--- title: Calls Grow on the Right for Trump To Ignore Judges’ Orders description: Stephen Miller called a judge’s decision to temporarily block the Portland troop deployment “legal insurrection.” canonical: https://time.com/7324353/trump-judges-stephen-miller-musk/ author: Brian Bennett article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2025-10-08T17:47:46.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:48:44.821Z article:section: Politics og:title: Calls Grow on the Right for Trump To Ignore Judges’ Orders og:description: Stephen Miller called a judge’s decision to temporarily block the Portland troop deployment “legal insurrection.” og:url: https://time.com/7324353/trump-judges-stephen-miller-musk/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2ec83b637fa7f79a/6998ca9f93610c5c2fc30128/GettyImages-2239615256.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: Presidential Advisor Stephen Miller Speaks To Press At The White House og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Calls Grow on the Right for Trump To Ignore Judges’ Orders twitter:description: Stephen Miller called a judge’s decision to temporarily block the Portland troop deployment “legal insurrection.” twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2ec83b637fa7f79a/6998ca9f93610c5c2fc30128/GettyImages-2239615256.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Calls Grow on the Right for Trump To Ignore Judges’ Orders > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: Attorney General Pam Bondi Clashes with Democrats During Senate Hearing [Watch (HLS stream): Attorney General Pam Bondi Clashes with Democrats During Senate Hearing](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/4dCXQLiZ.m3u8) (4:59)  _Published 2025-10-07. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi repeatedly deflected questions as she sought during a combative congressional hearing on Tuesday to defend herself against growing criticism that she's turning the law enforcement agency into a weapon to seek vengeance against President Donald Trump’s political opponents._ by [Brian Bennett](https://time.com/author/brian-bennett/) and [Solcyré Burga](https://time.com/author/solcyre-burga/) Oct 8, 2025 5:47 PM UTC  Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller speaks to reporters outside of the White House on October 06, 2025 in Washington, DC. Miller spoke about recent reaction to the Trump administration deploying federal agents and National Guard members to U.S. cities. Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller speaks to reporters outside of the White House on October 06, 2025 in Washington, DC. Miller spoke about recent reaction to the Trump administration deploying federal agents and National Guard members to U.S. cities. Anna Moneymaker—Getty Images by [Brian Bennett](https://time.com/author/brian-bennett/) and [Solcyré Burga](https://time.com/author/solcyre-burga/) Oct 8, 2025 5:47 PM UTC A growing chorus of Trump allies is urging the President to defy federal court orders, pushing the country toward a direct confrontation between the Executive Branch and the Judiciary—the very outcome the [Constitution was designed to prevent](https://time.com/7221710/supreme-court-stand-up-to-trump/). After a federal judge in Oregon ruled over the weekend that President Donald Trump had overreached by ordering National Guard troops to Portland, right wing political podcast host Matt Walsh urged his 3.9 million followers that “Trump needs to openly defy these judges” and it is “time for a showdown.” The richest man in the world Elon Musk replied to Walsh’s message, writing: “It is high time that corrupt judges who violate the Constitution be fired!” At the White House later that day, Trump’s deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller called the judge’s decision to temporarily block the Portland troop deployment “legal insurrection.” Federal District Court Judge Karin Immergut ruled that the protests outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices in Portland did not justify Trump's use of military action. Miller said that ruling—and other court orders that have blocked some of Trump’s actions over the past 9 months —amount to “an insurrection against the laws and Constitution of the United States.” District courts, he said, need to “see themselves as being under the laws and Constitution and not being able to take for themselves powers that are reserved solely for the President.” **Read more**: [_Democrats Need Judges to Rein In Trump. There’s No Plan B_](https://time.com/7214286/trump-court-lawsuits/) The word insurrection carries legal weight. The Insurrection Act of 1807 gives the President extraordinary powers in the event of an armed rebellion. President Donald Trump was asked by a reporter in the Oval Office on Monday if he would invoke the Insurrection Act. He said he would “if people were being killed” and he believed courts and city mayors were holding him back. "Well, I'd do it if it was necessary. So far, it hasn't been necessary,” Trump said. “ If people were being killed and courts were holding us up or governors or mayors were holding us up, sure, I would do that,” Trump said. The increasingly vehement rhetoric against judges comes at the same time as Trump has directed his Justice Department to prosecute his political opponents, alarming legal experts. On Wednesday, [former FBI Director James Comey](https://time.com/7320692/james-comey-indictment-fbi-trump-pam-bondi-false-statement-halligan/), who investigated Trump for possible collusion with Russia, was arraigned after Trump publicly called on Attorney General Pam Bondi to prosecute Comey and others who have investigated him. Kristy Parker, special counsel at Protect Democracy and a former federal prosecutor, says the moves together represent a threat to American democracy. “These are really fundamental assaults on our rule of law, system of government, and the fundamental structure of our government,” she tells TIME. “Our founders created three coequal branches of government precisely so that we would not have the person of the president becoming a tyrannical force.” “Calling on your court orders and the administration actually ignoring court orders should chill everyone who thinks that we ought to be living in the democracy that our founders created,” she adds. The role of the courts is to decide if the President is acting within the limits set by the Constitution and the law, says Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program. “When it comes to the President’s assessments of the realities on the ground, courts do tend to give Presidents deference.” But recent court decisions have concluded that the Trump administration’s reasons for wanting to use the military in Portland were "untethered from the facts on the ground,” Goitein says. Still, many of the president’s own supporters believe he is still acting within the bounds of his authority. John Malcom, vice president of the Heritage Foundation, the think tank behind conservative policy program Project 2025, says a president ignoring a judge’s rulings would be “a risky thing to do, to say the least,” but he believes that he would have the authority to do so “under extreme circumstances.” Malcolm notes former President Andrew Jackson’s refusal to enforce the Supreme Court’s _Worcester v. Georgia_ decision, which established the Cherokee Nation as a distinct political entity with its own rights and sovereignty, and led to the infamous “[Trail of Tears](https://history.state.gov/milestones/1830-1860/indian-treaties)”. “I think President Trump has thus far resisted defying any court order, even though I do think that there are a lot of Democrat appointed judges in blue states who are going out of their way to try to frustrate his agenda,” he says. In the immigration courts, which operate under the Executive Branch, the Trump Administration has been more aggressive. More than [130 immigration judges](https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/06/politics/immigration-judges-fired-trump) have been fired, involuntarily transferred, or accepted early retirement offers since the start of Trump’s second term. “This President certainly takes advantage of the flexibility and flexible authorities that he has been given,” Malcolm says. “And I am reluctant to criticize it if I think that he's acting within the scope of his authority.” ## Transcript President Biden never directed the attorney general to prosecute his political opponents. President Biden never fired his own political appointees for refusing to prosecute his targets. What has taken place since January 20th, 2025 would make even President Nixon recoil. This is your legacy, Attorney General Bondi. In eight short months, you have fundamentally transformed the Justice Department and left an enormous stain in American history. It will take decades to recover. Do you affirm the testimony you're about to give before this committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God? When I was confirmed as the 87th Attorney General of the United States, I took office with two main goals to end the weaponization of justice and return the department to its core mission of fighting violent crime. As to ending the weaponization of justice, we learned that former FBI secretly investigated you and your colleagues. Why? They wanted to take President Trump off the playing field. They were playing politics with law enforcement powers and will go down as a historic betrayal of public trust. This is the kind of conduct that shatters the American people's faith in our law enforcement system. We will work to earn that back every single day. We are returning to our core mission of fighting real crime. While there is more work to do, I believe in eight short months we have made tremendous progress towards those ends. Were you consulted by the white House before they deployed National Guard troops to cities in the United States? I am not going to discuss any internal conversations with the white House. You won't even say whether you talked to the white House about this. I am not going to discuss any internal conversations with the white House with you. Chairman. Ranking member. I noticed that. What's the secret? Why do you want to keep this secret. The American people don't know the rationale behind the deployment of National Guard troops in my state. The word is, and I think it's been confirmed by the white House, they are going to transfer Texas National Guard units to the state of Illinois. What's the rationale for that? Yeah. Chairman, as you shut down the government, you voted to shut down the government, and you're sitting here. Our law enforcement officers aren't being paid. They're out there working to protect you. I wish you love Chicago as much as you hate President Trump. And currently, the National Guard are on the way to Chicago. If you're not going to protect your citizens, President Trump will. I've been on this committee for more than 20 years. That's the kind of testimony you expect from this administration. A simple question as to whether or not they had a legal rationale for deploying National Guard troops becomes grounds for personal attack. Tell me a specific grant that I have turned off in Illinois that would help law enforcement. And I will work with you. But you have not done that. Did you take a look? Did you take. The National Guard is on the way right now as we speak. Oh, by the way, so is Director Patel and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanch. You're sitting here grilling me, and they're on their way to Chicago to keep your state safe. Madam Attorney general, it's my job to grill you. At your nomination hearing. I specifically asked you to provide assurance to every member of this committee that the Justice Department will only follow the facts and the law, and the white House will play no role in the cases investigated or brought. You stated in response. Response. This was you. Politics will not play a part in my decisions. And you also said the Justice Department must be independent and must act independently. Do you believe that you have upheld that commitment? I absolutely have upheld that commitment, Senator. I pledge that I would end the weaponization also of the Justice Department, and that America would once again have a one tier system of justice for all. And that is what we are doing in this country. This is supposed to be an oversight hearing when dozens of prosecutors have been fired simply because they worked on cases investigating the former president. This is. And now the. Fires in. California. And this is supposed to be this is excuse me? This is supposed to be an oversight hearing in which members of Congress can get serious answers to serious questions about. The riots in La. Sera, about the cover up of corruption, about the prosecution of the president's enemies. And then when will it be? When will it be? When will it be that the members of this committee, on a bipartisan basis, demand answers to those questions and refuse to accept or refuse to accept? Excuse me. Refuse to. Accept. Personal slander as an answer to those questions. Personal slander. With that, Madam Chair, I yield. 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