Vice President JD Vance and Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.
CNN  — 

Vice President JD Vance called Chief Justice John Roberts’ comments earlier this month that the judiciary’s role is to check the executive branch a “profoundly wrong sentiment” and said the courts should be “deferential” to the president, particularly when it comes to immigration.

“I thought that was a profoundly wrong sentiment. That’s one half of his job, the other half of his job is to check the excesses of his own branch. And you cannot have a country where the American people keep on electing immigration enforcement and the courts tell the American people they’re not allowed to have what they voted for,” Vance told New York Times opinion columnist Ross Douthat on the “Interesting Times” podcast, which was taped on Monday.

Vance was responding to Roberts’ remarks at an event in Buffalo, New York, where the chief justice stressed the importance of judicial independence. “The judiciary is a coequal branch of government, separate from the others with the authority to interpret the Constitution as law, and strike down, obviously, acts of Congress or acts of the president,” Roberts said at the event.