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Former Prince Andrew Arrested; Trump to Speak at Board of Peace; Search for Nancy Guthrie. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired February 19, 2026 - 09:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[09:00:00]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: And breaking this morning, extraordinary developments over the last few hours. The brother of King Charles could very well be sitting in a jail cell right now. The former Prince Andrew was arrested this morning on suspicion of misconduct in public office. There is no modern precedent for this. He is the most senior member of the British royal family to be arrested since King Charles I in 1647. That's nearly four centuries ago.

The arrest looks to be in connection to the release of the Epstein files here in the United States, which exposed the depth of the connections between the former prince and the late convicted sex offender.

Now, I spoke with Epstein survivor moments ago to get her reaction to the news.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARINA LACERDA, JEFFREY EPSTEIN SURVIVOR: It's amazing. And it's really, really something that all the survivors have been looking forward and working towards. And I have to say, Virginia's brother and sister must be thrilled right now. You know, I just look at it, it's insane how everyone's taking action and we are doing nothing in the United States. I'm right here in Norway right now. We have Princess Mette answering to questions. And it's just really sad that the United States is not taking any action. But I'm very, very happy that, you know, we have, again, you know, we're making history here. So, this is big.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Now, to be clear, Marina Lacerda's story does not intersect with that of the former Prince Andrew. And this arrest, insofar as we know, is not directly related to any allegations of sex trafficking, but it has to do with misconduct in public office. His time as a travel envoy.

Earlier this morning, King Charles did release a statement supportive of the investigation, saying, quote, "the law must take its course." Let's get right to CNN anchor and chief royal correspondent Max

Foster, who's outside Buckingham Palace this morning with just this history-shattering news, Max.

MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR AND ROYAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And I've just heard that the king wasn't even informed that this was going to happen this morning. So, sometime in the morning, Andrew Mountbatten was taken from his home at -- on the Norfolk estate, the one that Charles had put him in because he had been evicted from his previous one because of his Epstein links.

And he is now in police custody, which is extraordinary when you consider that a senior member of the royal family, as you say, could be sitting in a police cell right now not getting any special privileges at all because the police will want to make clear this is an entirely independent police investigation. We've had the prime minister coming out today saying no one's above the law. We've got the king saying that he supports this investigation wholeheartedly. He refers to him in a statement as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, not his brother. He's doing everything he can to distance himself and protect the monarchy and keep Andrew's story as far away as possible, but he couldn't avoid it.

I have to say, an extraordinary moment from the king to put out a personal statement and to put this on record. And he did so very quickly. Shows how concerned he is about this situation. So, Andrew could be held for 12, 24, even up to four days under police investigation. He could then be charged. No indication of that so far. But it's a hugely complicated, historic case. So, the police have got a huge amount to get through.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Absolutely. And, Max, as you were reporting from your source, just to reiterate, Buckingham Palace not given prior warning about this arrest. But how -- what is your sense or what are you hearing in terms of how this is landing? This seems not an understatement in terms of pretty earth shattering.

FOSTER: Well, I think, you know, you heard from a survivor there or representative of a survivor and I think the general public and actually much of the country very much feels that the survivors and the victims should be front and center of this. So, there's a huge amount of support for this police investigation. And, you know, broadly speaking, they want accountability for anyone that was involved in Epstein and any wrongdoing that might have happened there. The no evidence that Andrew's been found guilty of any wrongdoing at this point, but everyone just wants some detail here.

And what's interesting is that now that the police have launched this formal investigation, they now have access to all of Andrew's records, all of the palace records. He had an office in the palace here. And they will be able to match up the Epstein emails to the other end of those conversations, which could open up a whole new wealth of knowledge around Epstein's web of power and control.

So, people just want to know the full facts. It will be interesting to know whether Andrew uses this moment at last to actually say what he knew or whether he goes quiet, in which case they'll have to hold him for longer and it could -- it could stretch and overshadow everything the monarchy is doing until it's resolved.

[09:05:12]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, I did want to ask you about sort of the monarchy itself. They have really tried to distance themselves, of stripping him of all his titles, moving him, you know, to Sandringham. But here we are. And all anyone is going to be talking about over the next who knows how long is his arrest.

FOSTER: Well, we've seen it, haven't we, Sara? We saw Prince William in Saudi Arabia. We saw King Charles at some recent events, and they just get constantly asked questions about Andrew and all of the reporters are mentioning Andrew with any coverage in those events. They aren't a functioning monarchy right now because they represent the country at events. And those events are constantly coming back to Andrew.

It's interesting, currently King Charles is sending the message that his work continues. He's holding an engagement in Windsor. The question about the police investigation is, is there anything that the family knew about all of this before they say they knew. So, that might come out in the police investigation.

But there's also the bigger question here that the palace is constantly saying, we don't speak for Andrew. He's not a working royal. But all of this relates to a time when he was a senior working royal with an office in Buckingham Palace and was working for the British government. So, ultimately, it's hard for them to distance themselves from that, and maybe they do have to answer some questions about Queen Elizabeth and her being in charge of the family firm and not really knowing what on earth was going on amongst her staff, effectively.

BERMAN: Max, this arrest happened this morning really just a few hours ago at Sandringham, which is, you know, the property of King Charles here. Is there any sense of the timeline over the last day or days or weeks that got us to this extraordinary moment this morning?

FOSTER: So, we're not getting a huge amount of detail, but there are multiple police inquiries across the U.K. right now, and they are inquiries, so they are looking at evidence before launching a formal police inquiry. We've clearly got the Thames Valley Police inquiry, which covers Windsor, going into formal investigation mode because they are the ones that carried out this arrest today.

There's clearly a development that's happened which has escalated this case to put them in a position where they've got something to confront Andrew with. Interestingly, the former prime minister, Gordon Brown, who was in the government at the time when Andrew was an envoy, said he has sent recent information to the police. So, we don't know whether it's related to that or whether it's something that the police found as part of their investigation.

BOLDUAN: That is fascinating. SIDNER: Yes.

BERMAN: So much going on here. Max, it's great to have you there. Don't go far, obviously, because we're getting new updates at -- you know, by the minute, almost, on this extraordinary story. So, thank you, Max.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely.

Also this hour we are standing by to hear from President Trump, who is set to speak any minute in Washington at the first meeting of what he has named the Board of Peace. He's expected to announce that member states have pledged -- that member states have pledged more than $5 million toward the rebuilding of Gaza, and will commit personnel for security forces there.

But many key European allies, as we've noted, and this was -- this became a thing at Davos, many key European allies have declined to sign on, in part due to the president suggesting that this board might serve as a replacement to the United Nations.

CNN's Kylie Atwood, standing by at the -- at the U.S. Institute of Peace, where the president will be speaking. Jeremy Diamond is in Jerusalem for us.

Kylie, what are you hearing about what's about to come from the president?

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, interestingly, those at the table are really a key part of this, Kate. There are about 45 countries who are going to be represented here at this Board of Peace inaugural meeting, but only about half of those countries have agreed to actually join the board. The rest of them are countries that are here just to observe what is going on and many of the countries that have joined the board are not classic U.S. allies. The U.K., France, Germany Australia, all countries that have declined to join the board because, as you said, there are some concerns that this was a board set up to compete with the United Nations.

And when it comes to the countries that are on the board, many of them are middle eastern countries. Of course, President Trump said just yesterday that the nations have pledged $5 billion to reconstruction and humanitarian efforts going forth in Gaza. We'll watch to see what the breakdown looks like there. That is not an insignificant sum. However, it is only, of course, a portion of what the United Nations says is going to be needed to actually reconstruct Gaza in full.

[09:10:08]

And some of the countries who are here are not classic U.S. allies when it comes to efforts to rebuild in Gaza, in the Middle East. We're going to see Hungary here. We're going to see Belarus represented. This is going to be set up like a cabinet meeting, a U.S. official told me. So, President Trump is going to give remarks, and then he's going to open it up to some of these member nations to also give updates on what they're going to be doing. I want to say, however, I talked to folks heading into this meeting,

and it was very clear that the dramatic backdrop here is the U.S. military buildup in the Middle East. Of course that is focused on Iran. But these are countries that are concerned about what the U.S. military could actually do if those strikes do go forth. We are told that as soon as this weekend the U.S. military would be prepared to strike inside Iran, though President Trump has not made a decision whether or not he's going to go forth with that. Of course the White House and other officials are saying that diplomacy is their first focus here. They want diplomacy to work with Iran. There's no indication that that is actually going to happen.

And so it's rest assured that folks who are in this building are going to try to talk to U.S. officials and tell them that U.S. strikes on Iran should be avoided. So, those are kind of the sideline conversations that we're watching, while, of course, this inaugural meeting on reconstruction efforts in Gaza is taking place.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Maybe sideline discussions, but very much it is front and center, this growing threat that the United States and President Trump is making towards Iran and this massive military buildup in the Middle East with this threat lingering out there that the United States could strike there as early as this weekend. That 100 percent might be sidelined to the intent of these remarks, but very much might be overshadowing this entire thing now.

But, Jeremy, let me get to you. What is the reaction that you have been picking up to how this has unfolded and developed? I misspoke at the beginning, it's $5 billion that has been committed so far to Gaza reconstruction. What are you hearing?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think a lot of players in the region are going to be looking for a lot more meat on the bones in terms of what exactly this Board of Peace intends to accomplish in Gaza and what the timeline for carrying out those goals actually looks like. Certainly in Israel there is a tremendous amount of skepticism about whether or not this board of peace, and it's yet to be conceived, international stabilization force can actually get the job done of disarming Hamas in Gaza and therefore moving forward with Gaza's reconstruction. And President Trump has already teased the fact that there will be commitments of personnel to that international stabilization force. So far we've only heard from Indonesian officials who've indicated that they could have up to 1,000 troops ready in a matter of weeks now to commit to that international stabilization force. But still no final decision has been made by the Indonesian president.

And so we'll see whether or not the announcements today go beyond that. As I was talking about with regards to that Israeli skepticism, you know, we still don't have an agreement from Hamas to actually disarm, which is the critical next step of this current ceasefire plan in order to unlock reconstruction efforts, in order to unlock a lot more cooperation from the Israelis and ultimately to unlock Israel's withdrawal from, you know, the half of the Gaza Strip that they currently still do indeed control.

And Israeli officials have indicated that there is a limited time frame for that to get done before they would instead choose to get the job done themselves with a military action by returning to war.

Nikolay Mladenov, who we expect to hear from today, he is now the high representative for Gaza, representing the Board of Peace, overseeing all of this. He has been quite clear-eyed as well about the fact that he has very limited time to gain Hamas' compliance with this disarmament effort and to move forward with the next phases of the plan, and that the alternative to that is indeed a return to war.

At the same time, we also know that Hamas has complained about violations from the Israeli side, saying that Israel is not allowing enough people to go in and out of Gaza through that Rafah crossing with Egypt, as was planned under this. They also complained that not enough humanitarian aid has gone in. Don't expect to see much discussion of that today. But again, players here looking for more meat on the bones as it relates to all of this. And the key thing to look out for will be any commitments, concrete commitments towards that international stabilization force.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: All right. Jeremy, Kylie standing by as well.

What we see right here is live pictures from inside the room. President Trump has just arrived. J.D. Vance right behind him. And Secretary of State Marco Rubio behind him as well, as this is now getting underway.

[09:15:04]

Looks like they're going to start with they call -- they call these a class photo, but a photo opportunity, and then we will be hearing from the president. We'll, stand by for those remarks, what comes, again, against this backdrop of this massive military buildup in the Middle East with President Trump's threat against Iran.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, ahead, more on our other breaking news. More details on this morning's stunning arrest of former Prince Andrew due to the details inside the Epstein files. And how the same technology that helped catch the golden state killer may help in the Nancy Guthrie case.

Those stories and more ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:20:13]

BERMAN: Some new updates this morning on the search for 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie. A law enforcement source tells CNN authorities now on both sides of the U.S. Mexico border are being told to look for clues. With us now is CNN law enforcement analyst Jonathan Wackrow and retired FBI hostage negotiator Chip Massey.

And, Jon, let me just start with you. The significance of bringing the Mexicans into this investigation, I imagine that would have happened right from the very beginning, given how close Tucson is to the border.

JONATHAN WACKROW, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Yes, no, you're exactly right, John. And, you know, this is a strategic precaution that law enforcement is taking really due to that proximity to the border, especially in any type of high-risk abduction case. And really, what it signals is that law enforcement is accounting for mobility risk, right? They're taking a containment mindset and expanding awareness on both sides of the border. This does not necessarily mean, though, that there is a theory that Ms. Guthrie has been taken over the border. Again, this is a precautionary measure. It's meant to signal to any type of abductor that their mobility is being limited, and that they will not be able to cross that border.

So, again, a precautionary move. We would have expected this to come out earlier, but it's great that it's happening now.

BERMAN: And, Chip, the reward has effectively more than doubled for any information leading investigators to Nancy Guthrie. There's the public reward, plus there are some private sourcing as well. So, a $200,000 reward. Is there any effective difference or what is the effective difference between that and a $100,000 reward?

CHIP MASSEY, RETIRED FBI HOSTAGE NEGOTIATOR: Well -- and good morning, John. And if you think about it from the standpoint of, if somebody is sitting on the fence about, like, they know him, they have (INAUDIBLE) circle or maybe (INAUDIBLE) just outside of it. May (INAUDIBLE) is the difference. This is the difference maker. So, upping your reward again is just another indicator, another incentive for somebody to come forward and to do the right thing.

BERMAN: John, what's the benefit of having this story so heavily and publicly in the news for investigators? And I ask that because it's interesting, because this morning there's a lot of other things going on and the focus has shifted ever so slightly. Is this something where they feel like maybe they can get more work done now because there's not a spotlight there, or do they need the spotlight to try to spring something loose?

WACKROW: John, great question. And what we have seen is that this case does need the public's assistance, right? They need it in a couple forms. And one is, you know, the continued public awareness of the (INAUDIBLE) this case are (INAUDIBLE) drawing out more leads and tips. We are seeing tens of thousands of tips coming in. So, the -- you know, law enforcement, through their communication, is, you know, constantly making this outreach because what we have seen is other items of evidentiary value are not coming to, you know, materialize, to focus in on a person of interest or a subject.

So, again, this case, at the end of the day, most likely is going to be cracked due to the cooperation of the public and a public tip. BERMAN: Chip, in the last video that we saw from the Guthrie family

was from Savannah Guthrie, and it came out Sunday night. What does the presence or absence of more videos tell us? When would you put out another video at this point in this investigation?

MASSEY: Exactly, John. So, what we saw from Savannah is this heartfelt plea to the captor and to, of course, to the American people. It's a reminder, you know, because we need this attention. Just like Jon was saying, we need this attention on this case because there is somebody who absolutely knows who this is. But for Savannah's message itself, it's the kind of thing that we need the captor to hear. She is -- she is presenting him with all kinds of opportunity. From her -- from the family of the Guthries to him to say, it's not too late to do the right thing. It's never too late to do the right thing.

So, in a sense, it's her welcoming him to say to -- to reach out, open those lines of communication. We're desperate for that to happen. We need for that to happen and to have this to come to a peaceful resolution. But everything has a -- has an impact and effect, and this is the right way to go.

BERMAN: In that sense, perhaps there will be another video in the coming days.

[09:25:02]

Chip Massey, Jonathan Wackrow, thank you both very much for your help on this.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: So, we are standing by right now, waiting for President Trump. Here's a live look inside the room where world leaders are gathering. He's going to be speaking for -- before the first gathering and meeting of his Board of Peace that's focused on Gaza reconstruction. But now hanging over this entire meeting and gathering is the growing threat that the U.S. military could strike Iran as soon as this weekend. We're going to bring you his remarks, live.

And we're also getting the latest on efforts to contain a huge fire that has now reached twice the size of Chicago. And there's more dangerous weather to come.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIDNER: Right now we are standing by, looking at live pictures there, to hear from President Trump, who's speaking at the first meeting of his so-called Board of Peace in Washington.

[09:30:06]

He's expected to announce that member states have pledged more than $5 billion towards