By Tom Hals
(Reuters) – Elon Musk and other allies of Donald Trump lashed out at federal judges on Tuesday who have blocked the president’s biggest initiatives, including ending birthright citizenship, in some cases challenging the independence of the judiciary.
Musk took to his X social media platform to attack the judge who ordered U.S. health agencies on Tuesday to temporarily restore websites they took offline in response to an executive order by Trump. The order remains in place while the parties prepare legal briefs for a longer injunction.
“We should at least ATTEMPT to fire this junky jurist. The notion of having a judge job for life, no matter how bad the judgments, is ridiculous!” Musk posted to his 217 million X followers. He also posted messages claiming the country was being destroyed a “judicial coup.”
Trump on Tuesday blamed “highly political judges” for slowing his agenda, but later in the day he and Musk met with reporters in the Oval Office and the president said he would abide by court rulings and appeal those that go against him and against Musk’s drive against wasteful spending.
“We want to weed out the corruption. And it seems hard to believe that a judge could say, we don’t want you to do that,” said Trump. “So maybe we have to look at the judges.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the administration would continue to fight for his voters.
“These unlawful injunctions are a continuation of the weaponization of justice against President Trump,” she said, after an appeals court ruled on Tuesday against the administration’s bid to freeze federal spending.
There is little modern precedent for an administration to ignore court orders and doing so would bring the country close to a Constitutional crisis.
Some members of Trump’s Republican Party in Congress, whose appropriations and laws the president was alleged to be violating, defended the courts.
Josh Hawley, a senator from Missouri, said the administration should abide by court rulings, according to ABC News. Hawley is a former attorney general for Missouri and he and his wife were both U.S. Supreme Court clerks.
“You may think that’s not the right ruling, but you know, they’re still the law,” Hawley said.
A spokesperson for the judiciary did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The American Bar Association warned on Tuesday the rule of law was under attack and that statements by Trump’s allies “threaten the very foundation of our constitutional system.”
In addition to Musk, Vice President JD Vance wrote on X on Sunday that “judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power” after U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer in Manhattan blocked Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) staff from accessing Treasury Department payment records.
Musk also reposted photos of at least three judges who ruled against Trump policies and took aim at the law firms helping advocacy groups challenge Trump policies.
Trump has a history of blasting judges who rule against him. Leaders of his own party distanced themselves from him when he was running for president in 2016 when Trump suggested a judge’s Mexican-American heritage biased the judge against him.
Musk has a history of testing the patience of judges and his X messaging platform last year defied a court order in Brazil directing it to block some accounts. The platform eventually complied.
More than 50 lawsuits have been filed against Trump initiatives that progressive advocates and Democratic state attorneys general allege break a variety of laws that govern spending, administrative procedure, protections for federal workers, freedom of religion and more.
A federal judge said on Monday that the Trump administration had defied a court order that temporarily preserved federal spending on grants and loans that fund many state programs. Justice Department lawyers had told the judge the administration thought it was complying and did not object to the judge clarifying his intentions.
A group of Democratic attorneys general meeting in Los Angeles this week are discussing how to respond if the Trump administration ultimately decides to defy court authority and how to hold Trump or others in contempt.
“We are on it, we are discussing it, and we will have a plan for it,” said Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes.
The attack on judiciary and comes at a time of increased violent threats directed at judges and social media disinformation that Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts said in December was undermining the independence of the judiciary.
Joe Biden proposed in his final year of the presidency imposing term limits on the Supreme Court, which he called an “extreme court.”
(Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware; additional reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston and Jody Godoy in Los Angeles.; Editing by Noeleen Walder, Amy Stevens and Gerry Doyle)
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