Democrats are relying on judges in the U.S. legal system to dictate what the executive branch should do, President Donald Trump said.
Trump’s opponents have been using court filings to try to stop executive orders from being implemented. First and foremost, Democrats have been aiming to stop Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency from exposing partisan and wasteful spending at federal agencies.
Separate court rulings have prevented DOGE from accessing records at the Treasury Department, blocked the National Institutes of Health’s slashing of billions of dollars in medical research, and paused the deferred resignation program for federal employees.
Also, a third federal judge on Monday blocked Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship for the children of people in the U.S. illegally.
During an appearance Tuesday on Mark Levin’s podcast, Trump was asked if the judiciary is taking over the executive branch.
“Well, you have some very bad rulings, and it’s a shame to see it, frankly, they want to sort of tell everybody how to run the country,” Trump told Levin. “When they say that certain people in charge of massive agencies … smart people doing investigations of fraud. And they don’t talk about what you’re looking at. All they just say is, ‘Oh, it’s unconstitutional.’
“When you look at what’s been found, the fraud, and the waste and the abuse. But the fraud, the outright fraud, so many different places. Wait till you see what’s going to come up. What’s going to come up is unthinkable. And you can say it with great knowledge and with great flavor. If you want to say it, you can say it with great flavor because it’s going to be dramatic.”
Trump added: “Judges should be ruling, they shouldn’t be dictating what you’re supposed to be doing. Why is someone saying you’re not allowed to, as an example, USAID [U.S. Agency for International Development]. You take a look at it, and you look at the kind of things that we found. Just point after point. Normally, you’d find one out of a hundred, bad. Now, you find one out of a hundred, good. It’s just absolutely crazy.”
Despite the court rulings that have delayed Trump’s actions at least temporarily, a CBS News survey shows that 53% of Americans approve of the job he’s doing and 70% say he’s doing what he promised.
“If I didn’t do what I said I was going to do, we’re not going to have a country very long because the country was in serious problem,” Trump told Levin. “We’ve made such a comeback, it’s been amazing. But the country is in serious problem. You look at $36 trillion in debt.
“If we’re not going around looking for fraud, waste, abuse, and everything else, you’re not going to have a country. So, we’re doing a job. People are shocked by what’s been found. And … it’s peanuts to what’s going to be announced.”
