Speaker Johnson says he agrees “wholeheartedly” with VP JD Vance’s recent remarks that challenge judges’ authority to check executive power.
On 2/11/2025, Speaker Mike Johnson called on courts to “take a step back” from blocking President Donald Trump’s high-speed finding fraud and abuse of the federal government. “I will say I agree wholeheartedly with Vice President JD Vance, my friend, because he’s right,” Johnson, a former constitutional lawyer, said at a press conference in the Capitol.
Johnson is following the lead of the vice president, who has suggested the Trump administration should ignore court orders barring the president’s executive actions from taking effect. (Vance said “judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.”) “What they’re doing in the executive branch. I’ve been asked so many times, aren’t you uncomfortable with this? No, I’m not,” Johnson said, “because when Congress, for example, appropriates dollars for the executive branch to use, we build in not only in the spirit of the law, but in the letter of law, a broad amount of discretion for how that is used.”
“I met with Elon yesterday about this to get an update, and it’s to me it’s very exciting what they’re able to do because what Elon and the DOGE effort is doing right now is what Congress has been unable to do.” Johnson indicated Tuesday he fully backs what Trump and Musk are doing.
“When duly elected representatives of the people request information to find all of these abuses and it’s not turned over to us, what it takes is an actual audit of the systems and the files themselves that are often hidden from Congress,” the speaker said. “That’s what you’re seeing right now and that’s why this is so exciting.”
Over the weekend, U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer placed an injunction blocking the Trump Administration from allowing the DOGE agency, led by Musk, to have access to the Treasury Department’s central payment system.
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Speaker Johnson to Courts: ‘Step Back’ from blocking Trump, he agrees “wholeheartedly” with VP JD Vance