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Andrew Yang's Wife Evelyn Shares Her Story Of Sexual Assault; Ranking The Top 5 Democrats As The Field Narrows. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired January 17, 2020 - 14:30   ET

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

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[14:32:11]

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: A stunning and difficult revelation from the wife of presidential candidate, Andrew Yang. Evelyn Yang is breaking her silence after years that her doctor sexually assaulted her while she was pregnant.

She would later discover many other women had accused the same doctor of something similar. It's a secret that Yang kept for years even from members of her own family. And so she is now sharing her story for the first time exclusively with Dana Bash. And I should warn you, parts of her story are tough to listen to.

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DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Evelyn Yang has a story so secret she never even shared it with most of her own family. But spending time with her husband, presidential candidate Andrew Yang, on the campaign trail and hearing so much gratitude from voters for talking about son Christopher's autism made her feel newly-empowered.

EVELYN YANG, WIFE OF ANDREW YANG: Meeting people and seeing the difference that we've been making already has moved me to share my own story about it, about sexual assault.

(voice-over): It was 2012. She was pregnant with her first baby and found an OB-GYN who had a good reputation, Dr. Robert Hadden. Initially, she says her visits were routine but after a few months, things changed.

YANG: It started with inappropriate questions around how intimate I was with my husband, sexual activity, just very inappropriate probing questions that were unrelated to my health.

The examinations became longer, more frequent, and I learned that they were unnecessary most of the time. Most women don't know what you're supposed to get when you're pregnant. I didn't know that you're not supposed to get an exam every time you went to see the doctor.

I feel like I put up with some inappropriate behavior that I didn't know at the time was straight-up sexual abuse/sexual assault until much later. And I regret having put up with that because it ended up in a sexual assault that was indisputable but quite blatant.

(voice-over): Yang says the worst assault happened when she was seven months pregnant.

YANG: I was in the exam room. And I was dressed and ready to go. And then at the last minute he kind of made up an excuse. He said something about I think you're -- you might need a C-section. And he proceeded to grab me over to him and undress me and examine me internally, ungloved. And at first, I was a little bit like what's going on here?

[14:35:13]

(on camera): And there was no one else in the room?

YANG: No, no. In fact, when I think back to most of our exams, I don't think there was anyone in the room. Yes.

(on camera): You thought to yourself this isn't just inappropriate banter, this is much different.

YANG: Oh, he -- I mean, at that moment, I knew that was -- I knew it was wrong. I mean, I knew. I said -- I knew I was being assaulted.

(voice-over): She says she thought she was the kind of person who would run away, but she couldn't.

YANG: I imagined myself as someone being, you know, like I would throw a chair at him and run out yelling bloody murder. It's not what happened. I was confused and then I realized what was happening and then I just kind of froze like a deer in headlights, just frozen. I knew what was happening.

I remember trying to fix my eyes on a spot on the wall and just trying to avoid seeing his face as he was -- as he was assaulting me. I was just waiting for it to be over.

(voice-over): She left that day and never went back.

(on camera): Did you tell your husband, Andrew?

YANG: No. I didn't tell anyone. I didn't tell anyone what happened. I didn't tell Andrew or my family because I didn't want to upset them.

I thought this happened to me. I can process this, I can deal with it, I can compartmentalize it. And --

(on camera): And did you?

YANG: I tried, I tried, but I just didn't want to affect others. And I certainly didn't want Andrew blaming himself for not being able to go with me to these doctor's visits because honestly, if he was with me in the room -- if anyone was with me in the room, this obviously wouldn't have happened. And at the time, he was traveling a lot for his nonprofit and most of the scheduling just didn't work out.

(voice-over): Many months later, after her baby was born, a letter came in the mail. Robert Hadden had left his practice.

YANG: I Googled him, and there it was. There was a headline that said that he had assaulted another woman and she reported it to the police. And at that moment everything just stood still. It was this sense of relief, of finally realizing that I wasn't alone in it.

He still picked me but that it wasn't because of -- right, it wasn't something that I did. It was, you know, this was a serial predator. And he just picked me as his prey.

(voice-over): It was at that point she told husband Andrew.

YANG: I just needed to tell someone, you know. I needed to share in that moment because it felt so big to me. I needed that support. And I told him and he cried. I think he wasn't bawling -- he -- there were tears.

And he said it's because he remembered when I told -- when I came home one day ranting about pervy doctors. I said something like why do they let men be gynecologists? It makes no sense. And he remembered that I had made this comment and he felt so bad. He felt guilty that he didn't make the connection or ask me more.

(voice-over): She found a lawyer who discovered the Manhattan District Attorney had an open case against the doctor. Several other women had come forward with similar stories of being assaulted by him.

YANG: And that was just life-changing. It felt so good to not be alone in this.

(voice-over): She worked with an assistant district attorney who was collecting information from 18 women, including Yang, with allegations against Hadden. Yang testified before a grand jury, which indicted Hadden on multiple felony sex charges.

[14:40:01]

YANG: Every time I talked to the ADA, the case was going great. And she was always telling me how strong this case was, how we were going to put him in jail, how he wasn't going to be able to do this to anyone ever again. And all of a sudden there was this drop-off. I didn't hear from her for months.

(voice-over): Finally, in February 2016, she was told the D.A. agreed to a plea deal with the doctor. He would lose his medical license, register as the lowest level sex offender, but not go to jail.

YANG: He was getting off with a slap on the wrist, basically.

(voice-over): Not just that. Although he was charged on nine counts involving six accusers, he only pleaded guilty to two charges involving two women. Evelyn Yang was not one of them.

YANG: They said that the punishment was the same. Regardless of how many counts he pled guilty to, that the punishment would have been the same, so it didn't matter. And I thought well, it matters to me for obvious reasons.

And it wasn't until after Me Too and the Weinstein case came out that the victims in this case realized that we were betrayed twice. First --

(on camera): That's how you feel? You feel that you were betrayed twice?

YANG: Oh, absolutely. It's like getting, you know, slapped in the face and punched in the gut. It -- the D.A.'s office is meant to protect us. It's meant to serve justice. And there was no justice here.

(voice-over): The office of Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance is the same one that was lenient with Jeffrey Epstein over his registering as a sex offender, and also initially failed to prosecute Harvey Weinstein.

When asked for a response, the D.A.'s office told CNN that obtaining a felony conviction was the goal in this case. And, "While we stand by our legal analysis and resulting disposition of this difficult case, we regret that this resolution has caused survivors pain."

Though Hadden was not a big name, like Weinstein or Epstein, Yang says he did have a powerful protector, Columbia University, which runs the medical facility where he practiced.

YANG: The fact that it's a, you know, a name-brand university behind this doctor and using their influence to protect themselves at the expense of the victims in the case.

(voice-over): Some six weeks before Yang says she was assaulted, police went to Hadden's office and arrested him. Another patient told police he sexually assaulted her and licked her vagina during an exam. The arrest was voided and he went back to seeing female patients.

YANG: What happened to me should have never happened. He was arrested in his office and he was let back to work.

(on camera): Without anybody in the room.

YANG: Without a chaperone. I mean, at the very least, the bare minimum would be to make sure that there's an aide all the time. I -- and that's what's very painful is knowing that actually what happened to me could have been prevented.

(voice-over): Yang's attorney says there are at least 32 women who now accuse Hadden of sexual assault. Most of them including Yang, are part of civil suits against Columbia University, its affiliates, and Hadden.

Among the allegations, accusing Hadden of aggressively penetrating and groping their bodies and genitalia, forcing them to strip naked, groping their breasts, digitally penetrating them, and licking their vaginas. The suit also claims Columbia knew about allegations against Hadden, received numerous complaints of serious misconduct, and kept the complaints secret to avoid negative publicity. The lawsuit is still ongoing. Hadden denies all the allegations against him except the ones he pleaded guilty to.

CNN sent detailed questions to Columbia, including why Dr. Hadden was allowed to return to work after his initial arrest, but the university only responded that the allegations against Hadden were abhorrent and they deeply apologize to those whose trust was violated.

Yang fought in court for more than two years to keep her identity anonymous, which makes going public now even more remarkable.

(on camera): Why do you want to do this now? What do you want to accomplish now?

YANG: My personal life and this growing public life, they're not separate.

[14:45:00]

And in this case, my experience with the sexual assault and then what happened, all that happened afterwards is such a powerful and upsetting example of the truth that women are living with every day and I just happen to be able to have a platform to talk about it. I need to use that voice. I feel like it's something that's an

obligation but also a privilege and a gift that I get to share my story now and also help other women.

The process of getting to this point is very hard. You know, I, like I haven't slept in days. This is very hard to come out with but I hope it's -- you know, and I have to believe that it's worth it.

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BALDWIN: Bravo to you Evelyn Yang for coming out and sharing your story. And by the way as that was airing, Dana, I've got you. She's texting me. And here's the update. Since this piece ran this morning, this is from Dana, she says that Evelyn Yang's attorney, Anthony DiPietro, tells us that he has already heard from nine women of this morning who saw the piece and said they too were assaulted by Hadden and that these women are also now looking for justice. Thank you, Dana.

We'll be right back.

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[14:51:00]

BALDWIN: With just 17 days to go until Iowans cast their first vote to the 2020 presidential race for the Iowa caucuses, and the race for the Democratic nomination appears wide open. So this field of candidates started at 28, it's now winnowed down to 12. But at this point, it's still really anyone's guess who will win Iowa and beyond.

Let's go straight to CNN Politics Reporter and Editor at Large Chris Cillizza with your candidate rankings. So where does it stand right now?

CHRIS CILLIZZA, CNN POLITICS REPORTER & EDITOR AT LARGE: Yes. Well, let me emphasize guess. I would say what we entered and I do every two weeks is an educated guess, but still a guest nonetheless, because this stuff is hard. So let me go through -- there are still 12 people running as you note, Brooke, which is remarkable. But let's go through top five. This is nationally.

So number five, we have Amy Klobuchar. We've had her in our top five for a while. The reason is simple. She does have a plausible path to surprise a little bit in Iowa. She's from the Midwest. She's done well in recent debates. She's kind of hanging in that 6 percent, 7 percent area in polling in Iowa. So keep an eye on her but she hasn't broken through the packet.

Then we move Elizabeth Warren, we enter at four. We move to a new tie with Pete Buttigieg. So look, Elizabeth Warren has moved up and down our rankings a lot over the past year. She -- When she started as a candidate, she was not in great shape, then she obviously had a huge run over the summer. We put her all the way up to number one briefly.

We think three is the right spot for her and Buttigieg because it seems as though within the first year, which is four candidates big, very clearly the third and fourth. Now, that doesn't mean that much because if you told me Pete Buttigieg or Elizabeth Warren won Iowa in 70 state days time, I wouldn't be all that surprised. And that would put them in good shape for New Hampshire. Which leaves us with the final two, which remarkably, if we had talked about this a year ago, even two years ago, we probably say, Brooke, the top two or the top two, we would have thought then.

Bernie Sanders at number two. Sanders has, since his heart attack on the campaign trail in the fall of last year, he has really bounced back quite nicely. There's no pulling that suggests he's right in that mix, and I will write in that mixer ahead. In New Hampshire, he's going to run strong in Nevada, which is February 22.

I still think, and this is -- will transition me to number one, South Carolina that February 29th race, that's the one that I think Biden has in the bag barring some huge upset. And that's why we keep him at number one, because out of those top four that we list there, if you look at the first four states, the only state where I think any of those four can feel really good about winning is Biden in South Carolina.

BALDWIN: Yes.

CILLIZZA: So if you've got that, I still got one in the bag. I think that helps.

BALDWIN: So because there are so many candidates, crazy question, could you have multiple winners in Iowa?

CILLIZZA: Yes. OK. So in addition to the fact that every poll in Iowa has those four people, Sanders, Warren, Buttigieg, and Biden basically all tied effectively statistically. In addition to that, Brooke, Iowa -- most people don't know this -- Iowa has changed the way in which is going to report its results. Normally in the past, it just said, OK, we did the caucuses, Hillary Clinton got this many delegates from National Convention, Bernie Sanders got this many, Hillary Clinton got a few more, she won.

Well, Bernie Sanders didn't like that because the raw vote was close. So now you're going to get first vote, you're going to get a raw vote of all where everybody goes. The first time everybody caucuses, you move around the room, you stand for your candidate where everybody goes, then you'll also get a final vote.

Remember, Iowa caucuses, if you get under 15 percent of the vote at your caucus site, you are required to leave your candidate and try to pick one of the candidates if you want, who got over 15 percent. So we'll get that initial vote, we'll get the final raw vote, and then we'll get the delegate count. So you can see candidates very easily declaring victory not just based only on the delegate count, but also on the raw vote. Say well we didn't get that many delegates but we -- we finished in the top three in the raw vote.

So the whole three tickets out of Iowa thing is going to get complicated. Three tickets based on what number.

BALDWIN: Got you, because it changes --

CILLIZZA: I know it's super complicated but it's going to --

[14:55:01]

BALDWIN: I mean now quizzes (ph) off, no.

CILLIZZA: In 17 days, I promise, it will be important.

BALDWIN: Yes, February 3rd. Mark the calendar as Chris. Thank you as always.

CILLIZZA: Thanks, Brooke.

BALDWIN: There have been a lot of new developments, by the way, in the Senate trial of President Trump. The battle over evidence and witnesses heats up as the President reveals new members of his defense team, including one who the President previously referred to and I quote, as a lunatic. Details are next.

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