“It’s basically a game of whack-a-mole with these District Court judges around the country who have a tremendous amount of power, they believe they do,” Bondi said.
Attorney General Pam Bondi on Sunday pushed back on the idea that President Donald Trump might ignore future rulings decided by the Supreme Court, spurring constitutional discord. The real crisis, she argued, is the barrage of lawsuits the White House faces as it tries to move quickly on its agenda.
“Just since January 20th, we’ve had over 170 lawsuits filed against us. That should be the constitutional crisis right there, 50 injunctions,” Bondi told host Shannon Bream on “Fox News Sunday.” “They’re popping up every single day, trying to control his executive power, trying to control where he believes our tax dollars should be allocated.”
Several judges have played a key role in blocking elements of the President’s agenda, with rulings standing in the way of efforts to cut $11 billion in Covid-19, mental health and substance abuse funding to states and mandating the return of a Maryland man illegally deported to El Salvador both hitting the fore last week. Most of those rulings are temporary in nature, pending fuller court proceedings.
Trump has responded to the judicial disruption by attacking judges seen to be stifling his powers, contending that they are overstepping their authority. Republican backers have also launched efforts to impeach federal judges who have attracted Trump’s ire.
Bondi pointed to the administration’s difficulty in standing up its planned ban on transgender troops serving in the military. A second federal judge in late March blocked the effort, calling it blatantly discriminatory.
“It’s basically a game of whack-a-mole with these District Court judges around the country who have a tremendous amount of power, they believe they do,” she said. “But that’s why we’re appealing all of these cases of course up to the Supreme Court.”
As for Trump?
“The President is going to comply with the law,” Bondi told Bream. “He was overwhelmingly elected by an overwhelming majority of the United States citizens to be our commander-in-chief,” exaggerating his margin of victory from a plurality of voters.
She added: “And that’s what he’s been doing.”
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