During a wide-ranging podcast interview with the New York Times posted Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance said Chief Justice John Roberts was “profoundly wrong” for recent comments he made on the Supreme Court’s role to check the excesses of the executive.
“I thought that was a profoundly wrong sentiment. That’s one half of his job. The other half of his job is to check the excesses of his own branch,” Vance stated. “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 continued.
Vance’s comments occurred while discussing the administration’s immigration policies and initiatives, which have been met with swift legal actions. Vance said the White House believes Trump “has extraordinary plenary power.”
“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. To be clear, it’s not most courts,” Vance said.
Vice President JD Vance talks to reporters on board Air Force Two at Leonardo da Vinci International Airport, in Rome, May 19, 2025.
Jacquelyn Martin/AP
Earlier this month, Roberts gave remarks in Buffalo, New York, where he stressed the importance of judicial independence and how the judiciary is a co-equal branch of government.
“In our Constitution, judges and 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 said. “And that innovation doesn’t work if it’s not the judiciary is not independent. 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.”
Vance’s comments are part of a larger argument the White House has been making for months — that the president has the executive authority to enact immigration policies, regardless of what the courts may say.
John Roberts, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, speaks during lecture to the Georgetown Law School graduating class of 2025, in Washington, D.C., May 12, 2025.
Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP
On Friday, the Supreme Court extended its injunction that temporarily bars the Trump administration from removing Venezuelan immigrants from the U.S. under the Alien Enemies Act proclamation and sent the case to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to resolve the question of how much time should be afforded for detainees to contest their removals.
Discussing the administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act, Vance defended the White House’s use of the act and said that the courts need to be “extremely deferential.”
“I think that the courts need to be somewhat deferential. 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,” Vance said.
