As expected, some of President Donald Trump's executive orders and administrative actions have led to a wave of lawsuits winding their way through courts, with lawyers no doubt lining up on Capitol Hill and beyond en masse to offer services to outraged Democrats, media figures, disgruntled former federal workers, and billionaire-funded special interest groups.

Most recently we saw it with the Associated Press, which formally filed a lawsuit Friday over their standoff with the Trump administration over the "Gulf of America" issue, where the media outlet has refused to use the term in their reporting and where the administration in turn has barred them from accessing the Oval Office and Air Force One.

“We are taking this action on behalf of all independent global media organizations and people who have the freedom of speech,” the AP proclaimed in their statement.

SEE ALSO -->> 'Isn't Just About Gulf of America': Trump WH Elaborates on Dispute With the AP and It Makes Perfect Sense

But while we're hearing a lot in the media about alleged "legal setbacks" and "court losses" for Trump, the reality is far more nuanced - and in Trump's favor - MSNBC legal analyst Danny Cevallos told his stunned co-panelists during a recent segment on the network's Ayman program:

“Over the weekend, I read all these headlines and the headlines were like, 'Trump suffers legal blows.' Another one was, 'Trump hit with unexpected loss.' Here was one: 'Major DEI legal setback.' 

And I think the concern I have is that people watching those headlines, especially people who don't like Trump, are gonna think 'Trump is getting his butt kicked.' And then, when - invariably he's gonna win some of these cases, they're gonna say 'What happened to all the butt-kicking,' right? And here's why.

These are not major setbacks. First reason: We are at the 'stay' stage. In other words, in almost all of these cases, the court is issuing a stay. That is a pause, by definition, it is not on the merits. Nobody’s winning or losing on the merits. They’re hitting the pause button until they can decide the case on the merits. 

And by the way, just like [podcaster/co-panelist] Danielle [Moody] said, all of this is exhibition games, or 'friendlies' as they say in soccer. They don't count until they get to the last court they get to, which in most cases because they're unique Constitutional issues, is going to be the Supreme Court. So these are not  'blows' to the Trump administration. I don't see them that way.

Cevallos, an attorney with the Cevallos and Wong law firm, went on to explain more about why Trump and the DOJ will keep appealing any unfavorable rulings: 

The other thing, and again Danielle brought this up, the Trump administration totally expects they are going to lose in court a lot. Do you know what it costs to do an executive order? A piece of paper and a Sharpie. That’s it. And they can go right back to the drawing board. One of these courts said, hey, the language was too vague. You know what that tells them? Just go draft another one. It's not like legislation where you need a bunch of people to agree on something.

[...]

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. Executive Orders are the easiest thing to issue.

I do not see this as Trump losing over and over and over again. I think the more important bigger story is that 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.

Watch:

MSNBC's legal analyst leaves far left panel on the verge of tears after informing them Trump is not really losing legal battles.

"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

— Thomas Hern (@ThomasMHern) February 24, 2025

In other words, reports from the left-wing media of supposedly devastating "losses" for the Trump administration in the courts have been greatly exaggerated. These things of course will take a while but will be sorted out in due time.

As always, stay tuned.