Marina Hyde on Epstein’s enablers: will they get away with it? – The Latest

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:13The absolute heart of this story is and always has been male-on-female abuse. And now we've got all the receipts and somehow we're talking about a local political scandal. Well, that's convenient, isn't it? There is a far bigger scandal at play here, guys. There's nothing they think they can't buy, own and flip to make it look like they're the good guys, OK? A week after the release of the new Epstein files, will his enablers ever be held accountable? From The Guardian's Today in Focus, this is The Latest with me, Lucy Hoth.

0:47Joining me is Marina Hyde, Guardian columnist. It's great to have you back with us, Marina. Thanks for coming to see us. So it's now been a week exactly since the latest batch, shall we say, of Epstein Files was released, three million of them. So we've had a week to look over and look at the famous names, some of which we didn't know the full extent of their relationship with Epstein, right? People like Elon Musk, Noam Chomsky. There are a lot of very rich, powerful, influential men who should be answering questions or speaking publicly this week, but who have not done so. The one person who has notably is Melinda Gates.

1:24Leave it to a woman to turn up. Yeah, it's not a surprise. But she has given a podcast interview where she's taken a question on this. And she's spoken about this as a moment of reckoning. I wonder if you agree. Yeah, I mean, my position is that it isn't a moment of reckoning at all. I mean, I've written about this today. I can see everyone obsessing about the kind of local political fallout. And in our case, you know, obviously, rightly, Peter Mandelson has gone from the Labour Party. He's resigned from the Lords, all those things. But I find it fascinating that we're obsessing and we will continue to obsess about this as a sort of Mandelson scandal.

2:00When to me, the absolute heart of the story is and always has been male on female abuse. And it's amazing how it can quickly spiral in and it can be, you know, co-opted by partisan factions. And for me, the fact that like Noam Chomsky and Steve Bannon are not just involved, but in a photo together just says, why don't we leave all that stuff behind? I think this is about something much, much bigger. It is. And looking at the nature of the correspondence between Epstein and so many of these men, and we should clearly state that being in communications with Epstein, being photographed with him is not in and of itself a sign of wrongdoing.

2:37But the casual male on female misogyny that is evident in so much of that communication. Reading it all, I agree with you. It is absolutely dripping in misogyny. I don't even know if they know if they realize it's misogyny. They speak the women are completely a plot device. Please don't tell me that someone like Steve Tisch, who is the owner of the New York Giants and a film producer cannot get his own working girls in the parlance of his own emails. Why does he want Jeffrey Epstein to get them for him? I wonder if, and Epstein, by the way, at one point says, I don't like having records of these conversations.

3:10So call me. can you imagine can you imagine what his calls were like we're looking at the emails so I think that it's always you know if you say to people oh I mean you would sound like a nutter wouldn't you if you say like yeah all the men who run the world like talking this really disgusting way about it's like a sort of sex builder bug they all talk in this really disgusting way you'd sound like a complete nutter like a conspiracy theorist and now we've got like all the receipts and it's all written down like this and somehow we're talking about like you know a local political scandal and And, you know, what Keir Starmer was told about the briefing, it's like, oh, that's convenient, isn't it?

3:44There is a far bigger scandal at play here, guys. One of the communications is Richard Branson saying, of course, I'd love to come and see you, Geoffrey, as long as you bring your harem. His lawyers are now saying, well, the harem were overage. This wasn't underage girls. And it's like, Richard, it's still a harem, surely. Yeah, I mean, that may be some of the misogynist blokey way locker room talk that they talk. I mean, you know, I don't know anything about that. What I do know is that the next thing he says in that email is that the best way for Epstein to rehabilitate his reputation is for Bill Gates to say that you made one mistake with a 17 and a half year old guy.

4:21It's like, yeah, it's soliciting prostitution for minors. Some of whom were as young as 14. But carry on, carry on, Richard. That would be the best thing for you to do. So this is after Epstein has served a jail sentence. And the other thing that I think is so amazing, all these men know how the world works. OK, they know how rich he was. They know what you can get with really, really expensive lawyers in the American legal system. And if that guy still got an 18 month prison sentence, then they must know. You know, you'd know how bad it must have been. You would know. But the fact is they must have known, but they just didn't care.

4:54And one person who definitely knew about this was Steve Bannon, of course, former Trump advisor, a big figurehead of the right in America. an interview filmed with Jeffrey Epstein in 2019, a very significant year because it was the year that Jeffrey Epstein took his own life in prison. Before his arrest, before his arrest. Before his arrest. And they're in this like wood panel. It kind of looks like a gentleman's club room. Maybe it's in one of Epstein's terrible houses. And Epstein is saying, you know, I really believe in women. I really believe women can take over. And Steve Bannon says to him, isn't that just a sop because of all the evil you've done to women?

5:31him. And Epstein says, No, no, I really believe you know, I'm a big believer in Time's Up, which was that Me Too era sort of charity. And okay, by the way, Bannon is a swamp creature, and he literally doesn't believe in anything, because he's helping him. And you can see throughout that he's helping him with media advice. He's helping with all sorts of rehab advice. And at one point, he suggests to Epstein that he starts a global sort of foundation, a charity to combat human trafficking. And you just think there's nothing they think they can't buy, own and flip to make it look like they're the good guys.

6:05OK, so in the case of I mean, in the case of Bannon, he then once Epstein is arrested that year in July of that year of 2019, and then he goes to prison, Bannon repackages the whole thing. And he puts it in a documentary about the elite and Epstein called The Monsters. OK, which he produces, which is just another money making scheme. And he says he's a globalist child molester. Well, you would say that now, wouldn't you? Yes. And it says a great deal about the men, the powerful men who are in communications with Epstein, whose names have in some cases newly been released. I mean, we've been through that.

6:41But I think looking at that video with Steve Bannon and re-watching the Netflix documentary that was released in 2020, what you get from Epstein is actually someone who seems quite introverted, very awkward, is sort of palpably creepy and sleazy. What does it say about these men that they were willing to spend time with this man to fly to his islands, to eat in his houses all over the world, to go on holiday with him? I mean, clearly this was about exerting his financial power, his influence, right? Yeah, I think they all want access information. In the case of some of the complete dweebs, he gets them girls because even though they're like mega famous billionaires, they don't understand how to get them themselves.

7:22I, you know, it's really not hard. You can get your own. But they, and I think that they all want sort of different things, but they want to be around each other. and as I say you can see that they want to be around each other and you can see what they are willing to completely overlook and it's like 18 month jail sentences for soliciting minors it's that important or it's that much the way of the world so don't let anyone ever tell you in you know oh the world doesn't work like that you're imagining things I'm not imagining anything now I can read it all it's all in black and white and I can read how they talk and of course not all men not all billionaires.

7:56Well, not all billionaires, in particular, Jeff Bezos, who is markedly not in the files at any point, it seems at this point. Yeah, I mean, he's got his own stuff going on right now. I saw what he's doing to the Washington Post and I saw the Melania documentary. So, you know, he's got his own stuff going on. Yeah, he's not in these files. He's not in these files. Snaps for Jeff. Yeah, snaps for Jeff. Something to be celebrating with him and another bad week for him. There has been, I mean, we've talked this week on the podcast about perhaps there being this new sense of accountability. I mean, Peter Mandelson, it's become this political scandal here.

8:29We know what's happened to Prince Andrew, but I sense you disagree that this is playing out in a way that might bring genuine accountability to these. Yeah, I don't think that the root cause, this kind of deep internalised and widespread misogyny amongst men who, in many cases, are hugely still very, very important and still hold huge sway over everyone's lives, including women's lives. Yeah, I don't think we're anywhere close to even starting a reckoning with that. I just want to end lastly on Sarah Ferguson, who's had a very bad week, I think it's safe to say. We know what's happened to her ex-husband, Andrew Mountbatten, who's now living, we're told, on his farm in Norfolk.

9:09More, surprisingly, very embarrassing images and mentions of him in the new Epstein files. But a new detail about Sarah Ferguson's relationship with Epstein. I mean, basically asking him continuously for money, for employment in one of his houses, to be an estate manager, talking in very gossipy terms about her own daughters in a way that you feel will just be yet more damaging. Well, she's like some sort of awful, picaresque anti-heroine from old literature, isn't she? Just having to do terrible things and live on her so called wits or lack of because she spent 10 fortunes of other people's money in her life.

9:48you know I don't want to focus at all on the women in this story particularly but yeah she's covered herself in even less glory than all the other times she didn't cover herself in glory marina thank you so much thank you so much that's it for today my huge thanks again to marina hyde guardian columnist and for more of her work head over to theguardian.com thanks for listening to this episode of the latest the new evening edition of today in focus we'll be with you every weekday evening with what you need to know about the story everyone's talking about in around 10 minutes. Today in Focus will be back in your feeds on Monday morning as usual and we'll be back on Monday night.

10:22Have a lovely weekend. This episode was presented by me, Lucy Hoff. The producer was Bryony Moore. The senior producer was Ryan Ramgobin and the lead producer was Zoe Hitch.

10:39This is The Guardian. Thank you.