Article III Project founder Mike Davis on courts: “If they want to keep fighting ... the president is just gonna ignore these lawless and dangerous orders”
Davis: “When they overstep, the commander-in-chief has a constitutional duty to ignore clearly lawless orders”
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From the April 15, 2025, edition of The Charlie Kirk Show, streamed on Rumble
ANDREW KOLVET (GUEST HOST): I just love this moment because it's like world leaders that are actually running successful countries understand where the court's jurisdiction begins and ends, and they're sitting here laughing at it. Your take on that moment and the importance of that interaction, Mike Davis, and I have a — we have another court case to get to. But your take on that moment.
MIKE DAVIS (GUEST): That's the point to these activist judges, these Democrat activist judges. Remember, President Trump campaigned on the facts that he's going to secure our border, and he's gonna get these illegal immigrants the hell out of our country, particularly MS-13 gangbangers and Tren de Aragua foreign terrorists. And he's doing exactly what he promised American voters he's going to do, and he's doing it very fast. These judges think that they're going to stop the president of the United States. They're gonna turn around planes full of terrorists. They're gonna order the president to negotiate with a foreign leader to bring back terrorists and MS-13 gangbangers — it's not gonna happen.
And this is the problem with these activist judges is they are lighting their legitimacy on fire with the American people. They look silly. These are like 90-10 issues. They are clearly over their skis. And if they want to keep fighting the president on this, what's gonna happen is the president is just gonna ignore these lawless and dangerous orders. And then are these activist judges gonna send their Green Beret law clerks to go get this MS-13 gangbanger out of the El Salvadorian prison? They don't have an army to enforce their order. They need to rely on the executive branch. And if they lose their legitimacy and their judiciary, the executive branch is not gonna do their bidding.
KOLVET: Well, Mike, I wanna pause there, but then for one one second. What you brought up here is pretty critical. And this is — if I'm playing devil's advocate, the constitutional crisis area. Right? The left loves to use that framing. But if there is no authority higher — you know, highest authority in the land — I mean, are we saying that — are we advocating now for Trump to defy federal courts, but not the Supreme Court? Where's the line?
I mean, is it — if they make a ruling on foreign policy or immigration topics or cases that we — that there is grounds to defy those? Where is the red line here? Because we are flirting with a potentially problematic precedent.
DAVIS: Look. The federal judiciary, these judges have a modest but crucial role as to decide cases or controversies of the parties before them with redressable claims. Nothing more, nothing less. It's really important. If we didn't have a judiciary, we would end up in tribalism. We need to have a forum to resolve our disputes.
But these judges wear robes, not capes. It's not their job to fly around the world and right every perceived wrong. They have limited authority. And when you're dealing with the president's national security, his commander-in-chief power, his, you know, running military operations or deporting foreign terrorists, the judges need to tread very carefully. Because when they overstep, the commander-in-chief has a constitutional duty to ignore clearly lawless orders —
KOLVET: Yeah.
DAVIS: That put national security in danger. And that's what happened. I've never called for this before, but I did this with Boasberg.