JD Vance picks new fight with Supreme Court over its power to check the president: ‘Profoundly wrong'

Yahoo

21-05-2025

Vice President JD Vance pushed back on Chief Justice John Roberts's assertion that courts have the authority to 'check the excesses' of the executive branch, saying the statement was 'profoundly wrong.'
Amid a battle between the Trump administration and the federal judiciary over several of President Donald Trump's executive orders and decisions, Vance placed blame on courts for wrongly interpreting the Constitution and getting in the way of Trump's agenda.
'I saw an interview with Chief Justice Roberts recently where he said the role of the court is to check the excesses of the executive. I thought that was a profoundly wrong sentiment,' Vance said in a New York Times opinion interview.
Earlier this month, Roberts said in an interview that the judiciary requires some independence from other branches of government in order to successfully interpret the Constitution and 'strike down' acts of Congress or the executive branch that they deem excessive.
'That's one-half of his job,' Vance said. '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.'
Members of the Trump administration have repeatedly said that they believe the president has unconditional authority to carry out whatever agenda they desire because the president was voted on by the people.
However, the framers of the Constitution made it so that no one branch of government could be more powerful than another in a system called 'checks and balances.'
While the president may nominate Supreme Court justices, the Senate confirms the nominations. In turn, the Supreme Court can overturn laws or executive actions that it finds unconstitutional.
So far, at least 25 federal courts have placed nationwide injunctions on the Trump administration within the first 100 days in office, a Congressional Research Report found.
But Vance interpreted any 'checks' that federal courts have made on the Trump administration's recent actions as 'an effort by the courts to quite literally overturn the will of the American people.'
The vice president said the administration plans to continue working through courts, all the way to the Supreme Court, until they determine a set of laws that will allow Trump to specifically carry out his mass deportation agenda, which has been subject to many injunctions.
But until that occurs, the administration appears to be taking court injunctions lightly, with some accusing the president of defying court orders.
The Supreme Court said the administration should 'facilitate' the return of a Salvadoran man with legal status in the U.S. who says he was wrongly deported. The administration has not done so.
On Wednesday, a federal judge said the administration had violated a court order when it deported a group of immigrants to South Sudan, where a humanitarian crisis is ongoing.
In cases where judges have ruled against the administration, Trump and his allies have railed against the judges, claiming they should be impeached or that they're decisions were politically motivated.
In March, Roberts issued a statement refuting calls for impeachment against a judge who ordered Trump to turn around a deportation flight carrying Venezuelan immigrants, accused of being gang members.