What Matters In Trump 2.0, the mistakes are multiplying
Analysis by Zachary B. Wolf, CNN, 4 minute read Updated 6:19 PM EDT, Tue April 22, 2025
President Donald Trump attends the annual Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, on Monday. Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images
CNN — High-profile mistakes – and the ensuing headaches – are piling up for President Donald Trump’s administration.
It was an “administrative error” that led to the mistaken deportation of a Maryland man and kicked off the most visible legal challenge to Trump’s deportation policy, at least so far. The Supreme Court ruled the White House must “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, but the White House has made no real effort to bring him back to the US. Second Signal snafu
It was the mistaken addition of a reporter to a Signal chat by Trump’s national security adviser that first uncovered the sharing of sensitive information by his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
The Signal chat mistake seemed to have blown over, but then drama returned to the Pentagon with a purge of Hegseth loyalists still new in their jobs. Now there are reports that Hegseth had shared sensitive information in a second Signal chat. The Harvard letter
It was the sending of a letter, perhaps by mistake, that kicked off a legal fight with Harvard.
That most recent incident, reported by The New York Times, is not something the White House has acknowledged as an error, but administration officials have said the letter did not achieve its original goal, which apparently was not for Harvard to file a lawsuit against Trump’s administration.
“It was a letter that was intended to have both parties sit down again and continue their negotiations,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said on CNBC Tuesday.
The letter, which was signed by three different government officials, was legitimate, but maybe sent too soon.
