Vice President JD Vance on Monday denounced John Roberts’ recent comments about the role of the judiciary, accusing the Supreme Court chief justice of echoing a “profoundly wrong sentiment,” while asserting that the courts need to be “deferential” to President Donald Trump.
Roberts, earlier this month, spoke about the importance of judicial independence in the face of relentless attacks on judges.
In the Constitution, the judiciary “is a co-equal branch of government, separate from the others, with the authority to interpret the Constitution as law and strike down, obviously, acts of Congress or acts of the president,” Roberts explained.
“Its job is to, obviously, decide cases but in the course of that check the excesses of Congress or of the executive, and that does require a degree of independence,” he continued.
Vance shared his strong disagreement with that assessment.
“I thought that was a profoundly wrong sentiment,” Vance said during an interview with The New York Times’ “Interesting Times” podcast recorded during his trip to Rome.
“That’s one-half of his job,” he added. “The other half of his job is to check the excesses of his own branch. You cannot have a country where the American people keep on electing immigration enforcement and the courts tell the American people they’re not allowed to have what they voted for. That’s where we are right now.”
Vance claimed he was making a “philosophical point” while suggesting that the courts are standing in the way of enacting the Trump legislative agenda.
“I think that you are seeing, and I know this is inflammatory, but I think you are seeing an effort by the courts to quite literally overturn the will of the American people,” he added.
The vice president also defended the administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to ramp up deportations despite the legal setbacks it’s faced.
In a 7-2 decision Friday, the Supreme Court denounced how the administration has been using the 18th century wartime law to quickly remove Venezuelan and Salvadoran immigrants with little to no due process.
But Vance said the courts ought to be “somewhat deferential” to Trump, especially on this issue.
“In fact, I think the design is that they should be extremely deferential to these questions of political judgment made by the people’s elected president of the United States,” he added.
Vance’s comments come as the Trump administration has come under fire for ignoring court rulings and undermining the rule of law. A Massachusetts judge on Wednesday accused the Department of Homeland Security of “unquestionably” violating a court order when it quietly flew eight migrants to South Sudan.
A federal judge also blasted the Justice Department after Newark, New Jersey, Mayor Ras Baraka was charged with trespassing at an immigration detention center, only for the DOJ to drop the charges a few days later.
