Speaker Mike Johnson called on courts Tuesday to “take a step back” from blocking President Donald Trump’s high-speed gutting 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.”)
The speaker, who is the face of the legislative branch of government, said he doesn’t feel emasculated by the Trump administration’s zeal in dismantling the federal bureaucracy without input from Congress.
“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.”
Johnson’s comments come in the wake of Vance pushing back against legal challenges to parts of Elon Musk’s DOGE agenda.
Johnson said he spoke with Musk about his controversial efforts on Monday, and is supportive of their mission.
“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,” he told reporters Tuesday.
Trump and Musk have, among other actions, shuttered the United States’ main foreign aid service, U.S.A.I.D., offered buyouts to and threatened to fire federal workers, accessed sensitive payment information at the U.S. Treasury, erased Jan. 6 prosecutions and eliminated diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives throughout the federal government.
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.
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.”
