open way, some racial things as well. He has had an impact, isn't he? I think the president had pretty strong grounds, and he targeted universities like Harvard,

Columbia, and other schools. And I think it's been a wake-up call. I think there is an effort to put the brakes on woke ideology, but it's very strong. Look at Memdami, just won by a pretty good number in New York. And that's a city that's known to elect people like Michael Bloomberg and Rudy Giuliani. So, you know, there is concerns about this. And that would be, in part at least, because of the economy, if we can turn to the economy. And there is a suggestion from some commentators that what Trump is doing effectively is making the same mistake.

of Joe, as Joe Biden made, which is to tell people that the economy is fine, where they feel themselves that it's not, and that doesn't work. People feel it, and they're going to vote how their economic situation is based, and the numbers are not very good. If you look at poll after poll, the problem is that Biden increased inflation, inflated the economy by about 25%. He dumped 7.5 trillion in stimulus on top of the normal budget numbers using COVID as an excuse. And that created a 25% increase plus in inflation. Now, that's under control now. But the problem is you still wiped out 25% of the purchasing power and the wealth, the country. And nobody's, we really haven't recovered from that.

Final thought about foreign affairs, obviously Ukraine, but also the Middle East and Venezuela. Is he governing in a way, do you think, that would impress his core supporters? I think he has his own foreign policy approach. I'm not sure it's really in sync with the traditional Republican Party approach. We saw his national security document. He seemed to sort of demote Europe as an important ally. He's raised Russia as a potential good ally. Israel is barely even mentioned in the document.

China is seen as a real potential threat, and there's real claims that Latin America is sort of America's backyard, which was a 19th century view. So he definitely, I think, has made Maduro a target. I think he will have some change of the regime there, ultimately. It's just a matter of time. His number one priority, he may not say this publicly, but I believe it's true, is solving the Ukraine-Russian war. I do think that he has had tremendous success in a number of peace agreements around the world, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Pakistan, Israel and Gaza, fixing the hostage situation. So I think we give him a shot.

Chris Ruddy, who runs the Conservative Media Group Newsmax, if you're already starting to think about next year's New Year's resolutions, help may be at hand in trying to keep them this time. Britain's behavioral insights team has tips on getting our tech, to help us stick to the most common ones, eating less, drinking less, spending less time on phones, saving some money.

Helen Brown is the managing director of the behavioural insights team. Let's be honest, New Year's resolutions are really hard. By the end of the year, only around 9% of us have stuck to those goals we set for ourselves. And this isn't surprising. There is something much larger at play. The environment around us, the systems that we operate in, and even our own psychological biases are often,

act against us. So let's take healthy eating and let's think of a supermarket to start with. As soon as we walk in, we are bombarded by beautiful smells, fancy packaging, buy one get one free deals. We're really surrounded by those nudges, behavioural cues that make us behave in a certain way. Much of it is around the smart use of friction and making it really easy for ourselves to follow through. We want to create an environment in which we can enact our goals and close the intention of behaviour gap. So we could take an example of reducing our phone use, which I should say is something I am always focused on. We could reduce unnecessary notifications, so we're not prompted to pick it up as often. We could use time limits on our apps to track and limit our daily usage.

I actually put my social media apps into folders way off my home screen. I find that even adding a small friction, so a small obstacle and extra tap can interrupt that autopilot reach. Helen Brown, who's already thinking about 2026. And that's all from us for now. There'll be a new edition of Global News to download later. If you'd like to comment on this edition, drop us an email, Global Podcast at BBC.co.com. You'll find us on X at BBC World Service. Use the hashtag Global NewsPod.

This edition was mixed by Holly Smith. The producer was Alice Adderley. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Andrew Peach. Thank you for listening. And until next time, goodbye. Thank you.