President Trump said Tuesday he would abide by court rulings if they blocked parts of his agenda amid uproar over comments from some allies about defying the legal system.
“I always abide by the courts and then I’ll have to appeal it,” Trump said when asked if he would comply with court orders if they blocked his agenda. “But then what he’s done is he’s slowed down momentum. And it gives crooked people more time to cover up the books.”
“The answer is I always abide by the courts, always abide by them. And we’ll appeal,” Trump added. “But appeals take a long time.”
Trump did scoff at the idea that a court could prevent federal agency leaders from going over their books to find potential fraud or discrepancies.
“I can’t imagine that could be held up by the court,” he said. “Any court that would say that the president or his representatives — like secretary of the Treasury, secretary of State, whatever — doesn’t have the right to go over their books and make sure everything’s’ honest, I mean how can you have a country?”
Trump’s comments come as Democrats and some legal experts have sounded the alarm after Vice President JD Vance and top Trump adviser Elon Musk in recent days suggested judges don’t have jurisdiction to stop the president from exercising his authority.
“If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal. If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that’s also illegal,” Vance wrote on X. “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.”
Musk in recent days called for a federal judge to be impeached after they issued a ruling that temporarily halted the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) access to Treasury Department data.
Several of Trump’s early moves have faced legal challenges, with judges at least temporarily halting the president’s actions.
Trump’s attempt to do away with birthright citizenship, his administration’s proposed buyout of federal workers and his attempted federal funding freezes have all been paused by court rulings.
