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Ex-Prince Andrew Arrested Amid Epstein Files Revelations; President Trump Visits Georgia; Arizona Officials Fighting DOJ Demand for Private Voter Data; "The Rise of Christian Nationalism" in the U.S. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired February 19, 2026 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Hours after the former Prince Andrew's arrest, police activity was still ongoing at his current residence in eastern England. Despite today's bombshell development, the royal family has been carrying on with their regular duties. King Charles meeting earlier with ambassadors from Spain and Kenya before attending a London Fashion Week event, while Queen Camilla took in a concert and later met with a group of schoolchildren who were performing.

We're joined now by CNN royal historian Kate Williams. This -- I think first, Kate, let's just talk about the gravity of this situation. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was stripped of his royal title. It has been almost 400 years since a senior royal was arrested. That was actually King Charles I. Help us understand just the significance of this moment.

KATE WILLIAMS, CNN ROYAL HISTORIAN: This is unprecedented. I mean, this is the biggest catastrophe, the biggest crisis to hit the modern royal family. I mean, it's bigger than the abdication, when Andrew VIII abdicated in 1936. It's bigger than the death of Diana in 1997, which really damaged royal popularity, because in both of those cases, there was no allegation of a crime. This is the allegation of a serious crime against a senior member of the royal family, and there is no precedent in modern times for the arrest of a royal. As you say, we're going right back to the Civil War in the 17th century.

There are many examples in the Tudor period before that of Elizabeth I being arrested, thrown to the tower, Anne Boleyn was thrown into the tower. But in modern -- post the 17th century, this has never happened. I mean, this is unprecedented. It's extraordinary. I think many royal commentators, royal historians thought this might never happen. The royals are my job, I study them in royal history. And many royal crimes are committed and get brushed under the carpet.

[13:35:00]

But Andrew has now been arrested, he's been -- what happens in the U.K. is we're fingerprinted, photographed, taken for interrogation. He might even be in a police cell somewhere, perhaps in Reading, in the Thames Valley area. I mean, the levels of this, it's impossible to compute. This is very -- this is a seismic day for the royal family, a seismic day for history, and this is going to be something the royal family are really going to struggle to distance themselves from.

KEILAR: Yes, a seismic day, and yet, Kate, if you looked at their schedules only, you would not pick that up from the sort of normality of what they're doing. What message are they trying to send?

WILLIAMS: Yes, very good point. It's been business as usual for the other royals. Charles was out there doing the Fashion Week engagement. Camilla was out there, as you say, at the concert. And in Charles' statement, which he issued this morning, basically saying no-one is above the law, the law must be conducted. I was very concerned when I heard about the allegations. He said, we shall continue in duty and service to you, i.e., the British public, the Commonwealth.

But that's the question, isn't it? Can they simply say, Andrew is a bad egg, he's been, you know, dealt with by the law? The rest of the royal family are quite different. They've been trying to draw a line in the sand between themselves and Andrew for a very long time, evicting him from Royal Lodge, asking him to step back from the title of Duke of York. But let's face it, he's still in the line of succession.

Still, if something awful happened -- you know, God forbid that, something awful happened, he could still be king. He's still a central member of the royal family. And his work as trade envoy, which we think these allegations refer to, that office was in Buckingham Palace. So, it could be that the police have to search Buckingham Palace as well. Totally unprecedented.

KEILAR: I mean, that would be unbelievable if that happened. Many of the public allegations against Andrew, Kate, relate to Epstein. These were made years ago, right? This was before the Queen's death. We should note he's been denying all allegations related to Epstein.

The Queen was famously protective of her family and her kids. Is there any sense among royal watchers that with Andrew, she maybe went too far in protecting him?

WILLIAMS: Well, I think that is the case, isn't it? Because we've all known that Andrew and Epstein were friends. And there was that infamous photo taken in 2010 in Central Park with Andrew and Epstein together. And Epstein had already been found guilty of procuring a child for prostitution. I mean, we obviously call that sexual trafficking now. And Andrew went out for a walk with him.

And yet, he didn't change his royal engagements there. He carried on. It wasn't until the BBC interview when he really talked -- you know, they asked him about Mischief Ray (ph). He said he didn't know anything about it. He'd been at Pizza Express, ETC. It wasn't until he gave an interview to the BBC that he had to step back from being an active royal.

Simply, the fact is, I think, that the royals have really buried their head in the sand, hoped this would go away. But the fact is now that people are saying, well, yes, the king is letting the principle, the process, carry on. But if Andrew is charged, and he has to be charged quite soon if he is going to be charged, within, you know, 96 hours, but really within 24 hours, so he might expect a charge if it's going to happen today or tomorrow, if he's charged, he'll then go to trial.

And the king, as someone who was very close to Andrew, who lived in the palace, might be asked to give evidence in a court trial. I mean, you know, this is really a day for the modern monarchy it has never had to face, and has it got enough strength of support in public opinion to see it through this? That's the question.

KEILAR: Yes, I mean, the idea -- you're saying that this is a bigger day than the abdication or the death of Princess Diana as it pertains to the effect on the royal family, how people perceive the royal family. That is something that is really telling. And a royal source says that Buckingham Palace, they weren't given advance notice of the arrest. Is that what you would expect?

WILLIAMS: Yes, they weren't given advance notice. We don't believe that anyone was given advance notice, not even the prime minister. It was a police investigation. But certainly, Charles said, you know, just recently, he said that the police, if they wanted support, he would give them his support. That, to me, was almost like a sort of trigger, saying to the police, you go ahead, because it's quite a swift investigation, isn't it? The Epstein files that relate to this matter, that we believe it's about leaking information about British companies, sensitive information, that was only revealed very recently in the newspapers when the journalists looked through the Epstein files.

So, it's a very fast-moving investigation. And really, you know, the royal family were actually quite fortunate because the Parliament -- our parliamentarians, are on a break at the moment.

[13:40:00]

When they come back next week, there might be some very serious questions in Parliament about dealing with Andrew, you know, because so far, the government have said, you know, the family deal with it. I think, you know, a lot of parliamentarians might be making a lot of questions next week because public opinion is really very angry. Public opinion is furious. They're angry. There's a lot of anger online about this, a lot of anger that Andrew has got away with it so far -- got away with so much for so long.

If he's found not guilty of this, there are other things he's being accused of. Simply, I think this is not going -- this is the first chapter of a big book of crisis for the royal family.

KEILAR: Wow. Kate Williams, great to speak with you. Thank you so much.

WILLIAMS: Great to see you.

KEILAR: And a week after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said she planned to send ICE agents to polling centers, Arizona Republicans have a plan to do just that. We'll have new reporting right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [13:45:00]

KEILAR: Today, President Trump is visiting Georgia, and he'll be making a number of stops, including giving a speech on the economy. It's happening as the state grapples with his renewed and baseless claims about the 2020 election.

Just last month, the FBI raided a Fulton County election facility, seizing ballots and other materials. Local officials are now accusing Trump's DOJ of misleading the judge who approved that search warrant. Among their claims, that the DOJ failed to tell a judge that the criminal investigation originated from a referral sent by former Trump campaign lawyer Kurt Olsen. He is a 2020 election denier who has been sanctioned by multiple courts, as noted in the county's court filing.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Meantime, in Arizona, Republicans are backing a bill that would require federal immigration enforcement officers to be present at statewide polling sites in the 2026 election. The legislation says officials would be prohibited from questioning or detaining anyone simply to determine their voting eligibility. Supporters say the proposal was intended to ensure election security in the wake of election integrity concerns.

Stephen Richard joins us now. He's a former Maricopa County recorder, also the CEO of Republic Affairs, and a fellow at the Cato Institute. Stephen, thanks so much for sharing part of your afternoon with us. What would the impact of this bill in Arizona be? Do you expect it to become law?

STEPHEN RICHER (R), FORMER MARICOPA COUNTY, ARIZONA RECORDER: I don't expect it to become law. We have a Democratic governor who is our former secretary of state who I think she would have nothing to do with this. I think that this is more of a signaling bill, but if it were to become law, I think it would prove a significant disruption, and it doesn't even really make sense because ICE, as I understand it, is about naturalization, about whether or not you're a United States citizen. You don't have to bring proof of citizenship when you show up to vote. You just have to bring proof of identification. You don't have to bring a passport. You don't have to bring your birth certificate, say.

KEILAR: And your successor, the new Maricopa County recorder, conducted a review of more than 60,000 registered voters in Arizona and say they found 137 registered voters who are not U.S. citizens. Of those, 60 individuals have voted in prior elections. What can you tell us about how you understand this review? Have these flagged voters been notified?

RICHARD: So, it's important to understand the context here in that Maricopa County is a county of about 2.6 million registered voters, so that's the context. Every year, we would review our voter rolls and we would make sure that there were no irregularities and we would forward any cases that deserved more investigation to the county attorney's office and to the attorney general.

Now, what has changed since I left office is the federal government has unrolled its SAVE database that purports to allow states to upload their voter registration rolls to see if there are any noncitizens. The problem with that, as reported by ProPublica in recent weeks, is that it returns quite a few false positives. And so, I would say to anyone using that database, it's a tool, it can lead you to further investigation, but registrants should not be taken off of the rolls simply because they are pinged by the SAVE database, and I trust that the county recorder's office under my successor will do further investigation on those voters.

SANCHEZ: The federal government through DOJ is also, in a multitude of states, trying to collect non-public voter information like driver's licenses, partial Social Security numbers. The Secretary of State in Arizona has pushed back on that, saying that he would have to be sent to jail before he turned that information over. What is it that you think the feds want to do with that data?

RICHARD: Yes. Well, you know, that's -- Adrian Fontes, our secretary of state, he has a certain dramatic flair, but I think that states are resisting by and large. I think the federal government has sued now about 28 states. States are resisting because they feel that it violates both state law and federal law to give up their entire voter registration databases, which include personal identifying information like your Social Security number or your 10-digit driver's license.

And of the cases that have been brought, so far courts have ruled on motions to dismiss in four of those, and so far, the states have won all four of those. And so, I think that our secretary and the other states are well positioned in this litigation. I don't think it's an appropriate request from the federal government.

[13:50:00]

I am, however, sympathetic to wanting to do list maintenance. I'm sympathetic to wanting to make sure that non-citizens aren't participating in our elections. We have to do things by the law, and we have to be clear about what the reality is. And the reality is that any time anyone studies this, there's no evidence of a significant number of non-citizens voting.

KEILAR: Yes, the Cato Institute actually keeps a database. It's a good place to look to give you sort of a sense of who has been prosecuted for that, and most importantly, who hasn't been, because the numbers, as you point out, are very slim. So, we mentioned Kurt Olsen, Stephen, and he is a 2020 election denier. He's serving as the presidentially appointed Director of Election Security and Integrity. What do you make of that?

RICHARD: Yes, so I just want -- the -- it's actually the Heritage Foundation has that database.

KEILAR: That's right. I'm sorry, you're right.

RICHARD: The Cato Institute has some other databases, but -- no, no, that's quite all right. As for Kurt Olsen, he's somebody I'm quite familiar with because he was very active in the 2022 Arizona race, and as a result of some of the litigation that he brought on behalf of Kari Lake, on behalf of Mark Fincham, who was a candidate for Secretary of State in Arizona, he was sanctioned by both the federal district court here and by the Arizona Supreme Court for outright lying in some of his legal filings, and in fact, he was even subject to discipline by the Arizona State Bar Association as a result of those filings.

So, he did not leave with a very clean record here in Arizona. I think in previous eras, that type of sanctionable activity would have disqualified him from such a position, but it appears to not be the case, obviously, in this second Trump administration.

SANCHEZ: A different era, I guess. Stephen Richard, thanks so much for joining us.

RICHARD: Thank you for having me.

SANCHEZ: Now, to some of the other headlines we're watching this hour. New numbers from the Labor Department show fewer Americans are filing for first-time unemployment benefits, a sign that layoffs may still be relatively tame. The report estimates 206,000 initial jobless claims were filed last week. That's 23,000 fewer than the week before, lower than economists had expected.

Plus, get ready for a new look for Air Force One. An Air Force official tells CNN President Trump's preferred paint scheme will start being used on the new, heavily modified Boeing 747 jets. They're going to feature red, white, gold, and navy, a design initially proposed during Trump's first term. This, of course, replaces the iconic baby blue and white color scheme that was introduced during the Kennedy administration.

KEILAR: Also, South Korea's former president has been sentenced to life in prison. A court found Yoon Suk Yeol guilty of leading an insurrection during his failed attempt to declare martial law back in 2024. Perhaps you remember that dramatic moment. Prosecutors sought the death penalty. They argued the move destroyed the country's constitutional order. Yoon denies any wrongdoing. He is expected to appeal the ruling as he faces other criminal charges.

And a royal under arrest. We have some brand-new details about the charges against Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

[13:55:00]

KEILAR: CNN's brand-new episode of The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper examines the rise of Christian nationalism in the United States. That ideology is rooted in the belief that the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation and its laws and institutions should reflect that.

CNN anchor and chief investigative correspondent Pamela Brown has been digging into this. All right. Pamela, tell us what you found.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, when I embarked on this documentary on Christian nationalism, I wanted to better understand the curriculums and ultimate goals of classical Christian schools, which are really foundational for this movement, and what the environment there looks like.

So, I embedded with a community in southeast Texas called Taylor where I interviewed several folks affiliated with the classical Christian school in the town there. That included the headmaster and headmistress who are married and another teacher who plans to send all of her children there. Religion isn't just a subject. It's embedded in every subject and in the way they discipline students who may act out of turn.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN (voice-over): Within strict reform churches, disobedience demands discipline, whether from a parent, a husband, or a teacher.

CALEB RIPPLE, CLASSICAL CHRISTIAN SCHOOL HEADMASTER: The goal of biblical discipline is to get them back into fellowship with God, with one another. And nine times out of ten, our teachers are able to get that done in the classroom.

BROWN (voice-over): But when they can't --

EJ RIPPLE, CLASSICAL CHRISTIAN SCHOOL HEADMISTRESS: We do have a paddle.

C. RIPPLE: Yes, it's a paddle.

E. RIPPLE: We do have a spanking policy. We will make a phone call to the parents and say, we have to resolve the issue. So, whether it's you coming to pick them up or you coming and administering your own discipline or us administering a spanking, the root of the problem is a sinful heart.

C. RIPPLE: We do not ever leave that room after a spanking. And the student is sulky, angry, mad. It is always a restoration of fellowship, and it's a beautiful picture. It really is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN (voice-over): Now, something they wanted to make clear to me is that disobeying the teacher while under the authority of that teacher and their view is also disobeying God. So, they see the paddling as a picture of restoration for the students. And another element our viewers might find interesting at the back of the classroom where we did this interview, there were high chairs. The teachers explaining that mothers who are teachers are encouraged to bring their newborns to school.

There could be babies crawling around while they teach. They might be holding their babies, Brianna. It's to remind the students that their female teacher's primary role --

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