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Tiger Woods' Ex-Girlfriend Files Lawsuits Against Golfer And His Trust; FDA To Require Mammogram Reports Include Breast Density Information; Two Minneapolis Officers Rescue Elderly Couple From Burning Home. Aired 7:30-8a ET
Aired March 10, 2023 - 07:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[07:30:00]
MARK ESPER, FORMER DEFENSE SECRETARY UNDER PRESIDENT TRUMP: Of leaders in the Republican Party, and I think on both sides of the ledger we need a new generation of leaders.
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: All right.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Former Sec. Esper --
LEMON: Thank you, sir.
ESPER: Thank you.
LEMON: Appreciate it.
COLLINS: All right. Also this morning, Tiger Woods, in the sports world -- his ex-girlfriend has filed a lawsuit against Tiger Woods and his trust. We'll tell you why next.
LEMON: He's the most unlucky in love person.
(COMMERCIAL)
COLLINS: Tiger Woods' ex-girlfriend has now filed two separate complaints after their six-year relationship ended.
The first is a complaint filed against a trust that is owned by Tiger Woods. In it, Erica Herman claims that the pair had an oral agreement that allowed her to live in a home that was owned by the trust for five more years with all expenses paid. She says that Woods broke that agreement and locked her out of the home and she's suing for more than $30 million.
Woods was served with a second complaint on Monday, we are told, and in it Herman is trying to free herself from a non-disclosure agreement that she signed back in 2017. She's citing the Speak Out Act that became law in December '22 -- December 2022. That's the federal law that prohibits the enforceability of an NDA if cases of sexual assault or sexual harassment arise after someone has signed it.
[07:35:07] So for more on this fascinating conversation I want to bring in Jeff Benedict who is the co-author of the biography "Tiger Woods." And civil rights attorney and advocate Nancy Erika Smith who is best known for settling Gretchen Carlson's sexual harassment suit against Fox News and Roger Ailes. The two of you together are kind of like this powerhouse --
LEMON: I know.
COLLINS: -- to talk about this. (INAUDIBLE).
LEMON: It's so good to see both of you. Good morning.
NANCY ERIKA SMITH, ATTORNEY, SMITH MULLIN, CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY AND ADVOCATE: Thank you. Good morning.
JEFF BENEDICT, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, HBO DOCUMENTARY "TIGER", CO-AUTHOR, "TIGER WOODS": Good morning.
COLLINS: Let's start with you, Jeff. What do you -- what do you make of all of this?
BENEDICT: Well, I think it's interesting to think about just these two things. We're talking about NDAs and trusts.
And this is really about -- at the heart of this is a story about an athlete. A very prominent, world-famous athlete. And those NDAs and trusts are things you typically don't use in sentences when we're talking about sports.
And I think Tiger is someone who has transcended athletics for so long he's a worldwide figure. He's one of the most recognizable people on the planet and there's a level of sophistication around him that most athletes never get near. And I think that's part of what you're seeing here is that it's the wealth, the fame, the fortune that he's had not for a little while but for a long while, since he was really -- since he was a teenager. And part of that is what's playing out here.
NDAs are something that we ran into relentlessly when we were writing the biography of Tiger Woods.
COLLINS: OK.
BENEDICT: Almost everybody we approached for an interview had signed one and it makes it complicated if you're trying to do that kind of research. But -- so that part doesn't surprise me -- the fact that there were NDAs signed. I mean, that's pretty typical status quo for Tiger.
COLLINS: Just quickly, how many people would you say had said that they had signed an NDA?
BENEDICT: I don't know if I could give you a number. I'm telling you that --
COLLINS: That high? BENEDICT: -- almost everybody -- I mean, I'm not just talking about women. I mean, women had signed them but all kinds of people -- housekeeper. Almost anybody who was in his orbit had signed an NDA. And so, I'm saying that part of this story is not unusual and it didn't surprise me at all.
LEMON: I've just been watching your face as he's been talking and I want to hear what you think. That's it.
SMITH: Well, I think NDAs are abusive. You shouldn't be able to commodify somebody's own life. To say to somebody you can't describe your own experiences in your own life while the other person can say whatever they want about you, which is what's happening here -- this specific allegation of Ms. Herman -- that he's out there saying whatever he wants and she's bound by an MBA -- NDA. And he's dragged her into arbitration, which is always secret.
NDAs are what allowed Harvey Weinstein to abuse women for 30 years. NDAs allowed Roger Ailes to do it. They're usually used in an equal power relationship where somebody with power says to somebody without power your own life experience is now my property now.
And the Speak Out Act was passed because it has allowed perpetrators of sexual harassment and sexual abuse to continue to have victim after victim after victim. So that's why the Speak Out Act passed. Unfortunately, it only applies to pre-dispute signing of an NDA which, in fact, she did in this case. Ms. Herman worked in his restaurant.
COLLINS: Did that change it --
SMITH: She was both an employee --
COLLINS: -- because she was an employee?
SMITH: It doesn't change it because she's an employee, but it makes it more complicated because she's an employee. And she did sign it, clearly, pre-dispute -- five years pre-dispute. Five years before he allegedly tricked her to get her out of the house and brought her -- said she was going on a vacation.
LEMON: But -- and no one can -- I don't think anyone can dispute what you're saying but what if someone is -- if you are a person of note, right -- a high-profile person and you have someone just say coming in doing work for you or what have you, you don't want them disclosing conversations that happen in your home or private things that they may see in your home. Do you understand what I'm saying?
SMITH: I absolutely understand it. If she was showing his checkbook to people --
LEMON: Right.
SMITH: -- or things that are totally private and not about her experiences.
LEMON: Right. SMITH: But to own somebody else's own life -- and she's describing how she was treated. Her photographs, her videos, her family events. To own somebody else's own life, to me, is wrong.
LEMON: Yes.
COLLINS: You know him really well. I mean, you've interviewed him. You've interviewed people around him. You've written books on him.
He has been through -- I mean, his whole life is just such as fascinating thing. But also recently he had the car accident. He's been trying to make this comeback.
What do you -- what do you reflect on when you think about him as a person navigating this situation?
BENEDICT: Well, I think it's really hard for people to -- and I'll include myself when I say people. I'm in that group of people. It's really difficult to put yourself in the shoes of someone like Tiger Woods and truly understand what it's like to be him. And so there's a lot of things that happened in his life that as outsiders you look and you go what? Why?
[07:40:00]
And to me the presence of NDAs I don't find surprising. I mean, sort of to Don's point, I actually think in his case asking people to sign NDAs as they enter his orbit is understandable because there's a lot of people who enter his orbit and you don't know --
LEMON: What their intentions are.
BENEDICT: That's right. It's -- there's a -- there's a level -- I'm not making any excuse here; I'm just saying there's a level of complexity around that level of celebrity that is not normal even for star athletes. And there is only a few people -- Tiger, to me, is much more like a showbiz entertainer at the very top. He's one of the most recognizable people on the planet.
So we quickly realized, like, right down to the housekeeper or the person who comes over to walk his and Elin's dogs is signing an NDA.
It's partly because he's got sophisticated lawyers around him. Agents that most people don't have. They're the ones who produce these documents and ask people to sign them.
It is a little bit different than Harvey Weinstein's situation where women are being asked to sign NDAs on the back end after a bad thing has happened and they enter into a settlement.
Most of the time, in this case -- in Tiger's case, people are signing NDAs when they meet him or when they go into business with him, or they enter some kind of relationship with him.
That's what happened here. I'm not saying it's a good or bad thing but it's a little different. LEMON: Because you don't want people to profit off of -- potentially, come in and profit off of your personal --
BENEDICT: Well, partly that. But also, Don, I think we have to remember where Tiger has been.
LEMON: Yes.
BENEDICT: I mean, that -- what he went through in '08, '09, '10 -- his own making -- I mean, this was a situation that he created. But in the aftermath of that mess that was made, we saw one of the most public spectacles for a professional athlete in the world that we've ever seen.
LEMON: Yes. I've got to go but I know you want to --
SMITH: This isn't a housekeeper. Yes, this isn't a housekeeper. This is an intimate relationship he had with a woman and having her sign an NDA about her own experiences in that relationship is very different than saying the housekeeper shouldn't reveal what the kids got on their homework.
BENEDICT: I don't -- I don't disagree with you. I'm not saying it's the same as that.
SMITH: Yes.
BENEDICT: I was just trying to say it's different than Harvey Weinstein.
LEMON: It's nuanced.
COLLINS: Yes.
SMITH: Yes.
LEMON: Yes.
COLLINS: Kind of par for the course.
BENEDICT: Yes.
LEMON: And we do thank you both. I appreciate it.
SMITH: Thank you.
BENEDICT: Thank you.
LEMON: And we do need to say that CNN reached out to Woods' representatives for a comment but did not immediately receive a response.
Jeff Benedict and Nancy Erika Smith, thank you so much.
SMITH: Thank you.
LEMON: Good to see you.
SMITH: Thank you.
BENEDICT: Thank you.
COLLINS: OK.
Also this morning, the FDA has now updated its regulations for mammograms. This is the first time this has happened in 20 years. What does it mean for you? What does it mean for your health? We're going to tell you next.
(COMMERCIAL)
[07:47:03]
COLLINS: This morning the FDA is announcing new regulations for mammograms for the first time in 20 years. Your mammogram report is now going to include information about breast density, which is really important because apparently, women -- according to science and their studies -- with dense breasts are at a higher risk for breast cancer actually and dense tissue can make it harder to detect cancer in these mammograms.
Joining us now is the chief of breast surgery at Mount Sinai Health System, Dr. Elisa Port. Who better than to break this down?
OK, so what are they looking at? What are they changing? Why is this such a thing that they haven't considered before but need to now?
DR. ELISA PORT, CHIEF OF BREAST SURGERY, MOUNT SINAI HEALTH SYSTEM: Sure. So I think it's important to know that some of it is changed but some of it is not. Understand that starting in 2009, a number of states have already enacted legislation about informing patients of their breast density or informing their doctors.
What the FDA is now doing -- and we're now up to 38 states that have legislation. What the FDA is doing is saying now everyone has to do it. All states have to do this.
COLLINS: OK.
PORT: And more importantly, Kaitlan, we have to inform the patients themselves. So it's a much more consistent and --
COLLINS: Yes.
PORT: -- uniform regulation.
COLLINS: Yes. So they're looking at these regulations.
PORT: Yes.
COLLINS: This is what we're going to see be different, right?
PORT: Right. So, number one, the patients themselves have to hear about their breast density and that's going to be in the form of an added paragraph of text in the person's mammogram report that they receive.
COLLINS: OK.
PORT: Number two, it has to explain how breast density can influence the accuracy of a mammogram. And I guess we'll talk about that in a minute with our pictures showing that if a woman has a lot of density it can make it more difficult to pick up a cancer and she should consider doing additional types of tests that may -- that may prevent that --
COLLINS: OK.
PORT: -- missing.
And obviously, this makes this more of a national initiative rather than a state-by-state kind of decision.
COLLINS: Yes. And so, strengthening their oversight -- it just means basically making sure all states are on the same page here.
PORT: And compliant and -- it's a regulatory compliance.
COLLINS: Yes, you don't want to be different. Breast cancer is not different state to state. You don't want to be different.
OK, I'm fascinated by --
PORT: Yes.
COLLINS: -- all of this because I didn't really know much about this until Katie Couric came out with her story talking --
PORT: Sure.
COLLINS: -- about this and how much of an issue it was.
So what are the doctors looking for here?
PORT: Sure. So, as you can see here, as the map says, less dense tissue shows up as darker on a mammogram. More dense tissue shows up as whiter, OK? A cancer is usually a white ball or little white speckles on a mammogram. So it's really easy to imagine how a white ball or white speckles against this background -- the proverbial polar bear in a snowstorm --
COLLINS: Yes.
PORT: -- situation would be difficult to pick up compared to something like that.
[07:50:00]
So it's a -- it's a hidden kind of effect where the cancer may not be seen as easily on this type of dense mammogram. COLLINS: Yes.
I mean, given your role, has this just been a long time coming?
PORT: You know, for us -- those of us who are in the trenches trying to -- it's all about saving lives. And it's very important for people to know that mammograms do save lives by picking up cancers earlier. And equally as importantly, they save lives while doing less.
You know, if you find a cancer earlier you're way more likely to be able to have smaller surgery, OK, which some women would much prefer. You're way less likely to need more aggressive treatment like chemotherapy.
So saving lives and picking up cancers earlier is our number one goal and always has been.
COLLINS: Yes.
PORT: And if this leads more women, number one, to get mammograms and number two, to get additional tests they might need -- they might need if mammograms miss something, it's a win.
COLLINS: Yes, absolutely.
Dr. Elisa Port, thank you for explaining all of that.
PORT: Thank you.
COLLINS: That is such critical information and thank you for breaking it all down for us and using the magic wall for the first time. We'll bring you back on election night.
PORT: Thank you. I'm all -- I'm all tutored up now -- OK.
COLLINS: Thank you so much.
OK. Also this morning, the cartel that is believed to be responsible for the armed kidnapping of four Americans -- this is a development we've been tracking all week here -- now appears to be saying sorry? What's inside the alleged apology? That's ahead.
LEMON: Plus, this new video of an incredible rescue out of Minneapolis.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OFFICER ZACHERY RANDALL, MINNEAPOLIS POLICE: It was like OK, guys, the house is on fire. We need to get out.
OFFICER JAMAL MITCHELL, MINNEAPOLIS POLICE: Come on out. Get down. Get down. Get down. Get down.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: You're going to hear from the officer who was just three days on the job when he helped save an elderly couple from their burning home.
(COMMERCIAL)
[07:55:56]
LEMON: Two Minneapolis police officers are being recognized for thinking fast and literally running into danger after finding themselves the first to arrive to a burning home. They sprang into action without a single thread of protective gear.
CNN's Adrienne Broaddus has their story in this week's Beyond the Call of Duty.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ADRIENNE BROADDUS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As smoke from a burning home in Minneapolis filled the sky --
CHIEF, BRYAN TYNER, MINNEAPOLIS FIRE DEPARTMENT: They didn't even know the house was on fire.
BROADDUS (voice-over): -- a couple in their 80s was in danger.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was a two-alarm fire.
BROADDUS (voice-over): But before this fire crew arrived --
RANDALL: Police! Anyone in here? Call out!
BROADDUS (voice-over): -- Officer Zachery Randall and Jamal Mitchell were finishing a call nearby. They were the first to respond.
MITCHELL: Start me fire or send me EMS. I've got someone upstairs calling for help.
RANDALL: There was confusion. I mean, it was like OK, guys, the house is on fire. We need to get out.
MITCHELL: Come on out. Get down. Get down. Get down.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't have any shoes on.
MITCHELL: That's OK. Get out.
I remember stepping in that house and just seeing a thick cloud of smoke and not being able to breathe normally.
MITCHELL: It's all right. Get down. Get down.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's some sprinklers going off and that's why my feet are wet.
MITCHELL: That's OK.
RANDALL: So I just kind of grabbed her by her hands and I just kind of helped her down the stairwell. Are you alone, ma'am?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No. My husband is right behind me.
RANDALL: So that was lucky, too, that he was right behind her on that because I don't know how we would have found anyone, much less without respirators or any of the fire equipment.
CHIEF BRIAN O'HARA, MINNEAPOLIS POLICE: Police officers are not trained to run into fires. They are not equipped with the protective equipment and breathing apparatus to go into a fire.
MITCHELL: We're not trained to run into fires but we are trained to put others' lives in front of ours. So when we found out possibly that someone was in that house we didn't second-guess running in to make sure no one was in there.
O'HARA: I mean, three days before Officer Mitchell was in this situation, I had literally just sworn him in as a police officer, so he was brand new.
MITCHELL: Third day on the street for Minneapolis -- yes.
O'HARA: You know, I'm incredibly thankful for Officers Randall and Mitchell and just impressed.
BROADDUS (voice-over): And so is the fire chief Bryan Tyner, who said it took two hours to fight this fire, which is now an arson investigation.
TYNER: And witnesses actually saw somebody throw an incendiary device through the window.
BROADDUS (voice-over): Flames burned through the roof leaving this massive hole.
TYNER: Well, it could have been pretty tragic. I mean, it honestly could have resulted in the fire death. We're very fortunate that they were where they were.
MITCHELL: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm cold, yes.
MITCHELL: OK. We've got shoes out here for you, ma'am.
RANDALL: I think we were fortunate enough to be in the -- in the right spot at the right time on someone's most unfortunate day. And we were just able to help someone out.
Is there anyone else in the house, guys?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
RANDALL: OK.
BROADDUS (voice-over): Adrienne Broaddus, CNN, Minneapolis.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: Running towards danger.
COLLINS: Yes, amazing story.
LEMON: CNN THIS MORNING continues right now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Mr. President, did you know about the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels?
DONALD TRUMP, THEN-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No, no.
REPORTER: Then why -- why did Michael Cohen make this if there was no truth to her allegations?
TRUMP: Well, you'll have to ask Michael Cohen. Michael is my attorney and you'll have to ask Michael Cohen.
REPORTER: Do you know where he got the money to make that payment?
TRUMP: No. I don't know -- no.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Well, they did ask Michael Cohen, right?
COLLINS: There are so many seminal moments from the Trump presidency but that simple question is one of them --
LEMON: Yes
COLLINS: -- because it was a moment that was on camera and now it's been used so many times.
LEMON: Yes, you're right. That moment stands out to everyone on the plane. Were you on the plane when they did that?
COLLINS: No. That was a pool reporter. I think it was Katherine (INAUDIBLE) who did it. It was amazing.
LEMON: I wonder if people were shocked? I think they were when he came back and actually answered that question.
COLLINS: Well, because it -- we've seen how it's played out in cases in the past and how it may be playing out now.
Good morning, everyone. Poppy, as you can see, is off here today.
What Don and I are talking about after these years of denials there is new reporting from The New York Times that former President Trump may soon face criminal charges in that Stormy Daniels hush case that he was being asked about there.
LEMON: Plus.
