Cheat Sheet | Scottish football victory, the president and the prince, UK defence warning

0:00Sophy Ridge:Welcome to Cheat Sheet, the podcast where we do the work so you don't have to. I'm Wilfred Frost. And I'm Sophy Ridge. It is Wednesday the 19th of November and this is what's happened today. Scotland have qualified for the World Cup in epic and dramatic fashion. Their first World Cup since 1998. US politicians have voted to approve a bill that would lead to the release of all of the Epstein files. and apparently the UK is not prepared to defend itself. That's according to a new parliamentary report. So we start with a story that you just got very excited about there, Will. I've watched this clip about 10 times this morning.

0:42Scotland have qualified for the World Cup, the men's football team, for the first time since 1998. It was an unbelievable game of football, very, very exciting and also, of course, a historic day. Were you watching?

0:55Sophy Ridge:I wasn't, I was asleep. Yeah, me too. But I loved it when I got up. Just let's set the scene. They failed to qualify for the last six World Cups. They haven't been in a World Cup this century. They were playing at home, packed Hamden Park, freezing cold night. They needed a win. They went 2-0 up, including a wonderful bicycle kick from Scott McTominay, pegged back to 2-2, time running out, well into stoppage time. Hope is evaporating and this happened.

1:31Sophy Ridge:Kieran Tierney with a glorious goal to put them 3-2 up pandemonium in fact they got another one even later 4-2 and particularly I love that it was Kieran Tierney he's had a tough couple of years former Arsenal player but what a wonderful goal what a wonderful moment and you know there's not many better sets of fans to experience that ecstasy than the Scotland fans on a freezing cold night in Hamden. Yeah, that's it. I mean, it's the fan reaction that absolutely gets me. Subliminal! Scotland! We know how to do the hard way! Superb! Good to the World Cup! Oh, lovely! Been the first sentence until I was 12 years old!

2:15Really? It's almost a three-decade wait. I mean, it's just worth pausing to kind of grasp that as, you know, an England fan. 28 years. I mean, this is huge for Scots.

2:28Sophy Ridge:Sophie, as predicted, a bill that's going to force the US Justice Department to release all of the so-called Epstein files, the convicted paedophile financier has passed all the necessary stages of Congress. It now goes to the president's desk for signature. It passed both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Some people saying, will he now sign it? inconceivable to me that he doesn't he just hasn't hasn't done so yet but but these things always take a day or two um and it's going to be fascinating now to see what else comes out of it i think there's obviously too big to state the obvious questions are there more names are there more high profile people to be linked to jeffrey epstein that haven't been thus far though of course the list is fairly long and significant um already and of course are there anything more incriminating than we've seen already.

3:23Sophy Ridge:Just as it relates to President Trump, I think it's fair to say that thus far people are implying that what's been released suggests he knew about what was happening as opposed to took part in it. Obviously, he denies both either way, but we shall see what happens in the days ahead. Yeah, I think it's worth just kind of reiterating as well. You know, he didn't want to do this. This was not his initial reaction. And even though he kind of instructed Republicans to vote this way, He basically did it because he had to, right? Because of pressure amongst his own base, you know, as well as his enemies too.

3:56Sophy Ridge:And, you know, we should say as well, survivors of Epstein's abuse have been celebrating this moment, as of course they would, a hugely, hugely significant moment for them, as you say, in face of the president not wanting to take this step initially. Now, before that fact happened, Donald Trump was hosting Saudi Arabia's crown prince, to the White House. So it was the first time in seven years that this has happened. And look, it's a pretty unprecedented visit because it's the first time since the murder of the Saudi Arabian journalist from the Washington Post, Jamal Khashoggi. So Khashoggi was a critic of Saudi and he was killed by Saudi agents in Istanbul in 2018.

4:40And I think the thing that's important at the time is it was American intelligence agencies that concluded that the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, so in other words, the man sat next to Donald Trump yesterday in the White House, had ordered his capture or killing. He, of course, denies any involvement. But unsurprisingly, journalists who were there asked about Khashoggi, this is what happened. As far as this gentleman is concerned, he's done a phenomenal job. You're mentioning somebody that was extremely controversial. A lot of people didn't like that gentleman that you're talking about, whether you like him or didn't like him, things happen.

5:17But 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. So, I mean, that is Donald Trump effectively contradicting US intelligence.

5:27Sophy Ridge:What I would say as well is so striking about how much has changed is this isn't actually just a Biden took this view, Trump's now taking this view. This all happened in Trump's first term. I remember very, very well. I was there in America covering it. Saudi Arabia, during the Trump first term, became persona non grata. You know, they host this big Davos in the Desert event. I remember very clearly it's become a huge, huge gathering. And every single big American business leader had to pull out back in the late 20-teens. But for a couple of years, that's completely irrelevant now. You know, so that's kind of what I want to highlight.

6:09Sophy Ridge:like, you know, appalling clip there that, you know, that we just heard. But look at who attended the dinner last night. Every major business leader, including the likes of Elon Musk, which people are pointing to shows a thawing of relationships with Donald Trump, which is a different story. Five years ago, you could not, as a business leader, be doing business in this way. That's just evaporated as a concern. and this isn't to downplay how terrible and unfair this is to Jamal Khashoggi and his family but I'm not actually that surprised sadly that this is just where we are and MBS is somebody that Trump in America is openly doing business with.

6:53Sophy Ridge:So are we, I'm afraid to say. Cristiano Ronaldo by the way was also there, so was the FIFA president of course the US along with Canada of Mexico hosting the World Cup next year. And Cristiano Ronaldo is an incredibly, incredibly powerful tool for Saudi Arabia. Apparently, Wilf, a nice cheery story for your morning. The UK is not ready to defend itself and it lacks a plan to protect against a military attack. This is according to a report from the Commons Defence Committee. It's out this morning. And it's all about the increased level of threat from Russia and also China, which I think is interesting.

7:31Sophy Ridge:You know what? I'm not surprised by this at all because of the brilliant work of our Deborah Haynes, that incredible podcast war game that she did in June. It's like she did this parliamentary report before they did. And I think if we, without kind of criticizing the Defense Department and the government too much, if we really ask the question, are we ready to fight a full war right now? I don't think anyone would think we are. The question is whether we need to be ready. Has the world changed enough that this is a new era that we haven't had to face for 20, 30 years? And increasingly, the intelligence seems to suggest it is.

8:08Sophy Ridge:And so, you know, it's not an outright criticism to say, oh, my God, suddenly we're not ready for a full frontal war. It's more a question of, guys, we've got to speed this up. We've got to get ready quicker than we are. Yeah, and the threats are changing as well. The threats are changing so much. You know, you kind of look at the kind of tanks that we're still buying and you're thinking, hang on, is this really, you know, the right kind of capability that we need? Sorry, armoured vehicles. Please don't write it and tell me off. Deborah tells us off about it. It is right. And, you know, with that, it's worth reflecting on what happened yesterday in the Commons when it comes to China as well, because MI5 has shared its red flags to spot potential Chinese spies.

8:47This is all after a specific warning from MI5 that MPs and their staff are being targeted. Two people working allegedly for the Chinese government mentioned by name and it was thought that they were effectively trying to recruit or to talk to, build relationships with staffers and advisors for MPs.

9:11Sophy Ridge:I'd imagine if someone says, can you share confidential information from your minister's red box? It might be a bit of a red flag. But nice to have the extra detail, I guess. What they're apparently doing is starting off with very, very uncontroversial stuff. So basically offering big sums of money for things that are basically in the public domain anyway, because they want to lure them in to build the relationship. And then it's only after a while that they would then approach for confidential stuff. It's really interesting. And before we go, it is International Men's Day. I think it's important to market.

9:43you know we talk an awful lot about international women's day when it happens i don't know if i

9:47Sophy Ridge:should admit i didn't know it was international men's day this morning i think it's okay so it's good that that we are marking it and i think it's important because particularly amongst young men we do have a worrying increasing rate of of suicide amongst young men yeah on that actually the government's announced its first ever men's health strategy today which to be honest kind of blows your mind that they didn't have one before thanks so much for joining us on cheat sheet today remember you can email us do get in touch it is cheatsheet at sky.uk cheatsheet at sky.uk we promise we'll reply to email unless it's really abusive

10:26how does a banana trigger a CIA backed coup do AirPods herald the arrival of a new global order what do LED lights say about the future of humanity I'm Ed Conway And in each episode of my new podcast, Stuff Matters, I take an object, crack it open and reveal the world-shaping forces hidden inside. This is economics told through the things we think we understand. Search Stuff Matters on your podcast app to listen and follow.