In a passionate and self-described “inflammatory” interview last week, Vice President JD Vance sharply criticized federal judges and the U.S. Supreme Court, accusing them of engaging in “an effort” to “literally overturn the will of the American people” with their decisions on matters like immigration and due process.

Vance specifically addressed Chief Justice John Roberts, pointing out recent remarks by the appointee of George W. Bush, which stated, according to the vice president, that “the role of the court is to check the excesses of the executive.” Vance cited these remarks as “profoundly wrong,” based on the transcript from Vance’s interview on The New York Times’ “Interesting Times” podcast hosted by columnist Ross Douthat.

“That’s one-half of his job,” Vance lambasted. “The other half of his job is to check the excesses of his own branch. 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. That’s where we are right now.”

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Vance told Douthat and The Times he believed the courts were “running into a real conflict between two important principles in the United States,” with the first principle being that “courts interpret the law” and the second that “the American people decide how they’re governed,” according to the vice president.

“I think that you are seeing, and I know this is inflammatory, but I think you are seeing an effort by the courts to quite literally overturn the will of the American people,” Vance asserted. “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. That’s where we are right now.”

Vance said the Trump administration would “keep working it through the immigration court process” and Supreme court “as much as possible,” in reference to Homeland Security’s legal fights to keep immigrants from returning and deportations going.

“Success to me is that we have established a set of rules and principles that the courts are comfortable with, and that we have the infrastructure that allows us to deport large numbers of illegal aliens when large numbers of illegal aliens come into the country,” Vance said. “That, to me, is real success. But I think whether we’re able to get there is a function, of course, of our efforts, but also the courts themselves.”

Discussing ways the Trump administration could properly “vindicate” its interpretation of the law, including trying to get the the Supreme Court to rule in its favor on things and legislative efforts to adjust existing law, Vance presented another path.

“There’s a third track, too, which is using existing legal authorities that haven’t been used in the past but we think are there,” Vance told Douthat.

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The interview comes as the Trump administration continues to deal with lawsuits and court decisions related to allegations of civil rights violations and legal mandates being ignored in immigration cases across the country.

A federal judge in Massachusetts, for instance, said last week that the Trump administration had “unquestionably” violated his order by deporting migrants to South Sudan — a country from which none of the migrants are from — without due process or a reasonable opportunity to raise concerns of their fear of the war-torn nation, an action he said could amount to criminal contempt of court.

Attorneys representing Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who was deported to El Salvador despite his protected status, have accused the Trump administration of defying a federal judge and the U.S. Supreme Court by refusing to provide any information regarding what has been done to “facilitate” his return to the United States after he was shipped off in March. Abrego Garcia’s case stems from the government’s use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 (AEA), a wartime authority previously invoked only three times, the last of which was during World War II.

Pressed on Trump’s application of the AEA today and interpretation of it, Vance claimed migrants aren’t viewed as “uniformed combatants.”

They’re “dangerous people,” according to the vice president, who are “intentionally” coming to the U.S. and bringing “premodern brutality” and violence with them, he said.

“When you say there aren’t five million people who are waging war, OK, but are there thousands, maybe tens of thousands of people?” Vance asked. “And then when you take their extended family, their networks, is it much larger than that?”

Vance said that regardless of “whatever law was written, I think it vests us with the power to take very serious action against this,” in regards to illegal immigration and the alleged problems.

“This is not sustainable,” he stated. “This is a level of invasion that I think we already have laws to help us deal with. I wish the courts were more deferential. We’re [in the] very early innings in the court process, and even some of the capital-W worst Supreme Court decisions that have been made, the media says: ‘Oh, this is a big blow to the administration.’ A lot of these things are very narrow procedural rulings. I think that we’re [in the] very early innings here on what the court is going to interpret the law to mean.”