Not a technicality, there are procedures they have to follow for layoffs and they ignored them. They could do what they wanted, but not this way. This isn't "you didn't dot the I on this page, therefore start over", it's "you completely ignored the law and what any of literally thousands of people in government could have told you was the correct way to do this if you'd asked or cared, start over".
> But to me and half the country, it seems absurd that the president can’t perform the exec job that he was elected to do
He can, but he's not a dictator. He's a servant of the law. In theory, anyway. If the law says "the President must do X and Y to perform layoffs" then the President must do X and Y to perform layoffs or else he isn't doing his job, he's desecrating the office.
> just because a random judge in California appointed by the opposition party wants to undermine the party that was democratically elected to do exactly what they are doing
Fortunately, that's not what's happening here. He even gave the government enormous deference last week when it really, really looked like they were planning not to produce a key witness for cross examination, giving them until this week to sort their shit out, and instead they went "oh we withdraw that person's statement" (which that person had since contradicted, mind you) "and also we won't be producing them". That was kinda key to their case, and now this all looks shady as hell, that is not normal behavior. There are also accusations that at least one administrator was placed on leave for following an earlier order of this court, so there are multiple threads of illegality to track now, because the administration keeps generating them.
The consequence of that breathtaking amount of fucking around is that they're now finding out via the judge granting more-extensive relief for the plaintiffs.
The president’s role is to follow the law and make it happen. President is under the law, and the law covers in great detail how the government suppose to function.
And, fyi, budget is the law too and it originates in congress, not in memecoin named agency. Just like tariffs, which are absolutely abused by Trump at the moment.
It’s all in the constitution.
And if half of the country decides they are above the law we’re going to face extraordinary (and quite bad) times