Donald Trump has joined top MAGA figures in calling for the impeachment of judges who have blocked his administration’s actions.
The president railed Tuesday against the federal judge who stymied his attempt to use an obscure 200-year-old law to deport suspected members of a Venezuelan gang.
Trump called judge James Boasberg a “Radical Left Lunatic” and a “troublemaker and agitator.”
“This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!!” he wrote.
The president seemed to suggest that he had the authority to overrule any judge who defied him, because they were not popularly elected.
While Trump has openly criticized the numerous judges blocking his boundary-testing executive actions, he has refrained from explicitly calling for their impeachment. DOGE head Elon Musk, meanwhile, has for weeks urged the removal of judges who push back on Trump.
In a speech delivered at the Justice Department last week, Trump said that it should be “illegal” to criticize judges. He was condemning press coverage that he said unduly influenced judges’ decisions.
On Monday, a reporter pointed out to Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt that Trump often criticizes judges who restrict him and that Musk has been calling for their impeachment.
“I have not heard the president talk about impeaching judges,” Leavitt fired back, according to The New York Times. “I know you mentioned Mr. Musk’s tweet, but I have not heard the President of the United States ask that.”
The White House declined to comment to the Daily Beast on the president’s statement.
Musk called for Boasberg’s impeachment as recently as a Sunday, the latest in a string of dozens of X posts urging the removal of judges who block Trump.
The cries have been picked up by the denizens of MAGA nation on the platform as well—including big-wigs like Rep. Nancy Mace, the popular X account MAGA Voice, and far-right pundit Mike Cernovich.
Trump’s deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, has been one of the loudest voices decrying the judge’s order to halt the deportation.
“It is without doubt the most unlawful order a judge has issued in our lifetimes,” Miller said on Monday. “A district court judge has no authority to direct the national security operations of the executive branch. The president has operated the absolute apex of his constitutional authority.”
Diehard MAGA Rep. Brandon Gill promptly agreed to the president’s demand. “Articles of Impeachment coming very soon,” he wrote on X, alongside a photo of Trump’s Tuesday post.
In addition to the social media posts, the White House has urged Boasberg to dissolve his order blocking the deportation of the suspected Tren de Agua gang members. Trump’s Justice Department has also refused to hand over detailed information the judge has requested about the deportations, asking the federal appeals court above him to step in.
Trump’s actions over the first two months of his second term have frequently tested the limits of the president’s power—and prompted pushback from federal judges.
Last week, a judge ordered that Trump’s administration had to hire back tens of thousands of probationary federal workers it had fired.
The pushback has not seemed to slow Trump’s flurry of brazen moves.
