Mike Johnson floats eliminating US courts as Trump faces judicial pressure

Republican House speaker Mike Johnson suggested potentially defunding, restructuring or eliminating US federal courts as a means of pushing back against judicial decisions that have challenged Donald Trump’s policies.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Johnson, a former constitutional attorney, raised the prospect of congressional intervention in the court system.

“We do have the authority over the federal courts, as you know. We can eliminate an entire district court,” Johnson said.

While Johnson later clarified that his remarks were meant to illustrate Congress’s broad constitutional powers rather than a direct threat, it traces the mounting pressure from Trump’s allies to challenge judicial independence.

Republican lawmakers have grown more visibly frustrated with federal judges blocking Trump administration actions, particularly regarding immigration policies.

One particular point of their ire is US district judge James Boasberg, who recently issued a nationwide injunction preventing the deportation of Venezuelan immigrants. Trump has since called to impeach Boasberg over his decision, and several House Republicans have taken up the call to introduce articles of impeachment against him and other judges who have issued similar nationwide injunctions.

Article III of the US constitution gives Congress the power to establish lower federal courts, and there’s historical precedent: Congress has eliminated courts before, such as the commerce court in 1913. And the House judiciary chair, Jim Jordan, has suggested that some legislative moves are being explored that could hone in on potential funding restrictions.

But that is all but likely to fail, considering expected resistance from some Republicans and the near-impossibility of gaining enough support in the Senate, where seven Democrats would have to swing their votes. Missouri Republican senator Josh Hawley said taking that direction on judicial reform would only worsen potential court backlogs, saying: “My view is, I’d like to get more Republican judges on the bench.”

One alternative approach Republicans are watching is a bill in the House being voted on next week by the California Republican representative Darrell Issa, which aims to limit district court judges’s ability to issue nationwide injunctions.

Johnson described this as a “dramatic improvement” to the federal court system, arguing that such injunctions violate the separation of powers.

“We have power of funding over the courts and all these other things,” Johnson said to reporters. “But desperate times call for desperate measures, and Congress is going to act.”