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The Situation Room

Now, Supreme Court Hears Challenges to State Bans on Transgender Athletes; Clintons Refuse to Testify in Congressional Epstein Investigation. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired January 13, 2026 - 10:00   ET

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

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WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer with Pamela Brown, and you're in The Situation Room.

We're following right now three, yes, three major breaking stories. Happening now, the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments in two cases concerning transgender female athletes.

Plus, former President Bill Clinton is slated to appear before the House Oversight Committee for a closed-door deposition on Jeffrey Epstein.

And two states, two states, both Minnesota and Illinois, are suing the Trump administration over immigration operations.

We're going to have much more on all of that coming up in a few moments, but let's begin this morning with the breaking news over at the Supreme Court. Right now, justices are hearing oral arguments in two cases that could set a precedent on whether or not states can ban transgender females from participating in girls and women's sports. Pam?

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: The rulings here, Wolf, could have major implications today. At least 29 states have laws or regulations in place that ban transgender students from participating in sports according to their gender identity.

And this morning, two transgender women are challenging their state's laws.

BLITZER: In Idaho, Lindsay Hecox is fighting the 2020 Fairness in Women's Sports Act. That law bans transgender females from taking part in women's sports teams at public schools, at all levels. And in West Virginia, Becky Pepper-Jackson is opposing the 2021 Save Women's Sports Act, which bars transgender females from women's sports teams in public secondary schools and colleges.

BROWN: Both claim the laws violate Title IX, a federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in public schools, and the Equal Protection Clause as well. And we begin our coverage this morning with CNN Legal Analyst and former Federal Prosecutor Elliot Williams. Also with us is Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court Analyst and professor at Georgetown University Center. Good morning to you both.

Steve, I want to start with you. Two major cases in front of the justices this morning, one of the most important arguments we're going to hear this term. Walk us through how we got here.

STEVE VLADECK, CNN SUPREME COURT ANALYST: Sure, Pamela. I mean, so, you know, as you guys mentioned in the open, there's been a movement in recent years for states to ban this kind of participation in public school sports. These lawsuits have challenged those bans. And a lot that we're going to be looking for today, Pamela, is what does the court make of a ruling that had issued six years ago in a case called Bostock, where a 6-3 majority in an opinion by Justice Neil Gorsuch held the discrimination on the basis of transgender status actually violates Title VII, the Federal Employment Discrimination Statute.

These cases are different. These cases are about whether these laws violate Title IX, which is about equal access to educational funding and about the Constitution itself. But are we going to see Justice Gorsuch and Chief Justice Roberts, who are in the majority in those cases, distinguish those cases, try to find daylight between those cases, or try to suggest that actually these are of a piece? Pamela, I think that's going to be one of the big things we're looking for during the arguments this morning.

BLITZER: And I want to bring in Elliot. Elliot, we just heard that both of these cases claim violations of what's called Title IX. Title IX prohibits sex-based discrimination in education programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance. Explain why this isn't necessarily an open and shut case.

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It's not an open and shut case partly for the reasons that Steve laid out a moment ago, that there is some precedent in the Supreme Court, at least dealing with sort of the future fate of transgender people with respect to the law.

It gets complicated and here's the argument that's being made here. Both states make the argument that, ultimately, safety and biological differences, the definitions are critical to fairness to athletes. And because of that necessarily, rights are not being violated by, you know, if these laws are to go into effect. It's really about the question of fairness and how you define that in terms of sexual identity.

BLITZER: So, what's the potential impact, Elliot, to Title IX if the court rules against these transgender athletes?

[10:05:03]

WILLIAMS: Well, it all depends on how broadly they rule. Could it just apply to these states? Could it just apply to -- could they apply a ruling just to these individuals? Could they apply it broadly? You know, the Supreme Court often likes to answer the simplest question they can rather than have a sweeping ruling.

Now, certainly, some of the justices may wish to be very broad because -- recognizing how sort of legally and politically consequential this might be, but it's just hard to know exactly how sweeping the ruling will be.

BROWN: Yes. I want to bring you back in, Steve, because there are six conservative-leaning justices, three liberal-leaning justices. You brought up that case before, Bostock v. Clayton County, where Justice Gorsuch, who authored this opinion, said that you cannot discriminate based on someone being transgender because that would be discrimination based on sex. But I'm wondering what you think in light of the Skrmetti opinion, where the Supreme Court upheld Tennessee's ban on transgender-affirming care for minors and how that might impact your view on how the court could rule?

VLADECK: Yes, it's the right question, Pam. And I think the, the tricky thing about Skrmetti, which was a big case the court handed down, you know, just last summer, is that in Skrmetti, the court really dumped the questions that it's deciding today by holding that Tennessee's ban on gender affirming medical care. Wasn't actually sex- based and it did not actually implicate discriminating based solely on gender status or transgender status.

Now, we might not agree with that ruling, but what that meant is the court sort of punted and left for today the question of whether not allowing transgender women to participate on girls and women's sports teams is in fact discriminating based on their transgender status.

Now, even if the majority thinks that that is sex-based discrimination, as Elliot suggested, the states in these cases have tried to marshal arguments that they're still allowed to so discriminate. And so this is, I think, something else we'll be listening for today, which is just because the court concludes, as it might, that this kind of discrimination is tantamount to sex-based discrimination, not all sex-based discrimination is unlawful. The question would then be, do the states have a sufficiently important justification for discriminating in this manner? And is the law, are these restrictions sufficiently calibrated, narrowly tailored to carry those justifications into effect?

So, there really are sort of multiple steps to how the court might analyze these cases. And as Elliot says, I mean, is the court going to be focused solely on the question of transgender athletes? Is it going to be thinking at all about the question of, you know, bathrooms in public schools or other places where we've seen discrimination against transgender individuals?

I think that's part of why, Pamela, as you said at the outset, these really are two of the biggest cases the court has on its docket so far this term.

BLITZER: And there'll be hearing arguments this morning. We're not going to know the results presumably at least until the end of June. And that's when the Supreme Court will release its final opinion. That's what we're told. These two cases, Steve, before the court this morning, very important, but very similar in many respects. How likely is it that a ruling on one will dictate the ruling on the other?

VLADECK: So, it's very possible, Wolf. I think there are two reasons why the court is nevertheless hearing the arguments separately. The first is that the justices may want to tackle the constitutional question of whether Idaho's law, West Virginia's law violates the Equal Protection Clause.

Separately, from the Title IX question that Elliot adverted to, the second is that there's now a procedural question in the Idaho case, where Hecox, the plaintiff at issue has actually basically tried to moot the case, by suggesting that she's no longer really involved in challenge on this Idaho law. So, it's possible that the Hecox case actually goes away without the court resolving the merits.

That's part of why I think we're going to have two arguments today. It's also part of why it's hard to predict. Is this going to be one ruling or two? I think the one thing we can be confident about is that whatever the court decides come the end of June, it's going to have major ramifications, not just for how the Supreme Court thinks about transgender discrimination, but for what states, and maybe even, you know, schools that receive federal funding are able to do going forward.

That's not going to be affected by what happens in the Idaho case. It's just going to have to do with whether there's a second opinion about these more technical procedural questions.

BROWN: All right. I want to go right into that courtroom and listen in because Justice Sotomayor is speaking with the Idaho solicitor general. So, this is the attorney for the State of Idaho arguing on its behalf. Let's listen.

JUSTICE SONIA SOTOMAYOR, U.S. SUPREME COURT: All right. So, how do you square our various case law, Kabal, Lear (ph), Cleburne, VMI in particular, all of whom involved a subclass of people who challenged on equal protection grounds their exclusion from a definition.

ALAN HURST, IDAHO SOLICITOR GENERAL: I'm happy to take those cases in order, Your Honor, starting with Kaban, there was no notion of as applied anything in Kaban and Kaban was a facial challenge to the statute. And individual circumstances were used as examples to prove that the statute was overbroad and lack substantial --

SOTOMAYOR: That's the point. That's what she's saying here, that the state interests here is the safety of women, correct, and promoting competitive competition? That's the state interest.

HURST: Fairness --

SOTOMAYOR: In Kaban, the state interest was in ensuring that only children with active parents, let's say, were given a state benefit, correct?

HURST: Yes. And Kaban was a -- was struck down facially. The statute was considered unjustified.

SOTOMAYOR: She's not? How about Lear?

HURST: In Lear, we had the same, we had --

SOTOMAYOR: That's the opposite. That's the subclass, the people who were excluded.

HURST: In Lear, the court said the law would be justified with respect to you, you know, plaintiff. And because the law would be justified with respect to you, you are not able to challenge the law elsewhere.

SOTOMAYOR: All right. How about VMI? That distinction doesn't make any sense to me. It's still an exception. It's a subclass of people who are covered by the law and others are not. That's what we said.

HURST: The VMI case is the flipside of Idaho's law. The VMI case, equal opportunity required letting women in to previously single sex spaces. In this case, equal opportunity for women requires giving women separate spaces. And VMI said that was okay. VMI said --

SOTOMAYOR: Wait a minute. That's begging the very question at issue here. You can have a sex classification based on sex. You just have to have a reason for it, and one that matches your exclusion. What you're trying to say is we don't even look at the reason to see if it has a scientific basis.

HURST: The reason we don't look at the reason in this case to see whether there's a scientific basis is because no one disputes that there is a scientific basis for separate --

SOTOMAYOR: Hold, but there is a dispute of that.

I'm sorry.

JUSTICE ELENA KAGAN, U.S. SUPREME COURT: Are you then saying, Mr. Hurst, that there really is no such thing as an as applied equal protection challenge?

HURST: No, Your Honor, but what I'm saying is that equal protection. The question is whether the classification is valid and not whether it makes sense in individual situations.

KAGAN: But that sounds to me as though -- and, you know, I think our precedent is actually very sparse in this area, sort of surprisingly sparse, but it sounds to me, is what you're saying is, as long as the classification is facially valid, a person does not get to come in and say that, with respect to some subclass, a small subclass, in this case, a person doesn't get to say, with respect to some subclass, there's a mismatch, that the justification has run out, that the justification doesn't apply. You are saying that that really is just not an available argument.

HURST: I agree. That is not an available argument, and I think this court has taken that approach, our approach, in cases from Kahn V. Shevin, all the way to Wynn, and Wynn is the best example, because there, the petitioner had been raised in the United States by the U.S. citizen father, and the court said, Congress' interest in making sure there's a connection with the United States is enough to justify the classification.

Well, this petitioner, obviously, had the connection with the United States. There was no basis to apply these justifications to that petitioner didn't matter.

KAGAN: I mean, one thing that this case could be about is, and this case, I mean, generally, this litigation, is whether the plaintiffs are right here, that there is a mismatch, right, you know? And some of your briefing addresses that question, right? You can take all the hormones in the world, you can take all the puberty blockers in the world, you say, and there still will be a competitive advantage. That's one thing that this litigation could be about, and one way to resolve this litigation.

Another thing that this litigation could be about is this deeper and, as I say, surprisingly unanswered in my mind equal protection question about what an as applied equal protection challenge is and whether they exist. And I guess, you know, you are suggesting that we should -- well, I don't really know what you're suggesting, because here, you're saying, look, just do it that way, they could be right on the science and we would still win.

[10:15:00]

A lot of your briefing really contests their view of the science. So, which way should viewers think about this case?

HURST: We think that equal protection jurisprudence is about the validity of classifications. It takes a classification to trigger the doctrines to begin with. And then you ask, is the classification justified under intermediate scrutiny? And so that we think that's the right approach, is the classification justified, not, is it justified in each individual instance? Because as Wynn said, this court has never held. Wynn said that a law has to be capable of achieving its ultimate objective in every instance.

And as soon as that possibility of forcing the legislature to justify the law with respect to individual plaintiffs is on the table, intermediate scrutiny is over. That is strict scrutiny.

JUSTICE KETANJI BROWN JACKSON, U.S. SUPREME COURT: Can I question the premise that you are putting forward? Even if I agree with you that equal protection is about, is this classification justified? I think that begs the question, what is the classification? And so, to the extent that you have an individual who says what is happening in this law is that it is treating someone who is transgender, but who does not have because of the medical interventions and the things that have been done, who does not have the same threat to physical competition and safety and all of the reasons that the state puts forward, that's actually a different class, says this individual. So, you're not treating the class the same and you're not. How do you respond to that? In other words, the as applied challenge essentially redefines the class, or one could think of it as that. And so what's wrong with that, number one? And how do you square that with our holdings in Kaban, which Lear later described in this way. In other words, Lear suggested that Kaban was establishing that as applied challenges of this nature do exist.

HURST: Certainly, the -- I'd take the second question first.

JACKSON: Yes.

HURST: Kaban says nothing about as applied. I know that Lear says later this was an as applied case. But simply reading Kaban, it does not say that. It simply applies --

JACKSON: No, I understand. But those two cases were in juxtaposition with one another, and Lear comes out the way it does distinguishing Kaban on the basis that it's an as applied challenge, and Lear have a facial challenge, and it's basically the same facts. So, if you're right, that -- those two cases can't come out the way they do.

HURST: Our -- I don't think so, Your Honor. Again, Lear was actually briefed as a standing argument of maybe you might be able to argue that this law is overbroad, but you individually are not in the overbroad part and therefore you don't get to challenge it. The court didn't use standing language, like express standing language in the opinion, but that is the logic of the opinion.

JUSTICE NEIL GORSUCH, U.S. SUPREME COURT: Mr. Hurst.

HURST: Yes?

GORSUCH: There's another way to think about the case. Your friends on the other side posit and that is that transgender status should be conceived of as a discreet and insular class subject to scrutiny, heightened scrutiny in and of itself given the history of dejure discrimination against transgender individuals in this country over history, in immigration and family law, cross-dressing statutes. They give a long laundry list and I'd like you to respond to that.

HURST: Certainly. On the jury discrimination point specifically, there has been some discrimination against transgender people, significant discrimination against transgender people in the history of this country. The same can be said of many groups. The same could have been said of the mentally disabled in Cleburne, et cetera, et cetera. I think Justice Alito's concurrence in Skrmetti is helpful with this in saying, this quasi suspect class or suspect class process, what we're really looking for is classes that look like race or like sex.

And if you compare the discrimination in this case, where not one of the laws they cite actually classifies expressly on the basis of transgender status, if we look at that history and we compare it to the history of African Americans and women who were not able to vote, who were not able to own property, who had express classifications based on their status written into the law for most of this country's history, these things don't compare. They're just going to (INAUDIBLE). JUSTICE SAMUEL ALITO, U.S. SUPREME COURT: There are two things in that answer that are kind of at odds with one another. You start by saying you don't question that there's a history of discrimination, assume dejure in this country. And then you say, well, but they don't classify on that basis.

[10:20:00]

How should we think about that?

HURST: That -- I think that the, you know, famous footnote four helps, right? This has been a discreet and insular minority. Has it been a group of people that were recognized as a group where laws were passed on the basis of their membership in that group, demonstrating that they lacked the political power to protect themselves in the political process. This is from Justice Barrett's concurrence, of course. We just don't have any of that here. All they can point to is conduct. It says, you know, no cross-dressing, no drag performances in bars, these kinds of things. As I think our friends on the other side would admit, people cross dress who aren't transgender. This is not a classification on that basis.

SOTOMAYOR: What do you do with the legislative history in this case where the people who introduced the bill called it a transgender bar? So, in answering Justice Gorsuch, you said there's no evidence of that, but there's certainly a lot of comments in this bill when it was passed.

HURST: Your Honor, I respectfully disagree. I am aware of nothing in the legislative record that says that. I know that the Ninth Circuit opinion says that. But if you'll notice the key quote that the Ninth Circuit relies on puts the words transgender women in brackets. And if you look up that colloquy in the legislative record in their transcript that they provided in the district court, the word transgender, gender identity, et cetera, do not appear in that section of the transcript.

SOTOMAYOR: Can I go back to the Mootness question that Justice Thomas talked about, but not addressed here at all? Yes, this respondent made certain allegations about her intent at a certain point. But she signed an affidavit with this court attesting that she has permanently stopped playing sports covered by the ban. She will not try for any school-sponsored women's sports, and, in fact, I think she'll finish school very shortly. And there's no reason to question the sincerity of that belief given that dropping out of sports puts you at a disadvantage where you lose your competitive edge and she's going to graduate soon.

How is this different than Acheson Hotel, where the person in the litigation made representations that she intended to visit and continue visiting hotels in the future? And then when the case got before us, she voluntarily dismissed those suits like here with prejudice, and we then directed that the case be considered moot. How is that different?

BROWN: The top attorney there in Idaho defending the ban in his state on transgender athletes playing in girls' sports. We're going to continue to monitor that.

And we want to go now to the chairman of the House Oversight, James Comer, speaking as the Clintons to refuse to testify in his Epstein investigation.

REP. JAMES COMER (R-KY): -- by the entire committee in a unanimous vote of the House Oversight Committee to subpoena former President Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Now, Hillary Clinton's supposed to show up tomorrow. We'll see what happens there. But with respect to the former president, he did not show up today. One reason I think most Americans want President Clinton to answer some questions is because he visited the White House -- Jeffrey Epstein visited the White House 17 times while Bill Clinton was president. I've been in Congress nine years. I think I've been to the White House nine times in nine years. Epstein was in the White House double the amount of time that I was under one president. And then we know that Bill Clinton flew on Epstein's playing somewhere around 27 times after the presidency.

So, no one's accusing Bill Clinton of anything, any wrongdoing. We just have questions. And that's why the Democrats voted along with Republicans to subpoena Bill Clinton. Not a single Democrat showed up today, not a single Democrat. The ones that have press conferences on the Capitol steps and talk about how they're trying to get justice for the victims and all that, it just seems like they only care about questioning Republicans. And we've had a former Trump cabinet secretary, Acosta, and for a grilling, we had Bill Barr, former attorney general, in for a grilling. But for whatever reason, President Clinton didn't show up and the Democrats on the committee don't seem to have a problem.

This is the amount of preparation that went into this deposition today. These were the questions that we were prepared to ask. We've communicated with President Clinton's legal team for months now, given them opportunity after opportunity to come in, to give us a date, and they continue to delay, delay, delay to the point where we had no idea whether they're going to show up today or not.

[10:25:07]

I think it's very disappointing.

As a result of Bill Clinton not showing up for his lawful subpoena, which, again, was voted on it unanimously by the committee in a bipartisan manner, we will move next week in the House Oversight Committee markup to hold former President Clinton in contempt of Congress.

With that, we'd be happy to answer any questions.

REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE)?

COMER: Well, President Clinton's -- President Trump has answered thousands of questions about Jeffrey Epstein. In fact, I would say today, well, you all ask him questions every day. He answers questions every day about Epstein. Well, you don't bring, you can't bring in a current president of the United States, and you all know that.

So -- but President Trump has answered thousands of questions about Epstein. I bet today, at some point, some of you all will ask President Trump questions about Epstein. He answers those questions. To my knowledge, former President Clinton has never answered questions about Epstein, and we just had questions. Because, again, I think anyone would admit they spent a lot of time together while Bill Clinton was president and post-presidency.

And, again, no one's accusing the Clintons of any wrongdoing. We just have questions. And I find it odd, not only they didn't show up, but that the Democrats on the committee, who are so concerned about getting to the bottom of the Epstein investigation, didn't even bother to show up.

REPORTER: Mr. Chairman, President Clinton suggested that this was a Joseph McCarthy-style tactic, to have him brought in front of this committee. How would you respond to that?

COMER: Who said that?

REPORTER: President Clinton in his letter to you last night.

COMER: I mean, this is a thing that, obviously, the media's interested in, the American people are interested in. He's never answered any questions. And the Democrats on the committee voted with the Republicans for Bill Clinton to come in. I mean, this is a -- I don't ever remember a bipartisan vote to subpoena anyone. I've been on the oversight committee the entire nine years I've been in Congress. This is the first one.

So, the Democrats were really eager to hear about Bill Clinton, and then somebody came along and told them they need to stand down. I've never seen a Democrat not show up for a deposition. The whole time I've been in Congress on lower subcommittee, I've never seen a time when the Democrats never showed up.

Yes. When Hunter Biden came, there were 10 or 12 of them in there.

(CROSSTALKS)

REPORTER: We asked Hakeem Jeffries about this last night, and he called you a deeply unserious person and said he doesn't have faith in you to leave this investigation. How would you like to respond to him?

COMER: Well, look, the feeling's mutual. I don't have any confidence in Hakeem Jeffries. I don't think Hakeem Jeffries ever mentioned my name the first nine years I was in Congress. In the last two months, he's mentioned my name and made slurs at least five times. I think that Trump derangement syndrome is morphing into Comer derangement syndrome for Hakeem Jeffries.

So, my advice to Hakeem Jeffries is, first of all, recognize the fact that you -- the members in your conference voted to subpoena Bill Clinton. It was the Democrat members of the Congress that voted for that subpoena, number one. And, number two, he clearly has a problem with me, maybe he should go to one of those Somali therapy centers and get some type of therapy for his disdain for me. If he's accusing me of any wrongdoing, then he should file a complaint.

And this committee's not going to be like the January 6th committee, where everybody goes and begs President Biden staff for pardons after they issue a report. We're trying to get the truth to the American people and we're doing everything we can.

REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE) did you actually read the letter from the Clintons?

COMER: I'm sorry?

REPORTER: Did you read the letter from the Clintons? And so --

COMER: Which one? There were multiple letters and we read them all. And we read them all. They need -- there were multiple letters. We read them all.

And I think the story here is the Democrats voted to subpoena Clinton. This was not a Republican stunt. This was voted on in a bipartisan matter.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And, by the way --

COMER: And nobody showed up. Go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let me just add to this. There was communication from the committee to the Clinton lawyers back and forth for at least continuously for at least six months. And they never said they weren't going to show. They never said they thought it was unconstitutional. They never exerted a privilege. There was communication constantly. And every indication that we had was that they were going to come on in and he was going to answer questions, which is why both parties said, we would like President Clinton -- former President Clinton to come on in to answer these questions, and he chose not --