White House correspondent Peter Doocy asked Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt why President Donald Trump did not ask Republicans in control of Congress to "make a new law" after a panel of judges struck down his ability to impose emergency tariffs.
"So many of the President's plans right now are being blocked by courts," Doocy noted during Thursday's White House briefing. "Does the President wish he would have just become a judge instead?"
"I think the President would take this job over being a judge," Leavitt replied. "And certainly the president is acting within his authority. He wishes judges would do the same."
Doocy pressed: "But so the courts are basically telling you guys they think that the White House's policies, the president's policies, are in some way against the law. So why can't President Trump ask the Republicans that control the House and the Republicans that control the Senate just to make a new law?"
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"Well, these laws have already been granted to the president by the Constitution and by laws that have been previously passed," Leavitt insisted. "So if these judges want to be the Secretary of State or they want to be the president, they can run for office themselves."
"But all of the actions the president has taken rely on legal authorities that have already been granted to him by our nation's existing laws," she added.
