Todd Blanche, second-in-command at the Justice Department, described a “war” against the federal judiciary and called on young conservative lawyers in the audience to join the fight against so-called “activist judges.”

“It’s a war, man,” Blanche, the deputy attorney general, told judges and lawyers Friday at a Federalist Society event in Washington, before describing instances where the government has ping-ponged between lower and appellate courts. “It’s happening over and over and over again.”

And he put out a call to young lawyers, who are “hungry and thirsty,” to join the Justice Department and the fight.

“We need you, because it is a war, and it’s something we will not win unless we keep on fighting,” Blanche said. “It’s hard to get the media, it’s hard to get the American people to focus on what a travesty it is when you have an individual judge be able to stop an entire operation or an entire administrative policy that’s constitutional and allowed just because he or she chooses to do so. So, it’s a war.”

Blanche made his comments during an event with moderator Gene Hamilton, co-founder of the conservative legal advocacy group America First Legal and a former Trump White House aide.

Blanche’s remarks come amid tensions between the Trump administration and federal courts. Administration officials have been accused of not fully complying with federal court orders against it.