we hope that some of these stories have inspired you to get involved and do your part because you, too, can be somebody s hero. thank you and good night. [ cheers and applause ] what s it like being billie jean king? i have no idea. i think since i was young, i mean i told my mother at 7, mommy, mommy, i m going to do something great with my life. i know it. i can feel i it. being billie jean king means knknowing from the beginning sh was destined for greatness. i knew the first t time i we off to getet free inststructionh in lonong beach, i i knew at t d of thahat session n i wanted t the numbmber one tenennis playe the worlrld. h how old werere you? i was 1 11. that w was only ththe second t picked up a racket. she quickly fell in love with the sport but also quickly noticed deep inequities in tennis that reflected the same about ththe world. at t 12, i was s playing ata los angegeles tennisis club. all the big tournamements were therere. i i was sittining i
sandwich. he tore off a corner of it, a piece of bread. he ate it, and he gave the rest to his dog. they ve taught me a lot too. i ll close by saying this. an act of kindness can change your day. change someone s day. an act or gesture of kindness can change somebody s life. thank you. [ applause ] what a night. we want to thank everybody for joining us. thank you, laura. oh, my goodness. thank you for holding my hand. that was beautiful. can you imagine the level of generosity to say give back immediately? this tells you why we do this. thank you so much. you can support all of our honorees right now by going to cnnheroes.com and click donate. each donate will be met dollar for dollar. if you know someone as amazing as tonight s honorees, you can nominate them to be a cnn hero in 2024 because officially, anderson, nominations are now open. we hope that some of these stories have inspired you to get involved and do your part because you, too, can be somebody s hero. t
constitution. what was it that was so compelling that i did not know this before, the smoking gun tape hadn t even come out. i think what was so compelling is that you had both houses of congress controlled by the democrats and gaining in the spring of 1973 right after archibald cox was appointed you had television hearings where this came out. by the time it was june or july of 73 they had been involved in the watergate break-in, heard the testimony of dean and knew president nixon had ordered hush money be paid to the watergate burglars. the only question was would you believe john dean? and then, lo and behold, the tapes come out. we learn from alex butterfield
moment and michael i was listening to the great slate podcast on watergate right now called slow burn and they re going back through and one of the things is actually tracking the arc of that story is unfurled in realtime. it s not until july of 73 which is a year after the break-in basically that they even learn of the taping system, the taping system s sitting there for the entirety of the first years of the administration, it s not a secret, there are people who know this and they don t get to it. investigators don t get to it until a year after the break-in and i heard that, there may be a lot we still don t know. yeah. what s striking to me is first, how much we ve learned since a year ago, you go back to early january, i have nothing to do with russia, that was trump s line and then we learn about the kizly yack/flynn meeting, we learn about trump tower and papadopoulos, how much we learn
listening to a podcast on watergate called slow burn. going back through. fascinating about going back through it, tracking the arc of that story, it s not until july of 73, a year after the break-in, basically, that they even learned of the taping system. the taping system sitting there for the entirety of the first years of the administration. it s not a secret. there are people who know this, and they don t get to it. investigators on the committee don t get it until a year after the break-in. i heard that, there may be a lot we still don t know still? right. striking to me, first, how much we ve learned since a year ago. go back to early january. nothing to do with russia. that was trump s line, and then, you know, we learn about the kislyak/flynn conversations. we learn about the trump tower meeting. we learn about papadopolos, about jeff sessions meetings. how much we ve learned, and how little we really know and whether it adds up to what the,