Pete Hegseth is torpedoing Trump's chances in big court fight: analyst
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and his wife Jennifer Rauchet attend the annual White House Easter Egg Roll event, on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 21, 2025. REUTERS/Leah Millis TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

President Donald Trump could face humiliation in a major upcoming court hearing thanks to the position of his administration being constantly undercut by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Politico's Kyle Cheney argued on Monday morning.

"Every time the Justice Department tries to claim the military isn’t actually banning transgender people, Pete Hegseth tweets that it is," wrote Cheney on X. "This is likely to come up at oral arguments at the DC Circuit Court of appeals — conveniently scheduled for tomorrow."

As an example, Cheney offered up a post Hegseth directed at the official account of the Democratic Party, which posted last night that Hegseth "needs to go" following the long string of scandals.

"Your agenda is illegals, trans & DEI — all of which are no longer allowed @ DoD," Hegseth replied.

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Already, a number of courts have ruled against the Trump administration's plan to exclude transgender people from military service, a policy that he also put in place in his previous term. D.C. District Judge Ana Reyes decried the Trump order as “soaked in animus” and wrote, “Its language is unabashedly demeaning, its policy stigmatizes transgender persons as inherently unfit, and its conclusions bear no relation to fact.”

This comes at a moment where Hegseth is already in turmoil over new developments in the "Signalgate" scandal, as it was revealed that just weeks after he came under fire for leaking active military plans to a journalist in a Signal group chat, he shared more information with his wife and brother in a separate chat.

A few days before that, John Ullyot, a longtime Trump adminstration insider, resigned his own position at the Pentagon and warned that Hegseth's lack of leadership could throw the entire U.S. military into disarray.