Global News Podcast - US Congress votes to release Epstein files

Episode Date: November 19, 2025

Both houses of Congress in the US have passed a bill that aims to force the publication of files on the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Once President Trump signs it into law, the Justice Department will have a thirty day deadline to release the documents. Also: Donald Trump defends the Saudi Crown Prince on his first White House visit since Jamal Khashoggi's murder; violence rises between Israeli settlers and Palestinians in the occupied West Bank; five hikers die in Chile's Patagonia; a report from the front line of Europe's standoff with Russia's shadow fleet; Meta wins a five year legal battle; we look at the future of test cricket; and Australian prisoners fight for their right to Vegemite. 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]

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America is changing. And so is the world. But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere. I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. I'm Tristan Redman in London. And this is the global story. Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection, where the world and America meet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. This is the Global News Podcasts from the BBC World Service. I'm Nick Miles and in the early hours of the 19th of November, these are our main stories. The US Senate has unanimously approved a bill to force the release of the Justice Department's files on the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

President Trump has defended the Saudi crowd. Prince over the killing of the journalist Jamal Hashoggi by Saudi agents seven years ago. Also in this podcast, we report from the West Bank. Dozens of Israeli settlers surrounded a house in the village of Juba, setting cars alight. Other homes and vehicles nearby were also attacked. There's graffiti on the walls, death to Arabs. Where violence against Palestinians has reached its highest level in almost 20 years. And there's a win in court for the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

For months, Donald Trump has been trying to get America to talk about something else. But one name has refused to go away, that of the late sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein. The yeas are 427. The nays are one. Two-thirds being in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, The bill is passed, and without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. That was the result of a vote in the House of Representatives, where both Democrats and Republicans overwhelmingly approved the release of all the information the Justice Department holds on Epstein. A few hours later, the Senate also passed the bill.

Jeffrey Epstein died whilst awaiting trial in 2019, so this information never made it into a courtroom. But campaigners are convinced it will shed more light on the powerful people the sex offender associated with and how much they have to answer for. Let's get a flavour of the debate that led to the vote in the House. We'll hear first from the Democrat, Robert Garcia, and then from Republican Nancy Mace. What is Donald Trump hiding? What is Pam Bondi, the Attorney General, hiding? Why won't they release the Epsine files right now?

And this fight and this vote tonight, I see it, it is about the Epstein victims. But it's about much more than the Epstein victims. This is about the powerless, taking power away from the very powerful. As you heard there, Donald Trump himself, a one-time friend of Epstein, is right at the center of this story. The president called for the files to be released while campaigning for re-election. Then, once in power, he changed. his mind. In the build-up to the latest votes, after a rebellion from some in his own party,

he switched sides again, calling on Republicans to vote for the files release. But here's his response when asked about Epstein at a press conference. You're a terrible person and a terrible reporter. As far as the Epstein files is, I have nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein. I threw him out of my club many years ago because I thought he was a sick pervert. But I guess I turned out to be right. But you know who does have? Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, who ran Harvard, was with him every single night, every single weekend. They lived together. They went to his island many times I never did. The twist here is that Donald Trump doesn't need the approval of Congress to release these fails. But now the bill will end up on his desk anyway. Our correspondent, Sean Dilley,

has been following events in Washington. We are expecting it to land on his desk tomorrow morning our time. And President Trump says a second it hits his desk, he's going to sign it. But he doesn't want Republicans to forget about all the good work. He says that the party's done reducing the cost of living and the work they've done around transgender issues in sports, not to mention his big, beautiful bill. And Sean, remind us about the questions that people want answered by these files. Well, this isn't just a Donald Trump issue. Donald Trump was mentioned in three emails released by Democrats last week, following up with 20,000 by Republicans in response to that. People know that Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender, were once friends.

Donald Trump has always said he's not actually done anything wrong. They were friends till the early 2000s, many years before the Finances 2008 conviction. But we've already seen, haven't we, sort of compromising emails to and from the, I was going to say, Prince Andrew, of course, Andrew Mountbatten, Windsor. who relinquished his title shortly after some of those emails became public knowledge recently. So there are all sorts of questions as to who's linked from Republican side, Democrat side, international politicians. Certainly the White House and Donald Trump says the emails that were released last week, all 23,000 of them, they say show that the president did absolutely nothing wrong.

And Sean, Donald Trump has been posting online saying that this is all a big distraction. It has become a big distraction. It's defining his second term to a certain extent. He has called it a distraction, and that is interesting because as you rightly pointed out a little while ago, he did actually say in running to be president for the second term that he supported releasing the document. So there's certainly been a bit of resistance when he saw it as he puts it as a Democrat distraction. Last week on the floor of the House, there were four House Republicans who joined the Democrats

to support a petition to release these. documents. But the reason that became slightly interesting for the president is one of those House of Republicans to cross the floor is Marjorie Taylor Green, the very controversial Georgia Congresswoman. Big MAGA leading lights appeared alongside President Trump in the run-up to the elections and for many years wearing MAGA hats. Well, she tonight says that essentially that MAGA movement is split. Sean Dilley. Meanwhile, President Trump has hosted the Crown Prince of the World's leading oil exporter. Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia.

It was his first visit to Washington since the killing of the journalist and re-ad critic Jamal Hashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. While Mohammed bin Salman looked to the future promising a trillion dollars of investment in the US and discussing the purchase of American F-35 jets, accusations surrounding the killing continued to come to the surface. Our correspondent Tom Bateman was at the White House.

This was the ultimate lavish welcome for Mohammed bin Salman. Mr. Trump grasping the hand of the Saudi Crown Prince with a flypast of the American warplanes he wants to buy. But this still amounted to a gold-plated rehabilitation of a leader Washington once saw as a pariah over the murder of Jamal Hashoggi, a prominent journalist and critic based in the US at the hands of Saudi agents in 2018.

The inevitable question quickly arose in the Oval Office. And your royal highness, the U.S. intelligence concluded that you orchestrated the brutal murder of a journalist. 9-11 families are furious that you are here in the Oval Office. Who are you with? Who are you? And the same to you, Mr. President. Now, who are you with? I'm with ABC News, sir. You're with who?

ABC News, sir. Fake news. A lot of people didn't like that gentleman that you're talking about. Whether you like him or didn't like him, things happened. But he knew nothing about it. And we can leave it at that. You don't have to embarrass our guests by asking a question like that. It's painful and it's a huge mistake.

And you're doing our best that this doesn't happen again. Jamal Hasoggi's murder and dismemberment at a Saudi consulate in Turkey sparked global outrage. A U.S. intelligence assessment later said the Saudi Crown Prince approved the operation that led to his killing, even though he denied any prior knowledge. This was an extraordinary defense by President Trump of the Saudi Crown Prince. so far as to say he didn't know anything about the murder of Jamal Hashoggi, and it amounts to Mr Trump not for the first time taking the word of a foreign leader over that of his own intelligence agencies. It was Mr Trump's remarkable backing for the Saudi leader over the death

of a dissident that dominated their public comments, an event which had previously left the Crown Prince a global outcast. Now he got the president's most extravagant treatment yet at the White House. Well, Jamal Hashoggi's widow has hit out at President Trump after his over-office comments. Hanal Elata Hashoggi told the BBC there was no justification for her husband's murder. President Trump and the Crown Prince as well, they misinformed really about the personality of Jamal. And I hope I have the opportunity to meet with them and introduce the real Jamal and share with them what is the real brief Jamal, transparent, professional and the kind person, not controversial, not unlikely.

Even if someone doesn't like him, they're not supposed to allow himself to take his life away, kidnap him, to torture him, and kill him in this horrible way. The Crown Prince himself in 2019 and 60 Minutes interview, he did take accountability about and responsible, whole responsibility about this horrible crime. And now I'm seeking his help to get the remaining of my husband's body to bury him a dignify way and to get official apology and to get compensated. They ended my life. The day they killed my husband. They killed me with my husband. Every day I say the daylight, I wish to be died.

Hanan Alata Hashoggi. Despite Russia being sanctioned over its war in Ukraine, the country's oil industry is continuing to make billions of dollars. Moscow is accused of using a shadow fleet to bypass the sanctions on fuel exports. But there are growing concerns about maritime safety. As our correspondent, Jessica Parker, has been finding out in the Baltic Sea. This is a countdown. Aboard a British-built mine hunter on the eastern Baltic.

The ship belongs to the Estonian Navy. Estonia keeps a watchful eye on a fleet of tankers that Moscow's accused of using to dodge Western sanctions on Russian oil after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Some are even suspected of spying or sabotage. We have at any given time in Estonian waters, anywhere between 5 and 10 vessels, that are actually part of the so-called shadow fleet.

Commodore Ivo Vark is the head of the Estonian Navy, and he's noticed something. There is a tendency which I see is alarming, is that when we saw at the beginning of the year that there were a few vessels, sanctioned vessels, that actually didn't have a valid flag. it seems to be that the trend is increasing number of vessels sailing around and having not valid flag.

The dark fleet is getting darker. Cases globally of so-called false flagging have spiked this year as sanctions intensify. These vessels are lawless and stateless, so even if they had insurance, it would be invalidated. Michelle Visa-Bochman is a maritime analyst at intelligence firm Windwood. If there was an accident, then good luck. with trying to find, you know, somebody responsible. How much of a threat do you think the shadow fleet is? Many or most are floating rust buckets.

The shadow fleet is an accident waiting to happen. We've looked at one sanctioned tanker, unity, that's changed flag and name several times in the last five years. Maritime Authority data shows it's flown the flag of the Marshall Islands. This is their national anthem. Also that of Panama, Russia, and Gambia, and one that's been listed as false, the kingdom of Lesotho, a landlocked country in Africa.

Unity was sailing east towards Russia along the Estonian coast at the same time we were out on the Baltic. We've tried emailing and calling the listed owner, which looks to be an Emirati-based firm, FMTC Ship Charter LLC. But, as you can hear, no luck. Now to the western end of the Baltic with the Swedish Coast Guard. On the bridge of the main vessel, they radio a nearby sanctioned tanker. But it's then allowed to carry on towards Russia. Thank you for your cooperation.

Would you say that the response to the shadow fleet is actually quite weak? Another way to put it is that the reaction is as strong as it can be according to the rule-based order. Coast Guard officer, Matthias Lindholm. You guys are doing a lot of watching, a lot of monitoring. That seems to be the priority. I think you have to think at least twice, before entering, let's call it a grey zone

where you are challenging the freedom of the seas. Why? Because the freedom of the seas is crucial for international trade. There are also fears of Russian retaliation. Russia's embassy in London told us that it's the West's sanctions that have heightened the risks and undermined global commerce. The decades-old rules of the sea are now in London. rough waters.

Jessica Parker. Still to come. An update on a deadly snowstorm in one of Chile's most famous national parks and... Hosting test cricket is really expensive. It can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, which is massive amounts of money. You're paying for hotel accommodation, flights for the opposition team. As England and Australia get ready to reignite one of cricket's fiercest rivalries, we find out why five-day matches aren't the money spinners they once were.

America is changing, and so is the world. But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere. I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. I'm Tristan Redman in London, and this is the global story. Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection, where the world and America meet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Israeli authorities say that a man was killed and three others injured by Palestinian attackers in the south of the occupied West Bank near Israeli settlements.

The car ramming and stabbing attack comes at a time of high tensions. in the territory, with UN figures for October showing the number of cases of Israeli settler violence against Palestinians rising to its highest level for any month since it started collecting data nearly 20 years ago. Our Middle East correspondent Yulanelle has been to visit a Palestinian village attacked on Monday. Caught on a security camera, dozens of Israeli settlers surrounded a house. in the village of Juba, setting cars alight. They threw a rock through the window of another,

which had the Mashala family inside. Their baby was hit and taken to hospital. Other homes and vehicles nearby were also attacked in this rampage, and there's graffiti on the walls, death to Arabs. 15-year-old Leanne tells me the settlers want to spread fear. They want to kick us out. They want us to run away from our land. They don't want us to be here so they can achieve their own plan.

Juba is close to settler outposts, built on its land. While all settlements are seen as illegal under international law, outposts aren't authorised by Israel, and the trigger for attacks on Palestinians here appears to have been the Israeli military taking the rare step of moving several new settler caravans. That led to confrontations between soldiers and settlers, some of whom were arrested by Israeli police.

In the aftermath, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed a small extremist group. He said he'll meet ministers and pledged very forceful action against rising settler violence. But there have been few prosecutions of settlers who've been emboldened by the pro-settler policies

of this Israeli government. Israeli security forces have blocked roads as we leave Juba. Close to a busy junction nearby, surrounded by settlements. We hear there's just been an attack by Palestinians on Israelis, with one month.

man killed at the scene, others badly hurt, and the two attackers shot dead. Such deadly acts pushed tension higher, leaving everyone on edge. The US tech giant Meta has won a major legal victory in a case which accused the company of holding a monopoly in social networking. The Federal Trade Commission antitrust law could have forced the company to sell two of its most popular platforms. Our technology correspondent in San Francisco, Lily Jamali, has the details. The Federal Trade Commission had argued that META built its alleged social media monopoly by acquiring its rivals, starting with Instagram in 2012 for $1 billion, and followed two years later by the acquisition of the messaging service WhatsApp for $19 billion.

Judge Bostberg saying in his ruling on Tuesday that the court ultimately concludes that the agency, meaning the FTC, has not carried its burden, that META holds no monopoly in the relevant market. He agreed with Meta's argument that it actually faces a whole host of competitors in the social media space, including from YouTube, as well as TikTok, which only came on the social media scene back in 2018. I've been speaking to antitrust experts today who say that the government has had a number of successes in recent years cracking down on antitrust within big tech, most notably against Google. But that this case does kill. some of that momentum. It was always going to be a harder case to prove, but that it does feel

that the tide is turning somewhat. Lily Jamali. Five tourists have died in a particularly violent snowstorm in one of Chile's most famous national parks in Patagonia. Our reporter Danny Abarhard told us more. We know that the tourists were part of a group that were treking on a circuit in Torres del Pining called the O. It's the main circuit around the the Pyneum Massif. Torres del Piny is an absolutely spectacular national park. A lot of people visit it by bus only, but it's also a trekking mecca. And we know that the weather turns suddenly because Torres del Pini sits right next to the southern Patagonian ice cap. So one moment, it can be incredibly benign with these spectacular views of rugged peaks, turquoise lakes, and sort of

southern beach forests. And then the next you can be caught in. awful storms and sadly this is what has happened to this group there was a fierce snowstorm the group seems to have lost the trail or got lost near one of the campsites there and their bodies have now been found but they have yet to recover the bodies because it's quite an inaccessible part of this circuit and you've been there and you've experienced these very fast wind speeds down there a lot of people a lot of the tracking companies would have known about the conditions, presumably, wouldn't they? So they would take all precautions to mitigate against the problem? Yes, but as I say, the weather can change very, very suddenly. I mean, when I was there,

I've been blown over sideways, forwards and backwards by these incessant winds. But these winds were some of a different level to anything I experienced. It was basically some of the wind speeds were 190 kilometres an hour. That's the equivalent to a category three hurry. If you imagine that you're also in a whiteout, perhaps you've lost the path, and you're in sub-zero temperatures, things can go very bad, very quickly. And this is, sadly, what seems to have happened. There are, of course, trekking companies that do this, but also just independent trekkers make that circuit as well.

Given the conditions you're talking about, it seems remarkable that some other people actually have been rescued. Yes, so we know four people have been rescued. There was a big rescue effort. but 24 people were involved in that, including the army and mountain rescue. So there has been some success, but also obviously a great tragedy. The circuit itself has been closed, and President Borich of Chile has sent his condolences to the victims.

Danny Aberhardt. Now, even if you have just a passing interest in cricket, you will know that the ashes starts on Friday between England and Australia. With matches that can last up to five days, it's still drawing in the crowds. But the sport has changed in the past couple of decades and many now prefer the shorter T20 format. Our reporter Will Bain has been finding out

if Tess Cricket still has a future. Cricket, a gentleman's game. But not when it comes to the action. England versus Australia returns to TV screens this week for one of cricket's fiercest rivalries and as a result, one of its biggest marketing hooks. And whilst this series has reportedly raked in tens of millions of dollars in TV revenue,

the pop for rights for that type of cricket globally is drying up and dwarfed by the shorter T20 version of cricket, which is all over in a few hours. India's Premier League leads the way in that market and was watched by more than a billion households earlier this year for its latest annual competition. Streaming and TV rights for the next five years have been sold for a record $6 billion.

Hi, I'm Prakash Warkinkar, and I love cricket in every form. And I've spent the last 20-odd years, been blessed to be able to work with the BBC across its multiple platforms. Prakash Warkinkeh explained more about the IPL's explosive economic growth. What the IPL did in 2008 when it began with a huge amount of fanfare and Rasmataz is it brought Bollywood front and centre. It brought music, parties, entertainment, clothing and colours and designs of playing kits which would never been seen in India before

and the way it was marketed as an evening out for the family. So it became an entertaining evening with cricket as its ostensible centrepiece. The IPL's success has seen a whole circuit of short-form franchise-based leagues spring up around the world from Australia to the Caribbean and South Africa. Welcome to the incredible Betway S.825. And as that supply of more and more cricket has spread, so demand for those longer test matches has waned.

It raises a question that perhaps goes beyond cricket and in fact sport to the TV streaming content wars that of course propel all of this more broadly. When is less more? South Africa has already come up with an interesting answer to that. Its men's team won't play a long-form test match in South Africa for the next 18 months. For Dosmunda, Southern Africa correspondent, for the website ESPN Crick Info, explain more. Hosting test cricket is really expensive.

It can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, which is massive amounts of money. You know, you're paying for hotel accommodation, flights for the opposition team, the actual facility, and then all the costs that come with the broadcasting, hosting and so on. Of course, you do get broadcast fees. But the South African reality is that they only make money from the broadcasters if they are hosting England, India, and to a tiny extent, Australia. So hosting all the other teams doesn't make them any money at all. It costs them money.

So how important is the England-Australia test series off the field for the global game? Russell James is a former head of marketing at the governing body, the England and Wales Cricket Board. I think in the context of English cricket and English audiences, the ashes in particular is by far and away the most dominant cricket product or brand, sub-brand or whatever word you want to use within cricket, much more than the IPL was within this country. Russell James ending that report by Will Bain.

And finally in this podcast, a prisoner in the Australian state of Victoria is challenging a law which bans inmates eating the popular food spread vegemite. Andre McKechnie, who's serving a life sentence for murder, said the law breaches his human right to enjoy his culture as an Australian. Ella Bicknell reports. Most children adore vegemite, and it's good for them from the age of five months or even younger. Follow these instructions, there'll be no failure.

It's vegemite. Taste like Australia. The salty, sticky spread made from yeast extract has been a staple in Australian households for more than a century. Four and five people have a jar of it in their kitchen cupboards. But one place you won't find a jar of vegemite is in a prison in the state of Victoria. In 2006, it was banned

after inmates smeared the spread over packages of contraband drugs, hoping to confuse the sensitive noses. of sniffer dogs. Andre McKechnie, an inmate in Victoria's maximum security port-fillip prison, says the rule breaches the state's Human Rights Act, which protects a person's right to enjoy his or her culture as an Australian. In his lawsuit, he said prison authorities should declare they fail to provide food adequate to maintain his well-being. The 54-year-old is serving a life sentence for a murder he committed in the 1990s. Some describe McKekney's request as frivolous, an offensive to those who have lost loved ones in

fatal stabbings. His case is due to be heard next year. Ella Bicknell. And that's all from us for now, but there will be a new edition of the Global News Podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is Global Podcast at BBC.co.com.uk. You can also find us on X at BBC World Service. Use the hashtag Global NewsPod. This edition was mixed by Derek Clark. The editor is Karen Martin, I'm Nick Miles, and until next time, goodbye.