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Supreme Court to Hear Challenges to State Bans on Trans Athletes; Wall Street Journal Slams Trump, DOJ Over Fed Chair Powell Criminal Subpoena; Trump Expected to be Briefed on Military Options for Iran. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired January 13, 2026 - 07:30   ET

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

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[07:30:00]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, the culture wars head straight to the Supreme Court. The justices are set to hear arguments asking the question around should transgender women and girls be able to play in women's sports at publicly-funded schools? They're considering two cases, actually, one of them brought by a now high school sophomore from West Virginia, Becky Pepper-Jackson. She is suing the state over its law banning transgender girls like her from joining girls' sports teams.

More than half of the -- half of U.S. states have enacted laws similar to the ban that we see in West Virginia, making it clear that what the justices ultimately decide here could have big ripple effects across the country.

CNN's Chief Supreme Court Analyst Joan Biskupic has a preview for all of us. Joan, what is the is at issue that the justices are considering here with these cases?

JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN CHIEF SUPREME COURT ANALYST: Sure, great to see you, Kate. And this is, you know, one of our most important cases of this session at the Supreme Court. It's an issue that's divided the states. It's divided Americans. It's divided athletes. And the question is, may states ban transgender women from playing on girl and women sports teams in schools? And as you say, it involves young women from West Virginia, young women from Idaho, both had wanted to participate in track and field. Their states have bans against that.

And lower courts ruled at the initial phase for these women, these trans women, saying that it is -- they likely would succeed on their claims of sex discrimination. The states who are enforcing the ban say that it's just plain unfair to have trans women play on girl -- in women's sports teams because of the -- they say there's a disadvantage in terms of size and strength. The challengers say, of course, that this violates not just federal law but also the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection of the law.

Now, these appeals from the states are coming to a Supreme Court that once upon a time seemed very open to transgender rights. In 2020, the Supreme Court had ruled that anyone who discriminates against a transgender worker on the job, necessarily engages in unlawful sex discrimination. And that was a major ruling in 2020 in the case called Bostock versus Clayton County. But this is in a very different court from 2020. Since then, the justices have shown much more skepticism towards trans rights, including just last year in a case that involved state bans that are going kind of in the opposite direction, forbidding trans youth from obtaining puberty blockers and hormones to help with transitions. And in that case, a different 6-3 majority said states can do that and said that it's not discrimination when states might put trans youth at a disadvantage.

So, we'll see, Kate, beginning at 10:00, and we're going to be -- I'll be in the courtroom of course, but we'll be airing parts of those arguments to see just where the justices are at in terms of this law and whether John Roberts, the chief justice, or Justice Neil Gorsuch, who are once on the side of protecting trans rights in 2020 but not last year, where they go in this new case. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Two of them to watch closely, for sure. It's good to see you, Joan. Thank you so much.

BISKUPIC: Right.

BOLDUAN: All about to start up very soon. John?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR : All right. New this morning, a scathing editorial from the Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal, the headline, Lawfare for Dummies. It slams President Trump in the Department of Justice for the decision to issue a criminal subpoena for Fed Chair Jerome Powell. They call it, quote, a self-defeating fiasco. And they went even further saying, in the annals of political lawfare, there's dumb, and then there's the criminal subpoena federal prosecutors delivered Friday to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. President Trump would do himself and the country a big favor by firing those responsible for this fiasco.

With us now, Democratic Strategist, former White House Director of Message Planning Meghan Hays and former Chief of Staff to Vice President Mike Pence, Marc Short.

[07:35:00]

And, Marc, I got to say, there are all kinds of Republican senators coming out extremely critical of this. Axios is reporting the treasury secretary, Scott Bessent isn't happy. Jeanine Pirro, who's the U.S. attorney for D.C., who's involved with the subpoena, sort of issued a tweet last night kind of backing off, saying, I'm just asking questions here. No one said indictment. This seems to be going well so far.

MARC SHORT, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF, VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: It clearly is a disaster. And I think you've even seen the president begin to pivot and claim he had no responsibility for this. But, you know, John, I think one of the ironies is that I was in the Oval Office in the first administration when the president was considering between John Taylor, Kevin Warsh, and Jerome Powell in that decision, and he's the one that chose Jerome Powell because there were assurances from his treasury secretary that Powell would keep rates lower, and that's what he wanted. And the irony is that here we are years later, he's upset that he feels like Powell hasn't lowered rates even further.

But this is a ham-handed fiasco. And I would imagine, I think, the reaction from Capitol Hill has been pretty swift and pretty clear, and I think you'll see that president pivot away from this.

BERMAN: You know, it's interesting, Meghan, because The Wall Street Journal had a piece, which maybe puts this in context. They have a headline suggesting that President Trump is unhappy with Attorney General Pam Bondi. Just one line from that, President Trump has complained to aides repeatedly in recent weeks about Attorney General Pam Bondi describing her as weak and an ineffective enforcer of his agenda.

Inside this article, it suggests one of the things he's unhappy about is she hasn't been investigating the people who are pushing the investigations that he wants to see in the likes of James Comey and Letitia James, and it was maybe in that environment that word came down of all this investigating Jerome Powell. What do you think of the idea of this possible rift between the president and the attorney general?

MEGHAN HAYS, FORMER WHITE HOUSE DIRECTOR OF MESSAGE PLANNING: Yes. I mean, I think she's trying to do everything she can to keep him happy and to keep him satisfied and investigating these people, but the problem is you have a lot of career people who work at the DOJ, who are used to being an independent arm in the administration and not being politicized or weaponized against their political enemies. So, they're refusing to prosecute and to investigate some of these things that are clearly political and just at Trump's behest.

So, she has a really hard job here because she has people who aren't doing what she wants them to do because they don't think it's legal, and then she has to satisfy Trump. So, I understand why Trump's upset with her, and I would venture to guess that her time is limited.

BERMAN: So, there are a million and a half things. This is just one of them going on in the world. But the American people seem to be saying they care about is prices and jobs and the economy here at home, and the White House, at least in theory, is aware of that, Marc Short, the president going out to Detroit to give a speech to the Detroit Economic Club today. And one of the things he's been talking about publicly is putting a cap on credit card interest rates, a 10 percent cap. What do you think of that proposal? Why is this -- why is Marc Short smiling at this?

SHORT: I mean, this is like what people call the horseshoe theory, where the populist left and the populist right come back together. I mean, this is directly a playbook out of Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders' economic theory. And it's not just limited to this crazy idea that government's going to cap credit cards, which, of course, would hurt most of the very people they claim they're trying to help, because those people with struggling credit are not going to get any credit at all.

But it follows plans to say, we're going to ban private equity from purchasing homes or from saying we're going to ban defense contractors from giving out dividends or saying we're going to have all these new state-owned enterprises, and even most late -- lastly, saying that for oil companies in Venezuela, perhaps even consider state-owned enterprises there to force them to go in and explore for oil.

So, this seems to be like in the last week or two, the administration opposed to sticking with their first administration policies that were deregulatory low taxes that were so successful, seem to be embracing the Sanders-Warren wing of the Democrat Party in the policies they're putting forward.

BERMAN: You know, Meghan, Marc suggests some kind of hypothetical embracing of Elizabeth Warren, the president called Elizabeth Warren yesterday. They talked about this. Is this a proposal that Democrats can, and in your mind, should get behind?

HAYS: I mean, I think that this is one of those things where he's throwing something out to make it look like it's actually going to be beneficial to working class and the middle class people. But to Marc's point, it actually just decreases people's ability to use credit. And when they can't afford groceries and gas, and they're having to put that on their credit cards, that it's going to impact them significantly.

So, instead of rolling back some of the Consumer Protection Board and trying to get rid of that and the -- some of the Biden administration policies of $8 fees and capping some of those things, they're just doing these one-off things that don't make a lot of sense for the economy. How about you roll back your tariffs so people can actually afford their goods again and not have to put them on credit cards so we wouldn't be in this situation?

BERMAN: I can't believe Marc Short and Meghan Hays seeming to agree on this. I've just got to rethink my views on political --

SHORT: Trump can make free traders out of Democrats before this is all done.

BERMAN: You're going to be the last free trade, you know, sort of pro-business Republican out there, Marc Short. Good to see you this morning, both of you, I appreciate it. Kate?

BOLDUAN: I have a suspicion Marc Short is happy to die on that hill.

All right, let's turn to this. There is new reporting coming into CNN this morning that the Defense Department has been testing for more than a year now a device that is believed could be what was behind the mysterious illnesses, now known as Havana Syndrome, aimed only after hundreds of U.S. spies, diplomats and troops serving overseas reported being becoming sickened, some with career-ending injuries.

[07:40:23] The illness first appeared you, you might remember, back in 2016 in a cluster of Americans who -- diplomats who were serving in Cuba, hence the name. Since then, there have been cases reported though around the world.

CNN's Zach Cohen has much more on this reporting, joining us from Washington. Zach, this is fascinating. What more are you learning?

ZACHARY COHEN, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, Kate. Sources telling me and our colleagues that the Pentagon spent millions of dollars to purchase this device in an undercover operation at the end of the Biden administration. And the device itself is still being studied despite the fact that it was bought over a year ago. And officials are trying to determine its link to nearly a dozen mysterious health incidents, like you said, that were reported by U.S. diplomats, spies, and military personnel, symptoms that were similar to head trauma.

And now while these incidents, the cause of them, officially remains unexplained, we're told that there is some speculation and some evidence among U.S. officials who believe that this device may be connected.

Now, one of the key parts about this device is that we're told it produces pulsed radio waves, which academics and U.S. officials have speculated is the root cause of these health incidents known as Havana Syndrome. We're also told that while not Russian in origin, the device does have some Russian components, which does raise concerns about the use by foreign adversaries to target potentially U.S. officials abroad.

And that really is one of the core questions here, in addition to linking this device definitively to these health incidents, is if it proves viable, could it have been proliferated and could other countries now have this capability to potentially inflict serious damage on U.S. officials, U.S. diplomats, military personnel in a targeted way?

So, look, this is -- Havana Syndrome has been a very contentious issue within the U.S. government since those first cases were reported back in 2016. The victims themselves have reported very serious symptoms. But it felt at times that they've been sort of dismissed by the U.S. government. We still have not seen a definitive report come out of the U.S. intelligence community despite promises from ODNI and the CIA and DOD to put one out. So, the victims now, this is reigniting that debate and victims still pushing for answers.

BOLDUAN: Yes, absolutely, I mean, in a very renewed way now with this great reporting.

Zach, thank you very much, I really appreciate it. Sara?

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Happening today, President Trump expected to meet with his national security team on potential U.S. strategies to intervene in Iran after the regime's ongoing crackdown on anti-government protests have left hundreds of people reportedly dead. Trump has said he has, quote, very strong options for using the military.

But behind the scenes, The Wall Street Journal reports that Vice President Vance and top aides are urging him to pursue diplomacy first.

Joining me now are CNN Global Affairs Analysts Kim Dozier and Barak Ravid. Thank you both for being here.

Kim, to you, Trump said he was given some very strong options on Iran before meeting with his top brass. What are the options you can fathom that he is considering?

KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Things like further strikes as the U.S. has done before on Iran's security infrastructure, because that is made up mostly of the Revolutionary Guards and the besieged paramilitary forces, about a million strong together, and so far they've showed no signs of defecting or, in any way, separating their support from the mullah-led regime. So, unless you take elements of that out, I don't see that the protests on the streets are going to pull down the Iranian administration.

Barak, I want to remind folks what Donald Trump said in the lead up to these meetings, saying that Iran has reached out now and wants to talk. Let's listen.

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DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Iran wants to negotiate. We may meet with them. I mean, it's -- a meeting is being set up, but we may have to act because of what's happening before the meeting. But a meeting is being set up. Iran called, they want to negotiate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: So, he said we may have to act before the meeting. Just like Venezuela, he's been talking about hitting Iran for months now, and now you hear this rhetoric. Should we expect military intervention from what you're seeing here?

BARAK RAVID, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: I'm not sure.

[07:45:00]

I think many of the options that the administration is discussing are non-kinetic, meaning not an overt -- not overt airstrikes. There are many other options that they're discussing, including, by the way, exploring the latest outreach from Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi to White House Envoy Steve Witkoff to start some sort of a discussion.

Some people in the White House think that this is a message that needs to be checked thoroughly before taking other options. But there are others in the White House that say that this is just a delay tactic by the Iranians. I think this is also part of -- it's also one of the things in the mix when the White House needs to take this decision. By the way, it is still unclear to me 100 percent that Trump is going to attend the meeting on Iran. It's expected to take place at the White House today. It's possible that it's only going to be the vice president and secretary of state and some other senior officials, especially because Trump is going to spend most of his day in Detroit today. I think it's still an open question whether he's going to be in the meeting or not.

SIDNER: Those are all interesting points there brought. Kim, you know, history has given us a view of what can happen when the U.S. forces its will on Iran, like they did with the s shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, whose actions actually led to this scenario, this regime in place, and the 1976 revolution. What have we learned from this and what are the potential pitfalls?

DOZIER: Yes. Revealing my age here, I was actually a kid in Iran and lived through from '77 to '79, and there was something like 13 months of demonstrations from '78 to '79 before the regime finally collapsed. But in that case, there was a clear successor with real legitimacy within the country who came in to replace the shah of Iran. And the security forces that were backing the shah and committing so many atrocities, they weren't knit into the heavy industries, the economy, the way this current Revolutionary Guard Corps is.

And, finally, you know what happened then was that army members started defecting and joining the revolution. We haven't yet seen Iranian security forces defect, and that would be a first sign that something's really falling apart in that country.

SIDNER: Kim Dozier and Barak Ravid, thank you for your analysis. This is an unprecedented time that we are seeing there in Iran, however you slice it. I appreciate it. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Ahead, new testimony in the trial of a Uvalde police officer accused of abandoning children during the massacre of at Robb Elementary School. One teacher taking the stand reliving the day that he came face to face with the shooter.

And this went downhill fast. New video showing the moment of snowboarder is briefly buried by an avalanche.

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BERMAN: This morning new testimony in the trial of former Uvalde's school's police officer, Adrian Gonzales, he's accused of failing to stop or delay the massacre at the Robb Elementary School. Teacher Arnulfo Reyes told the jury about coming face to face with the shooter who would go on to kill every child in his classroom.

CNN Senior Crime and Justice Correspondent Shimon Prokupecz is with us now. Shimon, you were there at the beginning. This has been an emotional trial.

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Very emotional. I sat through some testimony last week. And just every time someone comes in with any kind of emotion or there's some devastating testimony, everyone in the courtroom is crying, including myself.

And yesterday, Arnie Reyes, who was the teacher, who came face to face with the gunman, is the only survivor who we will hear from in this trial, talked about what it was like when the shooter walked into his classroom and what happened. Take a listen to some of that.

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ARNULFO REYES, WITNESS/ROBB ELEMENTARY SHOOTING SURVIVOR: He shot at me, he hit me in my arm.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you show us where he hit you?

REYES: He hit right here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Okay.

REYES: So, he hit me on my arm and that's when I fell to the ground. And then after I fell on to the ground, he came around and he shot the kids.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PROKUPECZ: And then he went on to describe how the shooter would taunt him, would taunt Arnulfo Reyes, as he was laying in a pool of blood, and then he would hear him walk through the classroom. Now, all of this is all important because, remember, it took officers 77 minutes to get inside that classroom and finally rescue the surviving children. 19 children would go on to die and 2 teachers.

Adrian Gonzales, the officer on trial, prosecutors are alleging that he was the first officer on scene that he had time to take action to delay the shooter, to distract the shooter. That's the elements of the crime that he's charged with, not necessarily to stop him, but at least to try and delay and take some kind of action. And they argued that he was on scene quick enough, that he was told by someone where the shooter was and he never took action.

[07:55:05]

And that is why he's now on trial. We're expected to hear more from Arnulfo Reyes today. He's on the cross-examination.

One of the key parts of the defense is that the doors in the school were malfunctioning, and that's how the gunman was able to get inside, including the classroom that Reyes was in. And they're arguing that that all contributed to what happened here, not necessarily that it should be the responsibility of one officer, but there was many things that went wrong here.

BERMAN: Again, each moment is so excruciating in this trial. It is hard to hear some of that testimony.

Shimon Prokupecz, thank you so much for covering it for us, to be sure. I appreciate it. Kate?

BOLDUAN: A 200-foot section of building collapsed on the scaffolding and then crashed the street in the Bronx on Monday. Just take a look at that. The building was vacant. No one was hurt. It's unclear what caused the collapse, but the Department of Buildings says it is obviously and very clearly investigating.

Also this morning, there are renewed calls for a law to ban horse carriages in New York City after a horse crashed into several vehicles. New video released by an animal advocacy organization shows the startled animal running out of Central Park running into traffic. The union that represents the carriage drivers said that the driver was standing near the horse when the incident happened. The horse was reportedly taken to the vet and is okay.

I also want to show you the moment an avalanche was triggered in the Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. A group of snowboarders and skiers were caught in the middle of it, such a very quickly, dangerous situation. Just look at that slide. Officials say one of the snowboarders was briefly buried, dislocated his shoulder while trying to grab a hold of a tree. When the other skiers and snowboarders moved in to help, they were caught then in a secondary slide. They were eventually able to safely get out of the area. Sara?

SIDNER: Yikes. That was terrifying. I can't believe they all survived. Thank goodness.

All right, new this morning, as A.I. in homes becomes much more mainstream, Amazon is unveiling its plan for voice-assisted Alexa to go head to head with ChatGPT. The vision for Alexa's future, make her remember specific things about you.

CNN's Lisa Eadicicco joins me now with her new reporting. You spoke with Amazon executives at the Consumer Electronics Show. What did they tell you about the future of Alexa?

LISA EADICICCO, CNN TECH EDITOR: So, based on my conversations, really, what we're seeing here is this push to make Alexa remember more things about you, maybe the way a friend or a family member would. One example that an executive gave me was this idea of just telling Alexa that you need a new harness for your dog. And because Alexa knows what type of dog you have, it'll be able to pull up options for you without you having to really specify. That's just kind of a look at like where things are going.

And I do think this is an important step because Amazon does need to really differentiate itself from competitors, like ChatGPT, like Google Gemini. And right now what that entails is putting Alexa in more places so that people use it more and use it in different ways, because, for years, people have really just been using Alexa to set alarms, to listen to music. Now, Amazon's putting Alexa on the web so that maybe people use it differently.

But in the future, I think, what Amazon is working towards based on these conversations I had is this idea of Alexa maybe being more of like a passive listener. Amazon acquired a company last year called Bee that makes a wristband that can record your surroundings and then provide information and context based on those recordings, like maybe suggestions for a calendar invite or a reminder or things like that.

But I do think that's going to be a challenge for a few reasons, one, privacy being a concern. I don't know if people are really going to be super comfortable with the idea of sharing even more information with big tech companies, like Amazon. But it is that -- I have been told that that Bee device is kind of important to the future of where Amazon sees Alexa going.

SIDNER: I think that -- I think one of the things that you just touched on it is how people are going to feel about something listening to you all the time. Most people will tell you they don't want that. And where it's going to be stored? You know, all this information about you, you know, it's got to be stored somewhere so that Alexa remembers. And that's also a major security concern as well.

EADICICCO: So, it doesn't record all the time. You choose when to record, but, again, having consumers want to make that choice to record anything at all. I do think is going to -- there's going to be some friction there, for sure. And there's a lot of privacy concerns, as you mentioned. You know, this is something Amazon has dealt with in the past when it comes to how Alexa stores your information. So, they do kind of point to those privacy settings. But I do think it's something that is going to definitely cause some concern and some friction moving forward.

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SIDNER: There's definitely going to be some talk about it. I remember back in the day when people were worried about Big Brother, but, you know, everyone is using their devices in so many different ways, just simply for convenience. And some people just -- they'll tell you, we don't care. We want the convenience of it all.

EADICICCO: And that's kind of the argument that Amazon's making here, it's that if something is useful enough, then people will want to make that choice.

SIDNER: Lisa Eadicicco, I know you had a good time at the Consumer Electronics Show. We'll talk to you more about what you saw in there. I appreciate it.

EADICICCO: Thank you.

SIDNER: John? Oh, no? A new hour of CNN News Central starts now.