Ken Paxton Dominates Cornyn Ahead of Race Against RADICAL Talarico, with Tom Bevan, and SHOCK Prince Andrew Stories | Ep. 1326

27:48Same way Trump was not convicted in the Senate of his impeachments, neither was Paxton. he did face an indictment criminally that he somehow managed to kind of beat. He never pleaded guilty, but then he did agree to a mild punishment. In any event, put that to the side because the like brash middle finger starting millions of fights. This guy, I love Ken Paxton because I love all the legal fights he's chosen. Like over the years, every single one, And I've been like, yes, yes. Who is this guy? This is amazing. You know, like every single thing he's taken. So he's not afraid. And, you know, Cornyn, again, doesn't seem like a bad person, though swampy.

28:32But just like to you, you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. And I do wonder, I'm going to play this sound, but you tell me whether this tells us something about the mindset of Republicans in Texas and beyond about where they'd like to see their party go. Watch. I mean, everybody talks about rhinos and draining the swamp and Washington, D.C. corruption. I mean, John Cornyn is the face of all that. John Cornyn, as a Texas senator, is an amnesty guy. He's talked about it multiple times, how he wants to do an amnesty deal for illegals. After that horrible Uvalde school shooting, John Cornyn was the one who worked with Democrats to pass gun control legislation.

29:12John Cornyn has screwed over the right time and time and time again. but John Cornyn is insanely powerful. He's a very high-ranking Republican, and he keeps the swamp full, and John Cornyn's one of these guys who keeps a lot of pockets full in D.C. Of course, it's always taxpayer money. He finds a way to get money spread around Washington, D.C., like so many of these long-established senators do, and then miraculously, when he comes up for re-election, instead of having a normal war chest, John Cornyn had$100 million to spend on the primary alone. Why do you think they did that? Because they love his winning personality.

29:52They did that because the guy spent 20 plus years funneling money back to them. And he's going to spend the next six doing the exact same thing. It's all about money and power. It's everything gross that grosses normal people out about politics is this exact race right here. Pretty good, Tom. What do you think? Yeah, there's definitely something to it. I mean, I don't know that Cornyn was seen as corrupt, but he definitely, you know, he was seen as part of the establishment. And that's not where the base of the party is. I mean, this is the lesson for all of these politicians. And we see this on the left and the right, which is when you stop responding to the wants and desires of your constituents, you're going to get replaced.

30:33And that's exactly what happened. He was not responding to the MAGA base in Texas. He was still running sort of the George W. Bush, you know, Republican Party playbook in Washington, D.C. And so he was promptly shown the door. And as you mentioned at the top of the show, I mean, Paxton was ahead in the polls, but I don't think anybody saw it being a 30 point blowout, which is what it ended up being. And so I think that was a pretty emphatic answer by the base of the party in Texas, that they had had enough of this guy and they wanted somebody new who they feel like is going to fight for what they want.

31:11Yep. Jesse's show is called I'm Right, and I think he's feeling that way today. Back to the now Paxton-Talerico matchup. There was a little debate about this on CNN between David Axelrod and Scott Jennings, both, I think, doing a pretty good job of articulating what we're going to see over the next couple of months as this fight starts to play out. This is a big one. This is a big one. Democrats feel like this could be a damn pickup and they feel like Republicans have just helped them. So it's interesting to hear what Axelrod is saying and how Jennings is defending it. You know, preview of the next of the summer months.

31:49Watch. The Texas economy isn't great. People have concerns about affordability. The Hispanic vote in Texas, which was very strong for Donald Trump in 2024, is now by double digits in Tallarico's corner in this race. I don't think security fraud is mainstream in Texas or some of the other problems that Paxton's. I don't think paying six million dollars or millions of dollars out to whistleblowers because of the abuse of them by Paxton, who they blew the whistle on, is mainstream. I don't think that's what people think in Texas. I don't think six genders, no meat, and calling the American flag a complicated symbol is mainstream.

32:33Well, we'll fight it out. But I think at the end of the day, people are going to want someone who's going to speak to their concerns. And this is not their main concern. We ran that race in 24. Trump got elected. I'm not sure it's going to play in 26. Democrats learn nothing. You heard Axelrod try to wiggle on those accusations by Jenning. I mean, we've already gone through them. They're on camera. The wiggling is not going to fly. He's said what he said. It wasn't in the distant past. You're going to have to deal with it. He actually is very radical, this guy. And no amount of ribs dripping in barbecue sauce will save him.

33:09All that is required to sink him is an exposure of things he's actually said, similar to Kamala Harris, frankly. But those are sort of the battle lines. And Ken Paxton, you tell me, Tom. So I hadn't actually been paying that much attention, to be honest, to his issues in his past. But there are quite a few. He's got a fair amount of baggage. Does any of them stick, do you think? Do any of them stick around and actually gain traction now that it's Dem versus Republican in Texas? Well, look, I think you saw Tallarico. He's going to he's going to argue, you know, corruption and that he's corrupt and that he's part of, you know, the Republican Party from top to bottom from Trump and his, you know, one point eight billion dollar antiweaponization slash slush fund in the ballroom and all that stuff.

33:59that Ken Paxson is just a corrupt foot soldier in Trump's corrupt Republican army. Will that have some sway with voters? Yeah, probably a little bit. Certainly the economy is still the number one issue. And that is going to be where I think Tallarico is going to make his best points is that, look, Trump promised all these things. He didn't deliver. I'm going to go and try and deliver on behalf of Texans. However, and you're right, Ken Paxton has, he's got issues, he's got marital issues in his past. I mean, all these things are going to be sort of in the background. But Tallarico is just, as we've talked about repeatedly, look, Tallarico has, I think he raised earth shattering.

34:42It was like a record setting,$27 million in the first quarter. They're going to spend$200,$250 million on this race when all is said and done, both sides. it's going to be an absolute bruising battle and so both of these candidates are going to take their hits but eventually the public is going to be fully informed about both these candidates and they're going to have to stand on stage one-on-one and ken paxton is going to be able to you know and tallarico is going to have to defend those statements and he may try and say well he's lying about me i never said this but to your point i don't think that's going to fly if you've seen on television for six months him actually saying all of these things so yeah it's going to be it's going to be a an absolute barn burner of race and obviously you know this is a race that republicans would rather not spend all of the time and hundreds of millions of dollars on they'd rather be spending it on other races in other parts of the country but but we are where we are it's it is going to be an interesting case uh test case because both both bases got what they want right the democratic base got their left-wing darling who who they think is going to finally turn the state blue and Republicans got their MAGA red meat guy who's going to, you know, take it to them.

35:50And so we'll see. It's going to be fun to watch. Yeah. A word on the economy. For the first time in recent days, the rate of inflation is higher than the wage growth across the United States. So people's wage growth is not keeping up with the price of inflation. Wage growth was, I think 3.6 and inflation is 3.8. That's not good. That's going to become a democratic talking point. Yet another reason why we need to get inflation down, why we need to wrap up the war, why we need to like actually be focused on economic issues. If we want to continue seeing people like Tallarico get defeated. I want to talk about Paxton's past, but just as a quick side aside, I mentioned it in the intro.

36:36Tallarico, he goes to the St. Andrews Presbyterian Church where he's working on becoming some sort of a minister. And the Daily Wire reporting this morning, there the children have access to a library stocked with banned books that promote ideas rejected by most Christians, including books that contain descriptions of anal rape, incest, and oral sex. There is a book called Gender Queer. We've talked about that before. All Boys Aren't Blue, which discusses anal rape and incest. Sorry. Other books in the church catalog include this book is gay trans kids. Our kids called out the voices and gifts of LGBTQ Presbyterians, the courage to be queer becoming Nicole, the transformation of an American family, which is about a boy who's trying to turn into a girl, which is not possible.

37:30This book is gay has a chapter on the ins and outs of gay sex. I mean, I think we can figure it out. and this is being offered in a church, in a Presbyterian church that he attends and where he'd like to become a minister. The book, The Courage to be Queer, claims that God is queer, which dovetails well with his belief that God is non-binary. So it's not a one-off. And this is the same church where Tallarico delivered his sermon that asserted our trans community needs abortion care too. Needs abortion care too. Like this guy, Tom, this this if not only would I be excited to run against him if I were Ken Paxton, but I'd be thrilled on the national Republican level to to hang this guy like an albatross around the neck of every Democrat, same as they're going to do with Mom Donnie.

38:25Do you agree with that? Do you where do you stand on this? Do you support his candidacy? Do you believe that there are six genders? Do you think God is queer? Do you think that transgender people need abortion care? Like, that's what they should do over and over and over. There should be 10 ,000 ads almost immediately across the country talking about how radical these Democrats are, how they've learned to be a little quiet about it. But this is who they're nominating. Yeah, it's look, I'll just go back. This is not California. This is not Illinois. This is not New York. This is Texas. And so that story, while in those other blue states, it might not be seen as as big of a deal.

39:06I think this this story is going to haunt him. And, you know, we'll see also how the media handles him and whether they hold his feet to the fire and they ask him tough questions about things like this story or they just kind of give him a pass. And that that remains to be seen because even the media in Texas is, you know, slants to the left for the most part. So, you know, it's interesting to make you talk about and we talked about this a little bit on our program because we talked about Graham Plattner and you look at these candidates. I mean, it is going to be astonishing if in a year which is seen as like a blue wave year, Democrats are almost certainly going to take the House of Representatives and, you know, gas is four and a half dollars a gallon.

39:52Trump's approval ratings at its lowest level in his second term in our RCP average, and Republicans are sort of fighting uphill battles. If Democrats throw away three Senate races that they could win in Texas with Graham Plattner up in Maine, and if they nominate El Syed in Michigan, that could be another one that Republicans actually win a seat. And we've seen this happen in the past. Republicans have done it. They did it with Sharon Engel when she was running against Terry Reid, Christine O'Donnell, Todd Akin. It happens. Even in good years for a party, they nominate someone who is so far outside of the mainstream that they can't get them across the finish line, even with a big tailwind.

40:32And that might be a situation that Democrats find themselves in, not just Texas, but other states as well. It's a very good point. The Paxton issues relate to his behavior, for the most part, in office. He also is accused of having a couple of affairs on his wife. I'm not sure Republican voters care about that anymore. You know, look who our president is. Like, I kind of feel like, mm, the argument, like, by Heather McDonald, that, like, you can't regulate Eros, she says. Do you remember, can I just make a quick comment? Do you remember in the 2000 election when the biggest story was that George Bush had gotten a DUI like 20 years before?

41:20And that was the big dirt that dropped the weekend. I mean, that wouldn't even make a ripple in today's environment. No one would care. And I agree with you. The idea of like, you know, an affair here and there is so passe now. It's like I don't know that anybody cares about that anymore on either side. I know. I'm like, OK, so he has been unhappily married. Got it. But they may care about some of these, I don't know. I'll tell you what it is. So my team has done this research and used, among others, ABC in Texas. Several months after taking office as attorney general in 2015, he was indicted on felony securities fraud charges in Texas and was accused of misleading investors in a company years earlier.

42:04So securities fraud in connection with his time in the private sector. And he would have faced decades in prison if convicted. The case dragged on for nearly nine years. It ended in a pretrial agreement in March 2024 that required him to complete community service and pay restitution, but he did not have to enter a plea under the deal. So that means he's not technically convicted, but he made this case go away by paying some money and doing some community service. That's an amazing outcome for anybody charged with a crime. Anybody would take that. I don't know how he got it, but good for him because that's a good outcome.

42:42Along the way, he also faced a civil case based on similar allegations brought by the SEC, but that was thrown out by the judge in 2016. So the SEC could not make the case against him. And clearly the federal securities fraud charges brought against him in Texas, the prosecutor did not have faith in making them in court because they wouldn't have agreed to such a sweetheart deal for Paxton if they believed in them. So I've got an asterisk on both of those, on that particular controversy about his federal security charges. I've got an asterisk. It's not great, but I don't think they got him. Then in 2020, a group of top Paxton deputies reported him to the FBI voicing concern that he was abusing his office.

43:30Now, these are Paxton deputies, so these are going to be Republicans. These are not Democrats doing a hit job on him. But they're top Paxton deputies who reported him to the FBI voicing concerns that he was abusing his office as the AG to help an Austin real estate investor and political donor by the name of Nate Paul. Some of the Paxton employees resigned, but four were fired, and they later sued Paxton under the Texas Whistleblower Act. He fought bitterly with the former aides in court and in public, branding them rogue and disgruntled. And in 2025, a Travis County district court judge agreed that the former aides were improperly fired and awarded them$6.6 million.

44:11Paxton appealed, but then dropped his appeal a few months later after announcing his Senate campaign. So he abandoned his appeal, and it appears to be acknowledged then that he owed those four fired alleged whistleblowers$6.6 million. The FBI investigated the whistleblower claims against him, but the Justice Department declined to prosecute. And you may think, ah, that's Trump. He endorsed him. No, it was Joe Biden's DOJ that said there is no there there. Whatever. This is a civil matter, if anything. and they declined to pursue it. The DOJ did not go after Paxton. The claims by the whistleblowers were central to the impeachment that was brought against him in the Texas House in 2023.

45:01That was a Republican-controlled body that impeached him, but he was acquitted in the Senate on all 16 articles of impeachment that were brought against him, including one that accused him of bribery and so on. So that it's a checkered history for sure. I guess, you know, politics, as they say, Tom, it ain't beanball. No, it's not. And look, it's the most damning part about that is that it was, you know, the whistleblowers were Republicans and he was impeached by Republicans because that is something, you know, you can't just wave away. He's like, oh, it was a partisan witch hunt, right? And that's obviously what Tallarico is going to.

45:42And this$6 million settlement is also something that Tallarico has already talked about. And whether that was, you know, spending taxpayer money to clean up after this corrupt guy. I mean, he's going to continue to use that as an argument. So, yeah, he's got baggage. I mean, everybody knew about this ahead of time. They knew about the infidelity stuff. uh and so you know they but they but they nominated him warts and all and and so this is what the republican party wanted and it's what they got and again we may look back at this and say it was a terrible decision by donald trump to wade in and endorse him he probably was going to win anyway um and and maybe maybe republicans are the ones who have nominated someone who's outside the mainstream and will cost them a race that they probably would have otherwise won oh boy oh boy Yeah, well, one of these two, one of these people is going to be too radical for Texas, and it's clearly going to be Tallarico.

46:37But anyway, the this is the reason Thune threw up his arm, you know, because Thune, of course, thought Cornyn was going to be easier to get across the finish line in November. And by the way, the polling data didn't totally support that either, Megan. It was like Tallarico and who didn't what did the polling data, the general election matchups, you know, But Cornyn was running like a point better than then, which is basically statistical noise. I mean, they were basically, Republicans were running even against Tallarico. I think he was leading by a point and a half from one and a half a point in the other or something like that.

47:10It was not some dramatic like John Cornyn is going to win this race by 10 points and Ken Paxton is going to lose it by five. I mean, it was basically the same. Well, Thune and other top Republicans are reportedly also worried about the money in the Republican coffers saying we don't have Ken Paxton, as they say, notoriously bad at raising money and that this is going to cost the national GOP one hundred million dollars, which they didn't have to spend. That Cornyn would have been a shoe in. I don't know. But that's apparently another objection that the more establishment Republicans have. Really, one of the things that this came down to, though, Tom, in my estimation from my corner of the world is the SAVE Act.

47:52Because the SAVE Act is this federal bill that would require voter ID everywhere on a national level, among other things. It would just tighten up the voting restrictions or requirements state to state for these elections. And there's no way of getting it passed without getting rid of the filibuster or changing the filibuster in some way. You can switch to the, you know, requiring the actual verbal filibustering where like you can't just say we filibuster and they say, OK, it's filibustered. We're screwed. You could bring back the actual verbal filibuster where you you just actually have to have a senator filibuster stopping the debate on this thing.

48:29Yeah. Yeah. Over and over nonstop. But or you could actually have a vote to eliminate the filibuster and along with it, minority rights in the Senate. And that could be done with the votes that we have now in the Republican Senate, Republican-controlled Senate. It could be done by majority vote. I actually looked this up. Okay, so this is how it would go. You'd have to have a rules change. You'd have to have somebody try to bring the SAVE Act to the floor. And then somebody would say, okay, well, we filibuster the vote. or you don't have 60 votes to bring it to the floor. And then they'd have to have sort of a point of order within the Senate.

49:16And the Republicans would basically have, the Republican, I think maybe the parliamentarian would have to overrule the filibuster, like overrule it and say, we're not gonna stop debate on this. We are gonna bring it to the floor and therefore changing the filibuster and the minority rights in the Senate forever. There are many, many Republicans who want this done, Tom, because they think the Democrats are going to do it when they get control. Some say, let's just do it on a limited basis, the way we first got rid of it for federal court district judges. And then Republicans said, we're going to pull it for Supreme Court judges too.

49:47Maybe you could do it on just election related bills. Cornyn was dragging his feet on it, but eventually said, okay, I'll do it. Because he knew his electoral chances were dwindling. They still don't have the votes. They don't have the Republican votes to do it. They do not have 51 Republican senators who would do it. So where does that leave us on the SAVE Act, this whole thing? Well, you know, that was interesting because after the initial primary, right, Trump weighed in and was like, basically offered to endorse Cornyn if he would publicly come out in favor of moving the SAVE Act, right? And it was almost like a quid pro quo for the endorsement.

50:22Yeah. And that's the other thing. So, and by the way, I don't, Trump has been out, very outspoken. He's been hammering on the Republicans in the Senate to do this, right? He break the filibuster, get this done, because he knows once this election comes through, I mean, he's basically going to be a lame duck and it's going to be very hard for them to get anything done, particularly if they do lose the Senate. But I also think Trump has – it's been so weird. Like he congratulated Ken Paxton today, but also was like, John Cornyn is going to be a good friend of mine for a long time. And I mean, he's been very, very favorably disposed.

50:57Normally, you know, everyone's talking about Trump's revenge tour and he's taken out all these folks that have crossed him in some way. Bill Cassidy here and Thomas Massey over there. John Cornyn didn't seem to, he seemed to like John Cornyn. It's not that John Cornyn did anything. It was a base play. Yes. It was a base play. Trump needed to give the base a bone. The base is mad about Epstein. There are a lot in the base who don't love Iran. This is like a no brainer. It's for the Jesse Kellys of the world. They're like, I'm sick of being disappointing. He saw the wind was blowing. He saw the wind was blowing in Ken Paxson's direction and sort of jumped on the bandwagon.

51:29He would never say that, but that's effectively what happened. Yeah, and got his way. And Jesse Kelly got his way, which we're happy about too. All right, Tom, thank you very much. Coming up next, a bizarre and gripping royal deep dive. Don't go away. When there are supply constraints on commodities, prices surge. You see it with fuel prices, with everything happening in the Strait of Hormuz. And you know what else is a limited commodity? Gold. They mine it out of the ground, and when it's gone, it's gone. Governments cannot just print more gold. And that's why everyone from central banks to savvy savers consider diversifying with gold.

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54:38Andrew Loney is a royal biographer and investigative journalist, and he's making some explosive new claims that must have Buckingham Palace absolutely freaking out. Just to give you a preview, the book talks about Prince Andrew's hatred for King Charles, new accounts of Andrew's alleged predatory behavior, including requests for 16-year-old blondes, 16, and his need for two hotel rooms, writes the author, one for sleeping and one for entertaining sex workers. Also, Andrew's fights with Prince Harry, like physical fights, other kinds of fights with Prince William and Meghan Markle. There's really kind of no one he gets along with other than his old pal Jeffrey Epstein before he died and Ghislaine Maxwell.

55:26So this thing is a must-read summer book, to say the least. The book is entitled The Rise and Fall of the House of York. Entitled. It's called Entitled The Rise and Fall of the House of York. And it's available right now. I think you're going to enjoy it. Andrew, welcome to the show. Lovely to be with you. It's wonderful to see you. This, I mean, my jaw was on the floor reading this book. I don't even know where to begin. A couple of highlights up front here from the notes that we took. He, as I said in the tease for your book at the top of the hour, it wasn't just Virginia Dufresne, who was a young woman with whom he allegedly slept, the Jeffrey Epstein young woman.

56:10You say he had multiple requests. It was kind of standard for 16-year-old blondes while traveling as the UK envoy that he was known for allegedly groping young girls at parties and stewardesses on planes and, for example, sending pictures, naked pictures, to senior army officers, including the chief of the defense staff, that it was an open secret. What a creep he was when it came to young girls and women. Yeah, it's extraordinary. I mean, these stories with people on the record have never really emerged. And I'm just amazed that, you know, that they haven't, because he was extraordinary with his predatory behaviour.

56:54And he's finally been called out. In fact, I only used about 10 percent of the material I had. I've added another 40 pages to the paperback. But I just had so many of these stories, again, with people on the record, former protection officers, policemen, members of staff, that, you know, you just can't ignore them. So it reminded me of when he went on with the BBC, when the allegations of him and Virginia Dufresne and his connections with Epstein and his renewal of the friendship, even after Epstein struck that plea deal on underage, solicitation of an underage prostitute, which again is not a thing, But in any event, you can't can't be prostitute if you're underage.

57:36That's that's called rape or sexual assault. In any event, he gave a disastrous interview to the BBC that was just so bad. It was kind of the end of him as a public figure. But he, of course, was asked about the Virginia Dufresne allegation. She's the young blonde who was in that infamous picture of Prince Andrew at an Epstein party with Ghislaine Maxwell. And he tried to deny any knowledge of her. But here's a bit from that. 51B. July of this year Epstein was arrested on charges of sex trafficking and abusing dozens of underage girls. One of Epstein's accusers, Virginia Roberts, has made allegations against you.

58:14She says she met you in 2001. She says she dined with you, danced with you at Tramp Nightclub in London. She went on to have sex with you in a house in Belgravia belonging to Gerlaine Maxwell, your friend. Your response? I have no recollection of ever meeting this lady. None whatsoever. You don't remember meeting her? No. She says she met you in 2001. She dined with you. She danced with you. You bought her drinks. You were in Tramp Nightclub in London. And she went on to have sex with you in a house in Belgravia belonging to Ghirlane Maxwell. Didn't happen. Do you remember her? No. I have no recollection of ever meeting her.

59:06I'm almost, in fact, I'm convinced that I was never in tramps with her. There are a number of things that are wrong with that story. One of which is that I don't know where the bar is in tramps. I don't drink. I don't think I've ever bought a drink in Trump whenever I was there. This is like every lie detecting skill I have is going. It's like so many lies there. It's so obvious. But the reason I raise it is because, Andrew, there were multiple. It's possible he didn't remember her. It actually is possible. I see the sound by a little differently here because there appear to have. It looks like there was a girl in every port.

59:55I mean, there were certainly a lot of girls, absolutely. I mean, but the fact is that he ordered Virginia Giffray off a catalogue, in effect. There were these books of photographs that were circulated, and he kind of, it's not by chance that she was brought to him. We know from some of the Epstein file releases that he was actually discussing Virginia Giffray and her story as soon as the story broke. They were looking at ways to how they could discredit her. A PR firm was brought in to do that. and that continues to this day. If you've gone to Trump, you'll know that the bar is literally on the dance floor.

1:00:29You can't literally go there without seeing the bar. I had countless people say that actually he does drink, and it was an extraordinary thing. He was lying about things he didn't even need to lie about, and that was what I found with the book, both he and Sarah Ferguson. Every single thing they said had to be double-checked because you couldn't believe a single thing. The book points something out that's actually very sad and I confess made me view Queen Elizabeth differently. But you suggest that he had a sexual experience as young as age eight with somebody, which again, would not be a sexual experience.

1:01:09That would be an assault of some sort if it's with anybody who's older. and that by the time he was 12, I think you write, he'd had at least half a dozen sexual partners. I mean, this is horrific to me, like what happened to him when he was young and really did make me start to reassess the queen who was not just a queen, but was his mother. Yes, absolutely. I mean, it's an extraordinary story. I was very nervous about putting it in. It seemed far-fetched, but it came from a good source. It does, in some ways, present him as a victim. It does explain the sex addiction, the inability to sustain relationships, the constant need for sex workers.

1:01:49And certainly talking that came from a good source. I got other sources saying similar things, involvements with other members of female members of staff there. I mean, he was physically quite well developed, though emotionally kind of arrested. And I mean, these stories don't seem to be unique. I mean, to us, they seem shocking. But I think Diana's brother talks about a similar experience when he was at prep school. So I kind of put it in there, hoping it might flush out more people. And some people have come forward with more stories to back it up. So it does paint him in a slightly different light.

1:02:23And I was very keen that this shouldn't be a hatchet job. I should try and present him in as balanced way as I could. I should be as sympathetic as I could towards him to try and explain his behaviour. And I think this does give us some other new insights. But you're absolutely right. The Queen does not emerge well from this book. I was vilified when the book came out for even suggesting that she could have put her own family ahead of the crown, for example, and that she should have behaved in this way. But we mothers do have blind spots. And it's now, in some ways, becoming clearer and clearer that she did make all sorts of excuses for her son.

1:02:59She kind of buried her head in the sand, if anything, was brought to her about some of his activities. and the palace itself is now trying to shift the blame onto the queen to protect the king, King Charles. I mean she certainly was involved in paying the hush money to Virginia Giffrey, the 12 million pounds to keep her quiet and she was aware of what was going on. She couldn't not be aware. Not only was the story in the press the whole time but actually her own lawyers were being written to by various people with stories about Andrew's activities and members of the intelligence services and the foreign office were constantly giving her stories of his bad behavior.

1:03:37But just to round back, are you suggesting you do not have that nailed down? Because that's quite a thing to put in your book if you don't have it nailed down. You say, according to a source close to Andrew, he had his first sexual experience aged eight, lost his virginity at 11 after a friend's father hired two escorts for the boys in a West End hotel. I mean, is there doubt in your mind? Because in fairness to Prince Andrew, that should be really clear. No, I mean, the source has proved to be very accurate. As I say, I was surprised the lawyers let it through. But other things have come to light since the book came out that kind of reinforced that story.

1:04:10So I think that was, you know, it was justified to run it. And as I say, various things were going on in that prep school. It's not unique to have boys who have their sexual experience at that sort of early age. But I agree. I imagine if you're a prince, it's not hard to get girls, but like more than half a dozen before age 13 is the age you put here. That is that's very damaging to a young boy. And it just to me, it's like very sad. I would imagine even if the queen isn't sitting there at prep school with him. Isn't there someone who oversees these boys like these the royals in particular to make sure that they're being brought up right, that there's adult supervision, that they're not being.

1:04:53I don't just take an advantage of by whoever allowed this to happen. You're absolutely right. I mean, there's a duty of care to someone of that age. It is an extraordinary story. I stand by my source and as I say, other new materials come along since then to back it up. But it is an extraordinary story. But it does, in some ways, explain his subsequent behavior, you know, his inability to sustain relationships and, you know, this constant need for masseurs and sex workers and things. So I think it's... Well, and not just in the course of his life, but in the course of his marriage, because you also write, you know, he married Fergie, and you have it from their former driver, that he had slept with more than a dozen women before their first anniversary.

1:05:41I mean, is there, what is it like in these royal marriages? Is there any real covenant of fidelity? Or like, is this an Andrew thing? Or is this a royal thing? Well, I think it's a royal narrow Socratic thing. I mean, the, we know from Sarah's own father that she was sort of, I mean, there was a physical attraction to start with, but they kind of quickly moved off in their different directions. They both had had pretty racy lives as Bachelor and Spinster. It was a lot of pressure on both of them to settle down. and um i mean as i say her father had had admitted that she was more in love with the royal family than she was with andrew and he was away very quickly i mean away for long periods either on naval bases or on ships uh and she felt very lonely she was stuck in this gloomy buckingham palace with very little support uh and um i'm afraid things began to happen on both sides yeah so she she also does not come up she doesn't come off well in this book at all i mean she was a spendthrift she couldn't spend enough of the british taxpayers money she seems to be a glutton that's the what i took away from the book that she's a glutton for food for alcohol for cigarettes for sexual partners she lied about her relationship with epstein the book suggests maintaining a very close friendship with him long after she claimed it was over post his guilty plea on that charge we discussed.

1:07:10What do you make of her after having studied and researched her for so long? Well, I think she's a very sort of Jekyll and Hyde character. And there are a lot of very good qualities. She's loyal. She's generous. She can be very kind. She has this great ability, empathy with disadvantaged children. And she was seen as a breath of fresh air, a sort of Meghan Markle character. She'd had her own career. She'd lived with someone before she got married. And it started off well. She was a popular member of the royal family. But quite quickly, she was seen to be taking advantage of her position. She was selling stories to the papers and photographs of her family.

1:07:48Sarah Ferguson we're talking about now. This is Sarah Ferguson. Not Markle. Yeah. And well, I mean, Meghan Markle, I think, has tried to model herself in many ways in Sarah Ferguson. And unfortunately, there was very little control. And I think she realized she'd gotten to the sweetie shop and she could take advantage. But I think she started off with a genuine wish to do good. I mean, she has done a lot of good work with various charities. But the problem is she gets confused between the lines you need to leave between charitable work and financial interests, social ambitions, laundering reputation, etc.

1:08:24et cetera. Uh, and well, what does she come from? Because when I, when I read your stories about Sarah Ferguson, Andrew's wife at the time, they're divorced now, but I thought this is a girl who like, she, she is now a Royal and she is going to exploit it for everything it's worth. I mean, you write that, um, at night she would down a handful, a handful of sizable vodkas, then take to the wine, her cigarette butts littered the house, despite her desperate attempts to give up. that she was putting on weight and depressed, that she was seen wandering aimlessly around without makeup. Her eyes were tired, looked like her soul was gone.

1:09:04She was no longer quite in control. That it shed light on her life at Sunning Hill, where they lived, I guess, where each evening staff would prepare up to 10 different types of pasta for her. Because weighed down with the cares of coping with royal life, she could never make up her mind what she wanted to eat. her bills for food alone had escalated to 40 ,000 pounds a year. Based on the interviews with staff members, her foibles included demanding that all her knickers, bras, and tights be ironed, not to mention when she sat down for breakfast in the morning, she wanted fresh-squeezed orange juice, and the oranges had to be squeezed just as she sat down.

1:09:42She had a staff of 17, which I'll list in a minute, but I mean, she was leaning in to the royal life, Andrew. Yes, exactly. No, she loved it. I mean, you know, as I say, it was like going to the sweetie shop. And she, you know, she's very extravagant. She can't decide. Someone described her as greedy and needy. And I think that does sum her up. And that's not a good combo. No, no, it's a very dangerous combo, she discovered. And I think that was a problem. And there was no one there to give her any direction. I mean, her mother had gone away when she was 13 with an Argentinian polo player. Her husband was away.

1:10:21Her sister lived in Australia. And the palace kind of washed their hands a bit of her. And she just was this she always had low self-esteem. She had problems with her weight. She was taking lots of diet pills, which affected her moods. And, you know, she was a mess. And she's not an intelligent person. She was drawn to psychics. I think she's talking to three or four different psychics a day. and she kind of lost direction in her life. I mean, there is a side to her where she can sort of pick herself up when she falls right to the bottom and through just sheer perseverance and hard work and self-discipline, which is not a word you normally associate with her, she can do amazing things.

1:11:03She was a great advert for Weight Watchers in the States, later for Wedgwood China, and a lot of companies were very happy to pay a large sum of money to act as a brand ambassador. So, but you also point out on the excesses, she employed the staff of 17, including a cook driver, maid, butler, dresser, nanny, three secretaries, a personal assistant, a lady in waiting, accountant, accountant's assistant, two gardeners, flower arranger and dog walker. An accountant brought in to cut costs as one member of the staff what he did and received the reply. I pick up the dog shit. And you, he asked, pointing to the person beside him.

1:11:40I help him. In the meantime, you report that she treated the staff infamously poorly, that she had tantrums, that there was high staff turnover. She was screaming at employees. She would she would regularly reduce the staff to wrecks. And then she'd wonder why they were so unhappy. And on top of that, you reported that on the charities, you give her credit for the charities that she started. But you point out that when she was asked by some to go help with other charities, instead of saying, sure, I'll be there and I'll foot the bill, she would go and she would ask for two expensive suites and she would want a plane ticket, even though the place is only two hours away.

1:12:26And she'd want to bring staff. I mean, like she was exploiting, you know, usually when a charity asks you to come, it's OK to get a speaking fee. but you try to keep all your expenses down to a minimum or, you know, like you foot them yourself. This was not her approach. So she seems to be abusive, insecure, somewhat gluttonous, and not that generous a person. No, I think that's the sort of cynical nature of her, that she used charities to, as I say, enhance her social ambitions, you know, to meet stars, but also to kind of launder her reputation. I mean, the charities that she, indeed, Andrew and the children supported were for Traffic Woman.

1:13:05And yet of all the people, they seem to be most disdainful of them. They were very happy to mix with predators like Peter Nygaard and Jeffrey Epstein and P. Diddy and others. But, yeah, it's an extraordinary behaviour. and the repeated stories of her insisting on security, costs of security, hairdressers, when she did these social events. And often I approached the charities and asked, you know, she claims she's raised so much money. Actually, how much did she raise? And they'd say, well, actually, we raised nothing because it was all eaten up in expenses. And several times, you know, people had to, like the case you quote, put their own hands in their pocket just to cover the expenses because they didn't feel they could charge the charity.

1:13:51Just a very cynical use of charities. There's a story which is breaking now about one of her boyfriends who earned quite a lot of money from government grants to develop an app which never happened. And they set up a charity on the side which never actually did any charitable work, is now being investigated by the Charities Commission. Her daughter's charity, the Anti-Slavery Collective, is being investigated by the Charities Commission because it raised large sums of money which it didn't spend. Twice as much was spent on staff costs as actually given in grants. And they kind of realized that they could exploit charities to enhance their lifestyle.

1:14:27Wow. I should point out that she issued a denial about your book, calling it fabricated nonsense. This was made directly actually in response to the published excerpts alleging a past relationship between Sarah Ferguson and P. Diddy, Sean Diddy Combs. You allege in the book that she had an affair with him? Yes, it was a friends with benefit relationship. It went on for many years. I did get something wrong. I thought they met in 2002. But in fact, pictures are now emerged of her at his birthday party in 1998. She liked rappers. I mean, they actually she got rappers in to perform at a children's birthday parties.

1:15:06She had these obsessions with particularly rich and well-known people. She chased Tiger Woods, for example, across America, had a thing about John F. Kennedy Jr., had a passion for Kevin Costner. And I think one of the things that she claimed was she'd only met P. Diddy twice. Well, there's plenty of photographic evidence of them meeting on numerous occasions. I understand stories are about to break in the press from other sources, nothing to do with me, with more detail about that relationship. But my source is strong. I'm standing up by it. and we know that P. Diddy was very keen to kind of get close to the British Royal family and it didn't surprise me.

1:15:47People express surprise about this relationship but it fits in entirely with the way that she behaved towards financial backers and people who were in the public eye like her. She liked bad boys and there's a whole history of getting involved with men who were very unsuitable. This is a picture. Yeah, there's like there's bad boy like he, you know, he skirts authority and drives a Harley and, you know, thumbs his middle finger at people who cross him on the road. But then there's, you know, P. Diddy and Jeffrey Epstein bad boy, which is a league of its own. And you allege in the book. And again, for listening audience, the book is called Entitled the Rise and Fall of the House of York.

1:16:29You allege that she exposed her daughters, the princesses, Eugenie and Beatrice to P. Diddy. Can you explain that? Well, the picture you've just shown is a picture of her second daughter, Eugenie, age 16, at one of P. Diddy's yacht parties. Beatrice was taken, the older daughter, was taken to the launch of a fragrance called Unforgivable, which was supposedly based on Sarah Ferguson. And Sarah Ferguson, you know, was constantly, for example, sending pretty young girls, her goddaughters and people, to stay in Epstein's flats on their own without any supervision. And she clearly didn't worry about Epstein.

1:17:07The girls were taken as young girls to visit Peter Nygaard in the Bahamas. So the whole series of people who were totally unsuitable for these girls to mix. I mean, one of the chief guests at Beatrice's 18th century, sorry, 18th birthday party, which was an 18th century dress ball, was Harvey Weinstein. Apart from Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. And if you look at the wedding guests, for example, for Eugenie, which is held at St. George's Windsor, huge security costs for the British public. It can just consist of Chinese rapists, Libyan gun runners, a whole series of people who these people should not have been mixing with.

1:17:45How was any of this allowed? You know, it's like, I don't know, you watch The Crown and it was like Queen Elizabeth's sister wasn't even allowed to marry the guy she wanted to marry because he was considered unsuitable. Now you got these, flash forward to these two, running around associating with Epstein and Weinstein and Diddy and Andrew with the 16-year-old blonde requests and the paid sex workers in these hotels, which appears to have been an open secret. Allegedly, he denies it. How did we go from one or the other? Well, I think it was a reaction to the fact that the Queen felt guilty about the way that Margaret had been treated.

1:18:25In fact, Margaret could have married Peter Townsend. She chose not to because she would have lost her title. And she'd kind of gone off him in the period of separation. But I think the Queen knew that there was very little accountability and transparency about these activities. There was always going to be people who could cover it up. I talked to a protection officer for the royal family, in fact, the other night, and he said that they would alter the logs of things that they did in order to kind of cover up their tracks. So people like Sarah Ferguson and Andrew knew they would never be caught, they'd never have to be held accountable for any of this and they could behave exactly as they wanted and that's what they did.

1:19:06And that's been the story up till now, that these people have felt invincible because they were protected and the Queen didn't want to know and so people kept quiet. We've seen this time and time again. She'd push her son for jobs like being a trade envoy and though people had reservations, they basically tugged their forelock and said, of course. Being a trade envoy is what led to Andrew getting arrested a couple of months ago, which we'll talk about in a minute. I should point out that several outlets, News Nation people, the New York Post, all reached out to Andrew and his office for comment.

1:19:43What they got back was Buckingham Palace did not return emails for comment, that the Duke of York did not respond giving a comment, that Buckingham Palace no longer comments on matters involving Andrew, and that a rep for Andrew also did not respond for comment. So clearly he's not going to comment on this, and neither is the Palace, though I'm just going to guess that he's denying the most salacious allegations. To be fair, he's not responded to any of the allegations going back over 25 years. I mean, even when he was a working royal, there are a whole series of stories about unexplained monies in his bank account and behavior and taking commissions for introducing foreign businesses into Kazakhstan.

1:20:21And whenever these questions were raised with him by the police, there was nothing. Occasionally, Buckingham Palace would deny them. And if the press wanted to pursue them, they then found they had legal letters. And I suppose the most famous case is Amy Roback at ABC Television, who wanted to run a program on Virginia Giffray and Andrew years before the story broke. And the palace's response was to say, well, if you want access to William and Catherine in future, you should back off. And they backed off. And of course, Epstein and Andrew were going to abuse girls after that. I'm not going to lie.

1:20:58I got a couple of chuckles out of the book, like the following. Another acquaintance tells the story of Andrew at a wedding asking a woman he had not met before for a dance. When she declined, he responded, I suppose a blowjob is out of the question then. That's my very poor British accent. But I laughed, I'm not going to lie. He is irreverent and kind of cheeky in a way that could be taken as humor as opposed to offensive. Yeah, well, I think that was the feeling. You know, he was randy-andy. He was a bit of a cheeky chappy. There's a famous interview with a presenter called um um god i've got my name now but but sorry um uh anyway well-known presenter and there's a sort of clearly a rapport there uh and he you can see that he could have been very he could be very charming uh his other great chat up line was dancing with a girl was to say how does it feel like to have a royal cock up against your thigh um oh my god and maybe you know one time it works I suspect no more than that.

1:22:03I mean, the thing is, as you say, there were plenty of women who prepared to throw themselves at him. He didn't need to try too hard. In fact, it wasn't just the women, it was their mums as well. So when the ships docked in foreign ports, you know, they had to fight them off. And this gave him a very exalted sense of his own importance and his own, in a sense, attractions. Because, you know, for models and actresses, it didn't do your career any harm to be associated with him. Uh, and, you know, there was certain curiosity, uh, and he took advantage of that. Uh, and that was fine. Sure he did.

1:22:37Um, and, you know, there are plenty of well-known people I couldn't write about, uh, who, who've had relations with him. Uh, I mean, there were some things I had to leave out for the lawyer, so it's, uh, it could be a lot worse. Smart. You write about how, uh, one former staff member told you the story that he had a reputation among his own staff of being creepy. One nanny left because he made unwelcome advances. And then you cite Emma Grunbaum, a 34-year-old masseuse from the Wentworth Club, who was often booked by Andrew for massages at Royal Lodge. I mean, that's got Epstein vibes written all over it.

1:23:12This is Epstein's thing, of course, the massage with the so-called happy ending. It's always felt a bit sleazy and a bit odd, really, she said. I felt he wanted more. It was very clear, end quote. The Duke insisted on being naked, and despite her objections, the massage taking place in his bedroom. He would try and hug her, ask her to stay and watch a film, ask her about her sex life. Oh, not even subtle, by the way. On one occasion, while she adjusted the massage table, you're right, he remarked, hey, nice arse. Do you want to take it up the arse? My God, this is like, this is a prince. This is like, what did Emma tell you?

1:23:49Her reaction to this was? Well, shocked because she's a serious sort of masseur at the Wentworth Club. But there were lots and lots of these masseurs stories. I mean, he would actually swap notes about masseurs with President Trump, and they would discuss, according to one diplomat, pussy together. That was their bond, a bit of golf, a bit of money. But, I mean, plenty of stories of masseurs brought. He liked what's called double-handed massages, where there were two women involved. And even at Royal Lodge in recent times, he would have two women brought to him every Sunday afternoon for massages to the sound of country music.

1:24:28That was his thing. But I talked to one of his drivers. American country music. You're not talking about like English countryside. No, no, no. He liked American country music. So maybe, you know, one should try it sometime. Save a horse, ride a cowboy? I'm trying to think what his favorite might be. Well, he was very... At Royal Lodge, that's where he stayed, on Royal Palace grounds? Yes, this was at Royal Lodge, which was, you know, in a sense, crown property, which he had as a very, very attractive rent. I mean, it wasn't offered as it should have been. He basically said that he would bring it up to renovate it, and that cost him about£7 million.

1:25:09But in return, he didn't pay rent. He had it for about 80 years. It was a pretty good deal. And that should have been offered more widely. You know, it should have been a commercial undertaking. And this is one of the concerns. You know, his daughters don't have royal duties, but they live in subsidized accommodation in royal palaces, even though they've got homes elsewhere. And this is why people are beginning... It's time. Get out. Get a job. Aren't they in their 30s at this point? Like, why did the British taxpayers have to pay for their lives? Well, that's the question that's now being asked.

1:25:39But because there's so little scrutiny and people have such deference towards the royal These questions haven't been asked until now. I mean, what I would say is, you know, my book in August and Loosen the Earth. Then we had Jeffrey's own book, which kind of humanized this scandal. And then we've had, of course, the Epstein files. And that's just all created the snowball effect that, you know, people now feel that, you know, it isn't about public duty. It's about personal profit and pleasure. And there needs to be proper scrutiny and accountability. and if they are to retain respect and trust, they have to start kind of improving their act.

1:26:17Just to clarify that for the audience, you released the book in August, but you've updated it for the paperback with a bunch of new reporting. The book is called Entitled, The Rise and Fall of the House of York. There's plenty more, including the relationships amongst the younger royals once Harry got together with Meghan, how Andrew reacted to that, and what Meghan was like inside those palace grounds. We'll pick it up there right after this quick break as Andrew Loney stays with us. Okay, let's talk about an uncomfortable reality. What happens financially to our loved ones once we're no longer here?

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1:30:59She was very specific about that night. She described dancing with you and you profusely sweating and that she went on to have baths possibly there's a slight problem with with with with the sweating um because uh i i have a peculiar medical condition which is that i don't sweat um or i didn't sweat at the time and that was oh actually yes i didn't sweat at the time because i um had suffered what i would describe as an overdose of adrenaline in the falklands war when I was shot at. And I simply, it was almost impossible for me to sweat. And it's only because I have done a number of things in the recent past that I'm starting to be able to do that again.

1:31:51So I'm afraid to say that there's a medical condition that says that I didn't do it.

1:31:58These are such obvious lies. It's so uncomfortable to watch, but it's all tracking with what we're going through today, which is a new book, new updated book by Andrew Loney called Entitled, The Rise and Fall of the House of York. And Andrew Loney is with me still. Yeah. So there he was talking about how he couldn't sweat and those were lies. What do we know about the Queen's knowledge about any of this? Right. Because I know you raised the question, you know, I will reevaluated the Queen because she doesn't sound like she was a good mother. But there's a question about whether we should be reevaluating the Queen because she may have helped sweep some of this under the rug.

1:32:41Like, how much did she know about his antics? Oh, I'm sure she knew everything. She, the head of royal security would have reported to her, having done a book on the Duke of Windsor, I've kind of seen how it all worked. And, you know, she had a lot of intelligence people inside her entourage. Her immediate private secretary was an ex-intelligence officer, former head of MI5, our domestic force, like at the FBI, was involved in her household. But I also know that people wrote to, for example, her lawyers, pointing out all sorts of things. Heads of the Foreign Office, former intelligence officers, all sorts of people went to her with complaints who were basically sent away with a flea in their ear.

1:33:25At one point, Andrew was caught with five million dollars in a suitcase as a sort of bribe in Kazakhstan. One Carlos of Spain was also paid off and that was taken to the Queen and she just didn't want to know. And, you know, it was just one thing that she couldn't really take on board. And there was no one else who, given her protection of Andrew, there was nothing anyone else could do. And time and time again, he ran to his mother. He had her sort of round his little finger. I mean, there's an extent to which the end of her life, when she was quite old and frail and confused and on drugs and ill, that he kind of bullied her.

1:34:05He would go up there often for lunch, and she was lonely. There were very few people after Philip who came and saw her. And he was the one member of the family who had time, and he kind of cultivated her. But that had always been the case. So, yeah, I think we do need to reassess the Queen's reputation. She's not quite as pure at Driven Snow as everyone thought. Yeah, I mean, it's tough because it's your child and most of us would do anything for our children. But this is an adult child and it's the British taxpayer. And there are real questions about his behavior there. That's why he's been arrested for this.

1:34:39His behavior, none of this is really what's at issue, although they are now investigating some situation with the woman. It's actually kind of interesting to me. But he was indicted because as trade envoy, he allegedly passed reports of official visits to countries other than his own, to Singapore, to Vietnam. And the suggestion is that he shared stuff he shouldn't have shared with people in other countries. And they're investigating that right now. Now, they do say that there's a second piece of this, that they are looking into a claim that a woman was brought to the UK to have sex with Andrew.

1:35:20This is reported by the Daily Mail, and they said that the Thames Valley police confirmed this, that there's a wider probe into him, whether he brought a woman to the UK to have sex with him in her 20s. Now, there's nothing wrong with bringing a woman to the UK to have sex with you, even if you're Prince Andrew, unless it's against her will or it's, you know, a paid situation. You can argue it's sex trafficking that crosses country lines, which I guess is what they're looking into because they say she's in her 20s. She was sent by Epstein to the UK to have sex with Andrew in 2010. Again, that's also not illegal unless this was a sex trafficking situation.

1:35:56One guy can send a gal as long as she's willing, and this isn't part of some sort of forced situation, which would potentially make it sex trafficking, to go have sex with his pal. She's said to have spent the night with the then prince at Royal Lodge before later having tea and being given a tour of Buckingham Palace. Well, great. Detectives have spoken to lawyer Brad Edwards for the alleged victim, they say, who has not been identified. Again, I don't know how she's a victim unless they've got proof this person was trafficked. a woman of age who willingly goes to have sex with a prince is not a victim.

1:36:29So we'll see about that one. But what do you make of this special envoy stuff and the likelihood of Andrew actually going to jail if he gets convicted? Well, I mean, just dealing with the Brad Edwards client, I mean, she has refused to actually make a formal complaint to the police. I think she's worried about the publicity. So I don't think that's going to go anywhere as a story. But But our former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has delineated a whole series of women who were trafficked into Britain illegally, underage and against their will. This woman was in her 20s. This woman was in her 20s.

1:37:04That's why I think we discard that story. But there were other women, and that, I think, is what the police are looking at. They're trying to bring charges of sex trafficking because they feel the misconduct in the public office won't hold. The gloves are off for him now. Sorry? The gloves are off. Yes, absolutely. I think that, you know, the Thames Valley police seem to be taking this seriously. I mean, they've called out for women to come forward. I think they're struggling to find people who are prepared to give testimony. It's always the case with these sort of cases. But we have plenty of evidence of him as a trade envoy giving away confidential secrets, either diplomatic or commercial.

1:37:40I mean, they're in the email correspondence. So literally within minutes of receiving emails, he would be passing them on to either business associates like David Rowlands or Jeffrey Z. Epstein, people who were actually paying off his or his ex-wife's debts. And this is a breach of the official secret. But there is a question about whether he was doing that to seek investment. I mean, Jeffrey Epstein was, at the time, believed to be this storied investor and whether he did it to get good guidance for the UK on what to do about this move or the other. I mean, he's got a potential defense there.

1:38:12No, I don't think he has a defense. I mean, For example, he was leaking commercially sensitive information about the Royal Bank of Scotland, which had been taken into public ownership during the banking crisis in 2008. And he was sharing that information with people who were trying to buy off some of the assets, David Rowlands. With the Atlantic banking crisis, he was sharing confidential information he had actually requested specifically from the Treasury and passing it to the Rowlands who were buying up an Atlantic bank. because this is commercially sensitive information. So it's not about developing anything.

1:38:46And we've had hundreds of British troops killed in Helmand province in Afghanistan working against the Taliban. And he saw that as a business opportunity and wanted to cut out the action, which doesn't look very good. So I think there are plenty of occasions where he was sharing information that was privileged information that should not be shared with anyone else, with people who were not British citizens and were not authorized to see this information. That is a breach. Well, would this be a judge or a jury trial? Sorry? And do you think a British jury would actually potentially convict Andrew and send him to jail?

1:39:19Well, I think he would be in trouble if it was a jury trial. But you're absolutely right. I don't think this will lead to charges being brought. The last thing the royal family want is their dirty linen washed in public. They've managed to shut down the Paul Burrell trial in 2002 for that reason. And I think we're already getting the mood music to prepare us that there isn't a case under misconduct in public office. He wouldn't get a fair trial. He wasn't a proper public servant. He was just a member of the royal family kind of pushed into this job. He wasn't paid. So I think it's going to be quite difficult on those grounds to bring a case.

1:39:56Though I have interviewed lawyers and policemen involved in these cases who say it's pretty clear if officials have acted against the interests of the public who held public positions, which he did, then there would be a case here. But the story is widening. I think the police are looking for any way that they can perhaps get them. And if they can find people to come forward and give testimony about being underage or being trafficked to him. I mean, we have plenty of evidence that there were these books of photographs, most of them naked, of girls who were basically ordered by these men, including Andrew, and sent, you know, like ordering a pizza.

1:40:35uh but you know from epstein and galane you're saying they were producing these books and and others were producing them uh and that's how it worked but i think gordon brown's intervention is good he's he's got a sister-in-law who's an investigative journalist and she's produced a lot of new information about these um these women who were brought problem is they were uh anonymous they weren't registered in the flight logs we don't know who they are they now may have returned to their countries and not know about this. They may now be a respectable married woman with children and not want to go through the publicity of going public.

1:41:12So there are a lot of fences to jump before, I suppose, charges can be brought. But I just cannot see this being allowed to happen. Well, clearly, there is no love lost between King Charles and his brother, Andrew. And I think you make that clear as well, that those two, they're not particularly close and Charles is not protecting Andrew, at least at this point. And you write in the book that Andrew really didn't get along with many people. He didn't, he loved his mother or at least she loved him. But he didn't get along with Harry. He doesn't get along with William. And of all the things that he's said and done as documented by this book, I will, I have to give him the warning that he gave Harry when he got together with Meghan.

1:42:00He was not in favor of it, and he saw disaster written all over it. Yes. I mean, you know, I think they all saw this. When I was writing my book on the Mount Battens in 2016, all the gossip in the royal household was about how unsuitable Meghan was, and it would all end in tears. And clearly, Andrew was one of the people who was saying that. I mean, so was William. Everyone could see this was a disaster waiting to happen. But I think Andrew was a little bit more vocal about it than some of the others, and that upset Harry. There were fisticuffs. I mean, both of them have resorted to their fists on numerous occasions.

1:42:36There's a story which actually has come out in Robert Hardman's book about the Queen, which actually I allude to in mind, of a fight with the head of the household, Tony Johnson Burt. But yes, there were fights with Harry. There were fights with others. and William was crossed with Andrew because basically Andrew didn't think that Kate was a suitable bride. She wasn't posh enough. And even as a child, William found him a bit of a creep. So there's a huge personal animus there as well as that William's concern about the reputational damage to the family. And he's the guy who's got to pick up the pieces.

1:43:17In some ways, the likelihood is Charles is just going to pass the baton on to William and let him solve the problem in the way the Queen has done it with Charles. Yeah, you write that not a great relationship with William. He resents that Andrew was rude about Kate, and William has long worked behind the scenes to evict his uncle, Andrew, from Royal Lodge. William refers to Andy as a tosser, perhaps not as bad as the vile names his brother Harry uses. Harry has refers to Andy as a poof-da, an arsehole, and a twit. and then you say that, yeah, he told Harry that this marriage is not going to last more than a month when he got together with Meghan.

1:43:55He accused him of going bonkers and not doing any due diligence on her past. And Harry later told William, you write, that he was planning to kill his uncle Andrew. He hated him that much. Prince Harry denies that these events occurred. So what do you know about the status, if anything, since you're a royal biographer, of the Harry and Meghan pair out in Montecito? And is there any hope of them going back to be your problem instead of ours? Well, I mean, I can't really comment because I've focused as a historian on the story of Andrew and Sarah Ferguson. So I can only go from what I've kind of read.

1:44:32But I think the feeling generally in Britain is the marriage isn't going to last. Harry will, I'm afraid, still remain with you because his children are there. And actually, that is exactly what Wallace Simpson did with Edward VIII. She kind of got him away from his friends and his relations into another country and she could control him then. They didn't have children at least, but he was kind of stuck with her. And I think that seems to be the feeling here with Harry. He wants to build some bridges. I think his father is keen to reignite with him to see his grandchildren. William clearly is against it.

1:45:07The king is caught between the two brothers and whatever he does, he's going to upset one of them. And it's a bit of a mess. What happened with the Duke of Windsor is he did every so often come back and see his family as long as his wife didn't come with him, and that we're going to see more of that. We have a sign that Harry may be able to come back and have security paid for by the taxpayer here, which will make him feel safer. But it's interesting that when there have been occasions where the King could have met Harry, I mean, not least in his recent visit to the States, that that didn't happen.

1:45:42And I think there's always a suspicion that Harry will leak any encounter they have and the story will be sold to the newspapers. So it is a bit of a mess. No one wants a just functional family like that, but I'm afraid that is the story of the royal family. They can't seem to get on with each other. Well, the similarities you point out between Meghan Markle and, yes, Wallace Simpson, but also Sarah Ferguson are pretty stark. and the story, this actually just broke from Rob Shooter, who we love. He goes on the nerve with Maureen all the time. And he, this is his exclusive, that Fergie was in talks with two NBC executives to do a daytime talk show in America.

1:46:23They flew over there to meet with her and talk to her about it in London. The next thing they knew, she had left the NBC executives alone with her daughters, Beatrice and Eugenie, and vanished for nearly two days. And they found themselves acting like royal babysitters, eventually peaced out of the UK and said, yeah, this is not for us. So lots of similarities there when it comes to work ethic and being an alleged grifter. Everyone check out the book. Thank you so much, Andrew, for coming on and give us so much time. Andrew Loney and the book is entitled The Rise and Fall of the House of York.

1:46:58All the best to you and good luck. Thanks very much. Thank you so much. and good luck to all of you until I speak with you tomorrow where we have a special program for you coming. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

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