Trump Is Serious About Impeaching A Federal Judge. But That Doesn’t Mean It Will Happen, Deputy Chief Of Staff Says.

President Donald Trump is serious about impeaching the judge who sought to block the use of an 18th century law to whisk alleged Venezuelan gang members off to prison in El Salvador — but that doesn’t mean it will happen, says his deputy chief of staff.

Speaking to POLITICO’s Playbook Deep Dive Podcast, James Blair defended the president’s call to remove “an obviously partisan judge” from the bench while conceding that Congress ultimately may not impeach Judge James Boasberg.

“What we're encouraging is a public debate and I think it's a reasonable public debate,” Blair said in the interview Wednesday.

He told POLITICO that the president was attempting to shine “a big old spotlight” on what the administration views as a judicial encroachment on executive power with a social media post calling the judge a “Radical Left Lunatic” who should be removed.

Impeaching a federal judge requires majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Even if Republicans in the House had enough votes to impeach, the GOP lacks the required two-thirds majority in the Senate.

Blair left it up to Speaker Mike Johnson “to figure out what can be passed or not” in the House.

“That's the speaker's job. And I won't speak for what the speaker's opinion of that is,” he said. “I think the thing that is important right now is the president is highlighting a critical issue.”

The deputy chief of staff suggested that Congress may decide to drop the matter.

“I doubt that a bunch of floor time will be spent on something if they strongly feel like they can't get the votes, but there are plenty of ways to encourage this public debate,” he said. “Again, it's up to them to run their chambers, so we'll see.”

Trump’s call to remove Boasberg came after the judge issued an order temporarily blocking the administration’s unprecedented use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport about 250 people from Venezuela, alleged to be members of the Tren de Aragua gang, to a high-security prison in El Salvador over the weekend.

The administration went ahead with the deportation flights after Boasberg ordered them to halt the flights. Boasberg has since demanded an explanation and more information about the decision to deport the people to El Salvador.

Trump’s call for impeachment earned a rare rebuke from Chief Justice John Roberts, who slammed the president’s threats as a challenge to 200 years of judicial precedent.

“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said.

A number of Republican lawmakers have also spoken out against the notion of impeaching judges for their rulings. Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy called it "idiotic,” and Texas Sen. John Cornyn said, "You don't impeach judges who make decisions you disagree with."