Conservatives take aim at John Roberts after Trump controversy: 'He's totally out of line'

John Roberts waded into the controversy between Donald Trump and several trial judges across the country who have recently tried to counter the president's agenda. After Trump threatened to remove some district judges, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court publicly spoke out against this initiative, which provoked rejection from many conservative voices.

Currently, there are approximately 126 lawsuits seeking to curb the Trump administration's policy agenda, such as the government cuts, deportations and the pause of foreign aid.

"For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose," Roberts, who rarely tends to issue public statements, said.

Injunctions against Trump are nothing new for the current White House tenant. Indeed, during his first administration, he dealt with 64, considerably fewer than the 14 of Joe Biden, the 12 of Barack Obama and the 6 of George W. Bush.

Newt Gingrich, Charlie Kirk and more: Conservatives responded to Roberts

One of the first to cross Roberts was Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the House of Representatives. Hours after the chief justice's remarks were made public, the Georgia Republican weighed in on his X account.

"If Chief Justice Roberts wants to minimize attacks on out of control appointed leftwing district court judges abusing their role and claiming to be able to overrule the elected President of the United States on management details that are clearly within his role as defined by the Constitution and the Federalist Papers then he should intervene and overrule these absurd power grabs," he said.

In addition, he recommended that he act within the judiciary branch before the other branches start responding. "The Chief Justice can defend the Court by overruling bad judges before the Executive and Legislative Branches start acting against them. The burden is on the Chief Justice not the President (Trump)," Gingrich added.

Gingrich, a regular critic of judicial activism, recently wrote an op-ed in which he summed up the situation as follows: "When relatively low-ranking appointed judges claim to have more power than the president of the United States, who was elected by the people, something is wrong."

"Jefferson wrote that making judges the ultimate deciders of law would 'place us under the despotism of an oligarchy'. Jefferson’s fears are now coming to fruition," he added.

"Totally out of line"

Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, reacted to Roberts' statements on his podcast. "But for him to preemptively come out like this, it's totally out of line. And I'm not just saying this, we are getting text after text from legal expert, Supreme Court clerks, and many others," he said live on air.

"What we're experiencing is a constitutional crisis created actually by the courts, not by President Trump. What they want is a process where you have to have a month's-long approval to deport every single Trinidad and Tobago member. That is outrageous. It is wrong. And we are eventually going to win up at the U.S. Supreme Court," he added.

He was joined by Gen. Mike Flynn, who was a bit tougher on Roberts in his dismissal. "Then why does the impeachment process exist at all if the appeals process works so well? Chief Justice Roberts sir, you are so out of touch with the American people, you cannot see the forest through the trees," he posted on X. 

"Wake up, but I sincerely doubt if your clerks will care a wit about what the American people believe. Trust in our American judicial system is practically non-existent," Flynn continued.

Mike Davis, president of the Article III Project, a conservative initiative that seeks to bring more constitutionalist judges to the bench, defended both Trump and his idea of impeaching judges who block his agenda in a partisan manner.

"For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is a political decision by Congress. An activist judge ordering planes to turn around during a national-security operation is not a ‘judicial decision,'" he said in dialogue with Real America's Voice.

"That is a highly illegal and extremely dangerous sabotage of the presidency, which is an impeachable offense. Your statement is not an appropriate response. The normal impeachment process exists for that purpose," he concluded.