MSNBC’s legal analyst Danny Cevallos nearly brought a panel to tears when he pushed back against the headlines suggesting that President Trump is suffering devastating courtroom defeats over his executive orders.
“Over the weekend, I read all these headlines and the headlines were like, Trump suffers legal blows,” Cevallos said. “Another one was, Trump hit with unexpected loss.”
But he warned that the media’s portrayal of these rulings risks misleading Trump’s critics into believing that he’s “getting his butt kicked,” only to be stunned when he inevitably wins some of these cases.
“These are not major setbacks,” he explained, emphasizing that many of these rulings are at the “stay stage,” meaning the courts are simply hitting pause rather than deciding the case on its merits. “Nobody’s winning or losing on the merits,” Cevallos pointed out. “They’re hitting the pause button until they can decide the case on the merits.”
Comparing the legal process to exhibition games in soccer, he underscored that these early rulings “don’t count” until they reach the Supreme Court. That’s why, in his view, these are not genuine blows to Trump.
Cevallos also highlighted the strategic advantage Trump has when it comes to executive orders and noted how easily his administration can reissue them. “Do you know what it costs to do an executive order? A piece of paper and a Sharpie. That’s it,” he said. If a court strikes down an order for vague language, “You know what that tells them? Just go draft another one.” Unlike legislation, executive orders don’t require buy-in from Congress, making them simple to revise and reissue.
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Even in cases where Trump appears to be losing, Cevallos sees a different picture. He cited the recent ruling from the Ninth Circuit on the birthright citizenship issue where the court refused to grant an emergency stay.
“But they were never going to win that,” he said, arguing that the real takeaway is that Trump’s legal team isn’t willing to wait. “They’re going to fight at every single turn. And that means appealing absolutely everything with the knowledge that they’re going to lose some of them because it costs them nothing.”
Summing up his perspective, Cevallos dismissed the narrative that Trump is facing a legal onslaught he can’t recover from.
“I do not see this as Trump losing over and over and over again,” he said. Instead, he believes the real story is Trump’s relentless approach to litigation. “They’re not going to stop and they’re going to keep fighting it every time, and they are going to win some of these.”
But what makes Cevallos’s analysis so amusing is the way his co-panelists sit in watch in silence. If you look at their faces, there’s almost a sense of mourning, and it almost looks like one of them is going to burst into tears.
MSNBC's legal analyst leaves far left panel on the verge of tears after informing them Trump is not really losing legal battles.
— Thomas Hern (@ThomasMHern) February 24, 2025
"These are not major setbacks."
"They’re going to fight at every single turn. And that means appealing everything because it costs them nothing. pic.twitter.com/6OyXeRsnHf
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