AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. Coming up, we look at the Trump administration undermining Social Security, and also we go to Aurora, Colorado, where a leading immigrants’ rights activist has been jailed. But first we talk about the Supreme Court. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

Supreme Court Justice John Roberts has issued a rare statement Tuesday criticizing calls by President Trump and his allies to impeach federal judges that rule against him. Chief Justice Roberts wrote, quote, “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,” unquote.

Chief Justice Roberts’ statement came after Trump repeatedly attacked U.S. District Judge — that’s federal judge — James Boasberg, who ordered the Trump administration to stop using the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport immigrants. It has only been used three times before in U.S. history, and those times during war. On Saturday, the administration ignored Boasberg’s order to turn around three deportation flights bound for a maximum-security privately run prison in El Salvador.

In one social media post, Trump called for the impeachment of Boasberg, who he described as, quote, “Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge” and “a troublemaker and an agitator.” Now, this is the federal judge who ordered the release of Hillary Clinton’s emails, just to give you a sense of who Boasberg is.

Numerous Trump officials have openly threatened to defy court orders. This is Trump’s so-called border czar Tom Homan speaking on Fox News.

TOM HOMAN: I’m proud to be a part of this administration. We’re not stopping. I don’t care what the judges think. I don’t care what the left thinks. We’re coming.

AMY GOODMAN: White House adviser Stephen Miller appeared on CNN Monday and said Judge Boasberg had no authority to make his ruling on the 1798 Alien Enemies Act.

STEPHEN MILLER: This judge violated the law. He violated the Constitution.

KASIE HUNT: So, again — so, do you think —

STEPHEN MILLER: He defied — 

KASIE HUNT: — that the White House is above federal —

STEPHEN MILLER: — the system of government that we have in this country.

AMY GOODMAN: During a hearing on Monday, Judge Boasberg accused the administration of adopting an approach of, quote, “We don’t care, we’ll do what we want,” unquote.

This all comes as the Trump administration continues to face more setbacks in court. On Monday, a federal judge blocked President Trump’s transgender military ban. Another federal judge ruled Elon Musk’s efforts to dismantle USAID likely violated the Constitution in multiple ways. Trump responded to the Musk ruling on Fox News.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We will be appealing it. We have rogue judges that are destroying our country.

AMY GOODMAN: As fears of a constitutional crisis grow, we’re joined by Elie Mystal, The Nation’s justice correspondent. His new piece is headlined “Trump Is Trying to Create His Own Personal Legal Strike Force.” Elie is also author of the upcoming book, Bad Law: Ten Popular Laws That Are Ruining America.

Elie, thanks for coming back to Democracy Now! What is happening right now with this presidential attack on judges?

ELIE MYSTAL: We live in a fascist dictatorship. That’s what’s happening right now. That’s what it feels like. This is where we are. There is not a coming constitutional crisis; we are in the constitutional crisis right now. Because what do we have — how can we call ourselves a democracy, how can we call ourselves a nation of laws, if one man, and one man alone, Donald Trump, is able to defy the other two branches of government? That’s what we have here. And that’s what Trump promised to do, and that’s what he is, in fact, doing.

Amy, you played the clip — you mentioned John Roberts’s statement, and you rightly pointed out that it is rare for John Roberts to say anything at all. But let’s look at what the man said, and let’s look at what the man didn’t say, right? It was one of the weakest statements that he could have possibly made. He’s running around with his — you know, clutching his pearls over, like, “Don’t impeach federal judges. That’s wrong.” He didn’t say nothing about actually following the orders given by those federal judges that Roberts doesn’t want impeached, right? He didn’t say anything about Trump’s blatant violation of multiple federal court orders. He didn’t say anything about that at all.

So, again, Roberts is not your friend. Roberts is not the one coming to help us. He’s as afraid as — I believe that Roberts is as afraid of Trump as the rest of the government is. And that’s, again — I don’t know any definition of fascist dictatorship other than the one we are all experiencing right now.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Elie, in terms of the qualitative difference between the current situation and past confrontations between the executive branch and the courts, of course, back in the 1800s, there was a famous battle between Andrew Jackson and the Supreme Court over the relative sovereignty of the Native American peoples, and FDR had his conflicts with the court. But this is, as you say, multiple federal judges all around the country coming up, ruling against the Trump administration. What’s your sense of the difference between this and all prior historical battles?

ELIE MYSTAL: Well, here, the Trump administration is directly saying — you just played that ghoul Stephen Miller directly saying that the federal judges don’t have authority over this administration. Right? So, that’s number one. That’s the biggest break from the past. They’re not even pretending to acknowledge the authority of the federal judiciary to restrain or control this administration, right? So, that’s number one.

Number two, when you look at those historical examples, you’re talking, for the most part, about military funding, right? You’re talking about, you know, Andrew Jackson saying the judges made this order, now let him enforce it, as he’s committing genocide against the Native Americans. You’re talking about Teddy Roosevelt sending the Navy halfway out into the Pacific and saying, like, “Congress, I’m sure you will fund them to bring them back, won’t you?” You’re talking about the executive branch executing its large control — you know, the commander-in-chief exercising his large control over the American military. This ain’t that. Right? This isn’t a military situation.

This is Congress-appointed money for USAID, put the money back on — turn the money back on, and Trump saying, “No, I ain’t. Absolutely not.” This is a judge saying, “Turn the planes around and bring those people back,” and Trump saying, “Nope, won’t do that, either.” This is straight-up — again, this is straight-up authoritarianism. This is straight-up one man’s and one man’s whim alone controls the country. As you played, you’ve got his border czar out there literally saying he’s not going to respect judicial opinions. You’ve got Stephen Miller saying that. You’ve got Trump saying that. And that’s what’s different from the past.

If anybody thinks that there’s a equivalency here, I will just — I’d like to just remind people that I am old enough to remember when the Supreme Court unconstitutionally, in my mind, outlawed abortions. I’m old enough to remember that. I’m old enough to remember President Joe Biden not — not — going into Texas and being like, “Abortions for everybody!” Right? I remember Joe Biden respecting the Supreme Court’s ridiculous order when it came to a woman’s right to choose. And so, I would just contrast Biden’s restraint when it came to judges versus what we’re seeing from the Trump administration.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I also wanted to ask you about Trump’s weaponizing of the Justice Department, even though he claims the Justice Department was weaponized against him. In his speech last week at the Great Hall at the Justice Department, he said, quote, “As the chief law enforcement officer in our country, I will insist upon and demand full and complete accountability for the wrongs and abuses that have occurred.” And he was there with the head of the FBI, Kash Patel, and Attorney General Pam Bondi in attendance.

ELIE MYSTAL: Yeah, I mean, this is — again, this is Trump doing what he promised to do. This is a dictator acting like a dictator, right? This is a man personally taking control of the law enforcement apparatus of the United States to go after his political enemies. That’s what he promised to do. That is, in fact, what he’s doing. I’m surprised people are surprised. What did you think the man was going to do? Follow the law? He even promised to do that. So, like, why are people surprised that he’s not doing it now, right?

He went to the DOJ — and, look, Juan, to be clear, I don’t have any pearls to clutch. I’m not one of these people who’s like, “Oh god! He talked to the attorney general! Why?” even though, again, if we’re going to look historically, there is supposed to be a wall of separation between the DOJ and the president of the United States. Again, to go back to Joe Biden, he wouldn’t even call Merrick Garland to follow up on whether or not he was doing anything about the people who attacked the Capitol on January 6th.

But putting that aside, Trump went to the DOJ to declare, to announce, to confirm that he intends to use the Department of Justice to go after his political enemies, especially the lawyers. Trump called out a number of lawyers during that speech — Jack Smith, Andrew Weissmann, Norm Eisen — specifically saying that he is going to use his lawyers at the DOJ — because they’re his now, not ours. They work for him, not the people of the United States of America. Trump made that entirely clear. He’s going to use his lawyers to go after the lawyers he believes stand up and oppose him. That was the upshot of his speech at the Department of Justice.

And what did Pam Bondi do? What did Kash Patel do? They sat there, and they clapped like seals. They clapped like the good little sycophants they are. And we can assume that they will carry out Trump’s unlawful, lawless orders to bring political prosecutions against the lawyers that Trump believes oppose him.

He said at one point during that speech, ”CNN and MSDNC write 97.6% bad about me.” Grammatically, that’s normal Trump. But politically and legally, he’s saying that you should be able to go after the media for writing bad things about him. Again, if this isn’t authoritarianism, if this isn’t dictatorship, if this isn’t fascism, than I don’t know what those words mean.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Elie Mystal, I wanted to ask you about the judge’s rulings that the administration directly defied. You have the case of the detainees being sent to El Salvador to a supermax prison, when the judge directly said, “Turn those planes around.” And there was one still on the tarmac. And you have the case of Dr. Rasha Alawieh, the Brown University professor, the kidney specialist. Another judge said she is not to be deported. They deported her anyway. If you can respond to these two cases, and then the case of Mahmoud Khalil, who is now calling himself a political prisoner? He’s in an ICE detention facility in Jena, Louisiana. He was one of those who protested the U.S. support for the Israeli war on Gaza. Can you talk about all of this?

ELIE MYSTAL: So, Amy, people have told me from the jump, from November 5th, when he was elected, that the courts would save us, that the courts would restrain him, that the courts would be the final guardrail preventing his military dictatorship. And I have said from the jump that the courts will not save us, that they cannot save us, because they cannot enforce their own decisions. The executive enforces the courts’ decisions. And if you have an executive like Trump who is willing to ignore court orders, then there’s nothing courts can do.

So, part of my question, Amy, is to turn it around back on the other people who were telling me for months that the courts would save us: What do y’all got now? What’s your plan now? Now that the courts have issued their order and Trump has ignored their orders, what’s plan B? Because plan A was the courts saving us, and that was never going to work.

My response to Trump violating a court order, violating multiple court orders, is the people have to lead, because the courts will not do it. The courts cannot do it. You want to free Khalil? We need to go to Jena and free Khalil. Like, that’s what it takes. It’s not going to happen because a judge writes something down on a piece of paper. Trump is just going to ignore it. And we saw that with the Venezuelans that he deported illegally after a court told him to turn the plane around. And we saw it with the doctor, who he deported, what he said, “too quickly” for the courts to rule at all.

And again, I’ll turn it back on John Roberts, who didn’t say boo about that. Right? And all the smoke from, like, “Oh, don’t impeach my judges,” didn’t say boo about Trump refusing to turn the planes around, under a direct court order to do so. This is the fascism we are living under. This is what it feels like, folks.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you so much, Elie, for being with us. Elie Mystal is The Nation’s justice correspondent. We will link to your latest article, “Trump Is Trying to Create His Own Personal Legal Strike Force.”