President Donald Trump’s effort to downsize the government has encountered several legal setbacks, including a judge extending a temporary block on Trump’s offer to buy out federal workers. Roy explained that the judge’s argument is that the president cannot offer buyout programs since Congress has authorized him to do so, which puzzled Roy since Trump is the chief executive of the government, which is similar to being the executive of a business.

“And understand this: I was told yesterday by some friends of mine in the administration that they are finding rats, they are finding old files, they are finding phones that still have the pre-programmed numbers from when Trump was in there four years ago, because nobody’s been there!” Roy said on Fox News’s The Faulkner Focus. You have all these people working at home not doing a job, and this president is coming in and saying no more.”

Roy also said that he does not believe that judges have the authority to “stick their nose” into the president’s Constitutional authority. The congressman suggested that the judges “interfering” with Trump’s agenda need to “back off” and allow the president to continue his duties.

As of Friday, at least 65,000 federal employees had taken the Trump administration’s buyout offer, below the 100,000 to 200,000 employees it had expected. Besides extending the block on Trump’s buyout offer, the administration has also dealt with a judicial decision to restore all previously frozen federal spending.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) said on Monday night that Democrats are “litigating and picking off a few liberal one-off judges” to slow Trump’s progress since they lost the 2024 elections. Lee also predicted that Trump and the Republican Party would win its myriad of legal battles to advance Trump’s vision for the nation.

Lee also suggested that the delays in these legal battles will last “maybe a few days” and at most two weeks.