Public Statements Affirming That the President Must Comply with Court Orders

It is a lynchpin of our constitutional system of checks and balances that following court orders is not optional. Recent statements by some Trump administration officials, including Vice President JD Vance, have sought to draw that principle into question, prompting broad and bipartisan repudiation.

Elected officials, former and current judges, legal scholars, and legal organizations have all spoken out against the dangers of the government disobeying a court order and the importance of preserving an independent judiciary.

• Sen. John Thune (R-SD), Senate majority leader: “The courts obviously are . . . the branch of our government that calls balls and strikes and referees and I think that they’ve got an important role to play. I mean we have three branches of our government in this country, coequal and independent branches, and the judiciary is the one that resolves some of the differences that often occur between executive and legislative branches.” ABC News (February 11, 2025)
• Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee: “We’ve got a system of checks and balances, and that’s what I see working. I learned in eighth grade civics about checks and balances, and I just expect the process to work its way out.” ABC News (February 11, 2025)
• Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), member of the Senate Judiciary Committee: “I think you can dislike the court’s opinion and think they’re wrong on the substance, and criticize them for that, and you certainly can vigorously appeal. . . . I think outright, sort of just like, ‘Oh, we’re just going to completely ignore the decision?’ That, I think you can’t do. Andrew Jackson did that, infamously. He was wrong on that. That was the Trail of Tears. That was lawless. That was wrong.” Newsweek (February 11, 2025)
• Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), member of the Senate Judiciary Committee: 
  • Speaking to nominees during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing: “Don’t ever, ever take the position that you’re not going to follow the order of a federal court, ever. You can disagree with it, within the bounds of legal ethics, you can criticize it, you can appeal it, or you can resign.” X (formerly Twitter) (February 26, 2025)
  • “I don’t agree with all the rulings. It’s often the case that I’ll disagree with an opinion that a court issues, but I don’t attack. I don’t attack, and I don’t intend to attack the legitimacy of the federal judiciary.” Bloomberg News (February 12, 2025)
• Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), member of the Senate Judiciary Committee: “At the end of last year, Chief Justice John Roberts made clear that disregarding federal court rulings is ‘dangerous’ and ‘must be soundly rejected.’ The administration cannot make unilateral power grabs. Courts are upholding the law.” X (formerly Twitter) (February 10, 2025)
• Sen. James Lankford (R-OK): “We have three branches of government. In the first Trump administration, they honored the courts then.” If a court makes an adverse decision, the White House should comply with it “while they’re in the process of challenging it.” The Hill (February 12, 2025)
• Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK): “The White House should comply with court rulings. The Congress should comply. We have a judicial system. If you don’t like the ruling, you can appeal the ruling and you can follow that through. But we are a nation of laws and it is not necessarily for you or I to be the final arbiter here. This is why we entrust the judiciary with this responsibility.” The Hill (February 12, 2025)
• Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD): When asked if lawmakers would follow whatever decisions are handed down by the courts, he said, “We have to. We will follow the decisions of the court, and I don’t think there’s been anybody saying no.” The Hill (February 11, 2025)
• Sen. Todd Young (R-IN): By viewing adverse rulings against President Trump as pro-Democratic or favorable rulings as pro-Republican, “we’ve essentially conceded that there’s no such thing as objective legal analysis, and I’m not prepared to do that. We have come up with no better system than to defer to judicial rulings and then to rely on our appeals courts to challenge those rulings.” Bloomberg News (February 12, 2025)
• Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee: “Our three coequal branches of government are the Legislative Branch, the Executive Branch, and the Judiciary. Despite what Vance suggested, just like Trump does not control the power of the purse, he does not control the courts.” Press Statement (February 10, 2025)
• Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY): “Our constitution created three co-equal branches of government to provide checks and balances on each other (‘separation of powers’). The judiciary makes sure that the executive follows the law. If you do, then you won’t have problems.” X (formerly Twitter) (February 9, 2025)
• Liz Cheney, former Republican representative from Wyoming: “If you believe any of the multiple federal courts that have ruled against you so far are exceeding their statutory or Constitutional authority, your recourse is to appeal. You don’t get to rage-quit the Republic just because you are losing. That’s tyranny.” X (formerly Twitter) (February 9, 2025)

• William R. Bay, president of the American Bar Association: “The American Bar Association supports the rule of law. That means holding governments, including our own, accountable under law. We stand for a legal process that is orderly and fair. We have consistently urged the administrations of both parties to adhere to the rule of law. We stand in that familiar place again today. And we do not stand alone. Our courts stand for the rule of law as well.” Excerpt from the American Bar Association’s full statement on its support for the rule of law (February 10, 2025)
• American College of Trial Lawyers, in response to Elon Musk’s comments alleging Judge Paul Engelmayer is “corrupt” and “needs to be impeached”: “Attacks like these, which make groundless accusations of ‘corruption,’ and call for impeachment without any allegation of an impeachable offense, are dangerous because they undermine the public’s trust in the rule of law and risk provoking violence against judges. They also threaten the independence of the judiciary because they are baseless and intimidating.” Excerpt from the American College of Trial Lawyers full statement in response to Musk’s attacks (February 10, 2025)
• New York City Bar Association, in response to Musk’s comments: “These types of statements by those in the constitutionally co-equal branches imperil the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law. Federal judges are obligated to decide the issues presented in their cases to the best of their ability. Under basic constitutional principles like the separation of powers and checks and balances, there is nothing corrupt, illegal, or improper about judges ruling against the government in the course of enforcing constitutional and statutory limitations on the government’s power.” Excerpt from the New York City Bar Association full statement (February 13, 2025)
• Matthew V. P. McTygue, president of the Boston Bar Association: “Equally troubling, Administration officials have indicated they may disregard court orders, directly undermining the judiciary’s role as a coequal branch of government. These actions test the checks and balances that keep our government, its separate branches, and their leaders accountable to the public and each other.” Excerpt from the Boston Bar Association full statement (February 12, 2025)
• Association of American Law Schools: “The executive branch has many avenues to challenge judicial decisions with which it disagrees through the courts. Presidents of both political parties have successfully done so. There can be no disagreement that in a nation under law, that all government officials, without exception, must comply with direct judicial orders. To do otherwise is to shatter our historic system of separation of powers and remove the checks and balances the framers so wisely wrote in our Constitution.” Excerpt from the Association of American Law Schools full statement (February 18, 2025) 

• Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor: “[I have faith] that other actors in the system, whether it’s Congress or others, will follow the law, because it’s what we all take an oath of office to do . . . we’ve had moments where it’s been tested, but, by and large, we have been a country who has understood that the rule of law has helped us maintain our democracy.”  New York Times (February 11, 2025)
• Paul Grimm, director of the Bolch Judicial Institute at Duke Law School and a former federal judge, on the dangers of ignoring court rulings: “Without those checks and balances, we don’t have the rule of law. No right of any individual in this country is safe.” Bloomberg News (February 10, 2025)
• David Cole, Georgetown University law professor and former national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union: “The fact that lots of presidents have lost on things they deeply care about, including in wartime, including the Civil War, and not defied the courts orders, should not be lost sight of because JD Vance sent out a tweet that could be construed in that way. . . . The courts have the final say on whether the president’s actions are legitimate or illegitimate, and if they say they’re illegitimate, unconstitutional or contrary to statute, he has to forgo them.” Forbes (February 12, 2025)
• Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law: “Throughout American history, with only the rarest of exceptions, presidents have complied with court orders. The claim by Vice President Vance that courts cannot review ‘legitimate’ actions of the president is inconsistent with principles established in Marbury v. Madison. If the president need not comply with court orders, we are in a country with a dictator,” adding that “the call for impeaching judges is an assault on the independence of the judiciary. It says that judges who do not do what the president wants will be removed. That, too, is not a constitutional democracy, but a dictatorship.” Law 360 (February 10, 2025)
• Carl Tobias, University of Richmond School of Law professor: “If the president disagrees with a district court’s ruling, the president can appeal the ruling.” Law 360 (February 12, 2025)
• Abby K. Wood, University of Southern California Gould School of Law professor: “Attacking judges either specifically, as President Trump did in his first term, or generally, as Musk and Vance have been doing, is dangerous for our separation of powers . . . One of the core democracy-preserving functions of courts is to reject executive branch actions that violate existing rules, laws, or constitutional provisions.” Law 360 (February 12, 2025)
• Jeremy Fogel, Berkeley Judicial Institute’s executive director and former federal judge: “Mr. Vance is correct that courts typically have been found to lack jurisdiction over the actions of the executive branch in the two areas he identifies. At the same time, courts historically have had the power to intervene in many other areas when executive branch discretion is exercised in an unlawful way . . . If a party doesn’t agree with a lower court’s answer to that question, it has remedies up to and including review by the Supreme Court.” Law 360 (February 10, 2025)
• Trevor W. Morrison and Richard H. Pildes, professors of law at New York University: “The fundamental principle of the rule of law is that once the legal process, including appeals and stay applications, has reached completion, public officials must obey an order of the courts. This country’s constitutional traditions are built on and depend on that understanding.” The New York Times (February 16, 2025)
• Steve Vladeck, Georgetown University law professor, in response to the possibility of the Trump administration defying court orders: “It is exceptionally myopic, hypocritical and dangerous . . . In our system, the way you object to a legal ruling you find objectionable is to appeal.” Washington Post (February 10, 2025)
• Amrit Singh, professor at Stanford Law School, and David Cole, Georgetown University law professor: “The federal courts in the US system are given independence and final say on legal disputes so that they can act as a check on the political branches. In 1975, the Supreme Court explained that ‘all orders and judgments of courts must be complied with promptly.’” The Guardian (February 16, 2025)