Yes, Vance Believes Trump Can Disregard the Supreme Court
In my interview with the vice president last year, he was straightforward about his intentions to create a constitutional crisis involving the Supreme Court.
TroibNews 
Over the weekend, Vice President JD Vance sent a strong message to the federal judiciary: “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive branch’s legitimate power,” Vance stated in a post on X. This remark coincided with several federal courts issuing orders that temporarily slowed or halted the Trump administration's early executive actions, causing concern among President Donald Trump and Vance’s critics. They interpreted Vance’s post as a veiled encouragement for Trump to disregard the courts if they attempted to block his executive orders.
Vance’s position needs no further interpretation, as he has been clear and consistent since his Senate campaign began in 2022. He has explicitly suggested that a second-term Trump should challenge court decisions—even from the U.S. Supreme Court—if they inhibit his executive authority.
The most detailed articulation of this controversial stance came during an interview I conducted with him in January 2023 for PMG Magazine. I referenced his earlier comments on a conservative podcast from 2021, where he argued that if Trump were to be reelected, he should “fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, [and] every civil servant in the administrative state … and when the courts stop you, stand before the country like Andrew Jackson did and say: ‘The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.’”
When I asked Vance if his view had changed, he replied, “Yup.” He further elaborated, stating, “For me, this is not a limited-government thing — this is a democracy thing. Like, you need the bureaucracy to be responsive to the elected branches of government. The counterargument is, you know, ‘Aren’t you promoting a constitutional crisis?’ And my response is no — I’m recognizing a constitutional crisis. If the elected president says, ‘I get to control the staff of my own government,’ and the Supreme Court steps in and says, ‘You’re not allowed to do that’ — like, that is the constitutional crisis. It’s not whatever Trump or whoever else does in response. When the Supreme Court tells the president he can’t control the government anymore, we need to be honest about what’s actually going on.”
The implications of Vance’s suggestions are significant. His recommended course of action—where a president would defy a Supreme Court order and challenge the judiciary to enforce it—could result in a profound constitutional crisis that would fundamentally disrupt the established separation of powers. While there is some historical precedent for presidential defiance of Supreme Court decisions, the scale of such a crisis stemming from Vance's proposed actions would be unprecedented. Legal experts have emphasized that the courts’ role in assessing the legality and constitutionality of executive actions is central to their authority, and undermining this could severely destabilize the constitutional checks and balances.
Initially, Vance’s remarks seemed radical when he made them in 2021 and again in 2024. However, his status has since changed; he is now second in command and a key figure within Trump’s MAGA movement. His views resonate significantly among GOP members, as shown by the supportive comments from Trump allies—including Elon Musk.
Vance is no longer merely engaging in discussions. He is now in a position to directly influence the President of the United States.
In a conversation I had with Vance in 2024, he expressed confidence that a crisis would not occur, primarily because he did not believe the Supreme Court would intervene to impede Trump’s exercise of executive authority. “Do I think the Supreme Court would step in? No, I actually don’t,” Vance said. He argued that existing legal precedents that could prevent Trump’s actions are outdated, adding, “I find it really strange when people say, ‘Oh, what you’re counseling is a constitutional crisis.’ No, no, no — what I'm counseling is a recognition of a constitutional crisis if we tell the president he can't control his own government.”
To illustrate his point, Vance posed a hypothetical scenario: “What if Donald Trump tried to fire the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Supreme Court said, ‘No, you’re not allowed to do that’? You’d basically eliminate civilian control of the military, and that’s the constitutional crisis.” He connected this example to a recent event, the death of three U.S. troops in a drone strike in Jordan in January 2024, suggesting that it resulted from military leaders resisting Trump’s previous troop redeployment plans.
“There was a direct line between that and the three service members who died [this week],” Vance claimed. “They shouldn’t have been there in the beginning. Why were they there? Because the military actually fought the commander-in-chief on troop redeployments.” He concluded, “That to me is a much bigger problem. When you’re talking about threats to democracy, that’s the threat to democracy.”
The reaction of the Supreme Court and its conservative majority to a clear attempt by the Trump administration to defy a court ruling remains uncertain. In his end-of-year report last year, Chief Justice John Roberts remarked that “within the past few years ... elected officials from across the political spectrum have raised the specter of open disregard for federal court rulings,” which some observers interpreted as a critique aimed at Vance. It’s worth noting that the Supreme Court lacks an enforcement mechanism, typically depending on the executive branch to implement its decisions.
However, this long-standing practice is under pressure. Recently, a federal judge in Rhode Island indicated that the Trump administration may be disregarding an order to release billions in federal grants, though the judge stopped short of finding the administration in contempt. The true test will manifest if the White House faces an unfavorable ruling in a significant case—then Trump will have to decide whether or not to heed Vance’s counsel.
Debra A Smith contributed to this report for TROIB News
Vance’s position needs no further interpretation, as he has been clear and consistent since his Senate campaign began in 2022. He has explicitly suggested that a second-term Trump should challenge court decisions—even from the U.S. Supreme Court—if they inhibit his executive authority.
The most detailed articulation of this controversial stance came during an interview I conducted with him in January 2023 for PMG Magazine. I referenced his earlier comments on a conservative podcast from 2021, where he argued that if Trump were to be reelected, he should “fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, [and] every civil servant in the administrative state … and when the courts stop you, stand before the country like Andrew Jackson did and say: ‘The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.’”
When I asked Vance if his view had changed, he replied, “Yup.” He further elaborated, stating, “For me, this is not a limited-government thing — this is a democracy thing. Like, you need the bureaucracy to be responsive to the elected branches of government. The counterargument is, you know, ‘Aren’t you promoting a constitutional crisis?’ And my response is no — I’m recognizing a constitutional crisis. If the elected president says, ‘I get to control the staff of my own government,’ and the Supreme Court steps in and says, ‘You’re not allowed to do that’ — like, that is the constitutional crisis. It’s not whatever Trump or whoever else does in response. When the Supreme Court tells the president he can’t control the government anymore, we need to be honest about what’s actually going on.”
The implications of Vance’s suggestions are significant. His recommended course of action—where a president would defy a Supreme Court order and challenge the judiciary to enforce it—could result in a profound constitutional crisis that would fundamentally disrupt the established separation of powers. While there is some historical precedent for presidential defiance of Supreme Court decisions, the scale of such a crisis stemming from Vance's proposed actions would be unprecedented. Legal experts have emphasized that the courts’ role in assessing the legality and constitutionality of executive actions is central to their authority, and undermining this could severely destabilize the constitutional checks and balances.
Initially, Vance’s remarks seemed radical when he made them in 2021 and again in 2024. However, his status has since changed; he is now second in command and a key figure within Trump’s MAGA movement. His views resonate significantly among GOP members, as shown by the supportive comments from Trump allies—including Elon Musk.
Vance is no longer merely engaging in discussions. He is now in a position to directly influence the President of the United States.
In a conversation I had with Vance in 2024, he expressed confidence that a crisis would not occur, primarily because he did not believe the Supreme Court would intervene to impede Trump’s exercise of executive authority. “Do I think the Supreme Court would step in? No, I actually don’t,” Vance said. He argued that existing legal precedents that could prevent Trump’s actions are outdated, adding, “I find it really strange when people say, ‘Oh, what you’re counseling is a constitutional crisis.’ No, no, no — what I'm counseling is a recognition of a constitutional crisis if we tell the president he can't control his own government.”
To illustrate his point, Vance posed a hypothetical scenario: “What if Donald Trump tried to fire the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Supreme Court said, ‘No, you’re not allowed to do that’? You’d basically eliminate civilian control of the military, and that’s the constitutional crisis.” He connected this example to a recent event, the death of three U.S. troops in a drone strike in Jordan in January 2024, suggesting that it resulted from military leaders resisting Trump’s previous troop redeployment plans.
“There was a direct line between that and the three service members who died [this week],” Vance claimed. “They shouldn’t have been there in the beginning. Why were they there? Because the military actually fought the commander-in-chief on troop redeployments.” He concluded, “That to me is a much bigger problem. When you’re talking about threats to democracy, that’s the threat to democracy.”
The reaction of the Supreme Court and its conservative majority to a clear attempt by the Trump administration to defy a court ruling remains uncertain. In his end-of-year report last year, Chief Justice John Roberts remarked that “within the past few years ... elected officials from across the political spectrum have raised the specter of open disregard for federal court rulings,” which some observers interpreted as a critique aimed at Vance. It’s worth noting that the Supreme Court lacks an enforcement mechanism, typically depending on the executive branch to implement its decisions.
However, this long-standing practice is under pressure. Recently, a federal judge in Rhode Island indicated that the Trump administration may be disregarding an order to release billions in federal grants, though the judge stopped short of finding the administration in contempt. The true test will manifest if the White House faces an unfavorable ruling in a significant case—then Trump will have to decide whether or not to heed Vance’s counsel.
Debra A Smith contributed to this report for TROIB News
