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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.
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.
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.
There have been multiple acting IRS commissioners in less than 100 days of Trump’s second administration. Some quit in protest when the administration decided to give tax data to immigration officials. The most recent acting commissioner to leave, Gary Shapley, was a whistleblower at the IRS and alleged the Justice Department slow-walked an investigation of President Joe Biden’s son Hunter. Shapley was out within a few days, apparently after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent complained about being cut out of the process.
It was not a mistake when Trump announced retaliatory tariffs, which have since been paused for all countries but China. But the large board Trump used to argue his case included wild figures that confused economists.
Markets responded favorably Tuesday after the Wall Street Journal reported Bessent told investors he believes the trade war with China will “de-escalate.”
The White House also sought to reassure Wall Street and Americans when press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at a White House press briefing Tuesday that the administration has made progress in reaching the outlines of new trade agreements with 18 countries. It’s not clear when any new deals might be finalized.
Sen. John Kennedy, the Louisiana Republican, gave the administration some backhanded support on “Meet the Press” Sunday when he said the mistaken deportation of Abrego Garcia was a “screwup” but did not represent a pattern of mistaken deportations.
There is clearly an emerging pattern of unforced errors that are complicating Trump’s already controversial and divisive policies.
The Abrego Garcia case humanized the mass deportation effort, even if he currently seems unlikely ever to return to the US.
Hegseth’s Signal problem and the merry-go-round of acting IRS commissioners highlight that Trump brought in outsiders to disrupt the federal bureaucracy.
Harvard’s lawsuit is being cheered by those who fear the impacts of Trump’s effort to cut research funding and strong-arm universities to cut down on campus protests and chill dissent.
Mistakes are built into the DNA of the ad hoc Department of Government Efficiency led by Elon Musk.
“Nobody’s going to bat a thousand,” Musk said in the Oval Office in February.
“We will make mistakes, but we will act quickly to correct any mistakes.”
Musk admitted to at least one. “One of the things we accidentally canceled, very briefly, was Ebola prevention. I think we all want Ebola prevention,” he said at a Cabinet meeting, although independent reports have questioned whether the aid is in fact flowing again.
Musk did not acknowledge other DOGE mistakes, like the firing and then rehiring of government workers focused on nuclear safety in Texas and power grid security in the Pacific Northwest.
Other workers appeared to be fired indiscriminately, but were told it was because of their performance. After a decision by a judge in California, they may now be re-fired. Trump’s efforts to shrink the government are not over; there is an expectation that multiple agencies will continue with “reduction in force” efforts to further cull the number of federal workers.
It’s ultimately what the administration does on purpose that might worry Trump’s critics more than a perception of sloppiness.
Here are a few CNN reports from recent days:
The administration appears to have minimized federal climate scientists’ findings of record carbon dioxide growth in the atmosphere, for instance.
Trump’s budget proposal targets Head Start and home heating oil programs that could hurt American children and seniors who need assistance.
At a time when disaster relief money is stalled, the Trump administration sped money to GOP-led states, according to another CNN report.
