President Donald Trump said it’s “ridiculous” that a federal judge ruled that the government must rehire fired government employees.
“I don’t think that’s going to be happening, but we’ll have to see,” he told The Daily Signal aboard Air Force One on Sunday.
A judge appointed by President Bill Clinton ruled Thursday that the Trump administration must reinstate some fired probationary government employees.
He ruled that six agencies must give jobs back to thousands of recently hired employees who President Donald Trump fired in an effort to eliminate “waste, fraud, and abuse” from the federal government by cutting the federal workforce.
“I think it’s absolutely ridiculous, absolutely, it’s a judge that’s putting himself in the position of the president of the United States, who was elected by close to 80 million votes,” Trump said.
“That’s a very dangerous thing for our country,” the president continued, ”and I would suspect that we’re going to have to get a decision from the Supreme Court, but that’s a very dangerous decision for our country.”
U.S. District Judge William Alsup said employees the departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior, and Treasury must get their jobs back.
“These are people, in many cases, they don’t show up for work,” Trump said. “Nobody even knows if they exist, and a judge wants us to pay them even if they don’t know they exist.”