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President Donald Trump’s Justice Department has asked the US Supreme Court to restrict a tool federal judges use to cancel agency regulations for everyone, not just the people who sued. The appeal, now pending before the justices, targets the courts’ long-standing power to halt the actions of federal agencies that carry out the Republican president’s policy priorities. The Supreme Court is expected to consider whether to take up the case early next year.

The request follows a win the administration secured in June 2025, when the court limited nationwide injunctions. That ruling left a separate tool untouched, and the new appeal goes after it.

What the administration is asking for

The administration argues that courts should not be able to shut down an agency’s regulation entirely. Judges, it says, should limit any relief to the specific plaintiffs in a given case.

The Justice Department put its position directly in its filing. The Supreme Court “should return the lower courts to their proper role under the Administrative Procedure Act,” it said.

The administration made the same argument against universal injunctions. It contends that the law does not give courts such sweeping authority, and that the most a court can do is block a regulation’s enforcement against the plaintiffs who challenged it.

The tool at the center of the appeal

The lawsuits the administration is targeting are brought under the Administrative Procedure Act, known as the APA. Congress passed it in 1946, and it governs how federal agencies operate, including how they put regulations into effect.

Judges and appeals courts have long claimed the power under the APA to “hold unlawful and set aside” agency regulations they find illegal. A ruling of that kind invalidates the regulation on a universal basis. It does not stop at the courtroom door of the people who filed suit.

That is different from the nationwide injunctions the Supreme Court restricted in June 2025. Those orders can block the government from enforcing a policy against anyone, not only the challengers. Judges had used them more and more in a wide range of cases against Trump, including cases alleging violations of the US Constitution. The administration now wants the same limits applied to the similar orders judges can issue to invalidate policies under the APA.

A case about surprise medical bills

The vehicle for the appeal is a challenge by Texas medical providers to federal rules that implement a statute Trump signed into law during his first term. The statute aims to limit unexpected medical bills.

The regulation at issue sought to constrain “surprise” bills from hospitals and health providers outside a patient’s health insurance network. A Texas association of medical doctors, air-ambulance providers and other plaintiffs argued that the rule violated the APA and artificially lowered their insurance reimbursement rates.

The New Orleans-based 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals voided parts of the rule nationwide in August, finding an APA violation. The administration’s appeal does not contest that finding about the rule’s legality. It asks a narrower question: whether courts can use the APA to stop a policy nationwide at all.

Two readings of the same words

The dispute comes down to what the APA’s language allows. Judges point to the phrase “hold unlawful and set aside” when they invalidate a rule for everyone. The administration reads the statute as permitting relief only for the plaintiffs in front of the court. Judges and appeals courts have read it the other way for a long time.

The Supreme Court did not resolve that disagreement in 2023, when Biden’s administration invited it to. The justices backed Biden in that case on other grounds, so the question comes back to them now in a new case, under a different president.

What a win would change

Aditya Bamzai, a University of Virginia expert in administrative law, said a victory for Trump could let the government keep enforcing rules against everyone except the plaintiffs in a given case. That could continue for years while litigation plays out, even after judges have deemed the rules unlawful.

Siding with Trump “would give more flexibility to the executive branch,” Bamzai said.

“Whether you like or dislike that flexibility can perhaps depend on whether you like or dislike a particular administration’s policies,” Bamzai added.

Ronald Levin, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis, described the practical effect from the other side. If the Supreme Court agrees with the administration, he said, “it would take longer for challengers to get unlawful regulations removed from the books.”

The case for keeping the tool

Numerous state governments that regularly sue the federal government say this judicial power is an essential check against executive overreach. Others say the APA matters because it keeps regulations uniform and applies them equally to everyone.

Levin gave examples. “When an agency adopts a rule that has been held to be unlawful, sometimes the only sensible solution is to wipe it off the books,” he said.

“You can’t have a food-safety rule that applies only to some. You can’t have an auto-safety manufacturing rule that applies only to some manufacturers,” Levin said. He added that judges should not use the tool in every case, but, in his words, “there are some cases where the need for it is compelling.”

Texas, Florida and some other states, mostly led by Republicans, had urged the 5th Circuit not to “neuter” the APA’s effectiveness. They called the law important for maintaining the balance of power between states and the federal government. “The APA is a critical tool … to curb federal overreach and incursions into state sovereignty by executive-branch agencies,” these states said.

Trump’s administration may face pushback from a broad array of opponents on this effort, and the Republican-led states in that group show that the objection does not come from one side only.

Cases that depend on the tool

Since Trump returned to office in January 2025, his administration has faced hundreds of lawsuits over its actions on immigration, mass deportation, diversity initiatives and transgender rights, among others. Many of those actions pushed the boundaries of presidential authority.

Plaintiffs invoked the APA in numerous cases. They used it to fight the termination of humanitarian legal status for hundreds of thousands of migrants living in the United States. They used it against major cuts to research grants related to racial minorities or LGBT people. They used it against the use of a mass voter verification system to conduct sweeping citizenship checks.

Trump and his allies have attacked judges who stood in the way of those policies, calling some of them radical or corrupt. At the same time, the president has tested the limits of his powers.

What the 2025 ruling did and did not decide

The June 2025 ruling came in litigation over Trump’s bid to limit birthright citizenship, a right long recognized in the United States. The ruling addressed judicial power, not whether the birthright citizenship directive was legal.

The legality question came separately. In June, the justices issued a 6-3 ruling rejecting Trump’s birthright citizenship policy as unconstitutional.

The administration is not the first to ask for limits on judges’ power. President Joe Biden’s administration also asked the Supreme Court to rein in universal injunctions when lower courts hindered many of his main initiatives. The 2025 ruling still proved to be a major victory for Trump.

Biden’s administration also tried in 2023 to persuade the Supreme Court to limit the APA power that the new appeal targets. That case involved a challenge by Republican attorneys general from Texas and Louisiana to an immigration policy. The justices did not take up the invitation and backed Biden on other grounds.

What happens next

The justices will decide, probably early next year, whether to hear the case. If they do, the question before them will be narrow in form and broad in effect. They will not rule on the surprise-billing rule itself, since the administration has left the 5th Circuit’s finding about it alone. They will rule on whether a federal judge can cancel an agency rule for everyone.

For the administration, a yes would add to the 2025 ruling and leave judges with fewer ways to stop a policy before a case ends. For challengers, it would mean a rule found unlawful could stay in force against everyone except the plaintiffs, as Bamzai and Levin described. Both men tied the outcome to time: how long an unlawful rule can remain on the books while the case continues.

Bamzai’s remark about liking or disliking an administration’s policies also points to a feature of the case that does not depend on party. Whatever the justices decide would apply to whichever administration holds office next. Biden’s team asked for similar limits on judges, which is why the question has now come up under two presidents of opposite parties.

President Donald Trump will hold a rally in Port Huron, eastern Michigan, on Sunday, one day after former President Barack Obama campaigned for Democrats in the state. The back-to-back visits come a little more than a week before the November 3 midterm elections, and they land in one of the most competitive US Senate races in the country.

The contest is an open-seat race between Republican Mike Rogers, a former US representative, and Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed. The result will help decide which party controls the Senate. Trump has attacked El-Sayed repeatedly from the Oval Office and at rallies in other states, yet he had not campaigned in Michigan at all this year before Sunday.

A First Michigan Visit of 2026

Port Huron sits in an area of Michigan that Trump won in the 2024 presidential election with more than 66% of the vote. That makes it friendly ground for a president who has stayed away from the state until now. His audience on Sunday will be made up largely of voters who already support him, so the rally is more likely to raise turnout among Republicans than to change minds.

The rally will also bring attention to the US-Canada tariff standoff. The trade fight has affected the Detroit-based US auto industry, and Rogers has distanced himself from the president’s policy. Reuters has reported on how automakers were affected by the tariff dispute with Canada.

That puts Rogers in a delicate position on Sunday. He needs Trump’s supporters to vote for him, and he has publicly split from the president on a policy that has hit the state’s auto industry. Whether he appears alongside Trump in Port Huron, and what he says about tariffs if he does, will show how far that split goes.

The Attacks on El-Sayed

El-Sayed, if he wins, would become the first Muslim elected to the US Senate. Trump has tried to paint him as a Muslim extremist. He has also mocked El-Sayed’s middle name, Mohamed, which is a common Muslim name.

El-Sayed has dismissed the accusation. In a recent advertisement he defended his religion directly, saying, “faith is a thing there’s just too little of in Washington.”

Rogers has taken a related line. He has alleged, without evidence, that El-Sayed has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the Arab world’s oldest and most influential Islamist groups. At a debate last week he put the question to El-Sayed in these words:

“If you are going to go to the United States Senate, we need to know: Are you for America or are you for these terrorist groups overseas?” Rogers said.

El-Sayed has denied any affiliation with the group. He says it is “shameful” for Rogers to question his allegiance to the United States.

Obama Answers in Detroit

On Saturday, Obama took the issue head on at a rally in Detroit. He described the attacks on El-Sayed as an attempt by his opponents to make him look “less patriotic and less American than they are.”

Obama drew on his own experience. He was the target of false claims that he was born in Kenya, a story Reuters has fact-checked.

“We have seen this movie before,” Obama said. “I starred in it … This stuff didn’t work on me. Not in Michigan. It’s not going to work on Abdul.”

The comparison was deliberate. Obama was telling the crowd that he had faced questions about his loyalty and his place in the country, and that voters rejected those questions. He was asking Michigan voters to reach the same conclusion about El-Sayed.

The Kenya reference gave the speech a personal edge. Obama argued that the pattern was familiar, and that Michigan voters had already shown they could see through it when it was aimed at him. El-Sayed has taken a similar position on his own, denying the Muslim Brotherhood affiliation and calling Rogers’ questions about his loyalty shameful.

Trump Responds Within Hours

Trump did not let the Detroit event pass. In an early Sunday morning post on Truth Social, he dismissed Obama’s work on behalf of the Democratic candidate.

“Now he’s campaigning for a Muslim Brotherhood Jihadist, who hates Jews and Blacks and AMERICANS and TRUMP, and he is going to lose, also,” Trump wrote.

The post repeats the claim about the Muslim Brotherhood that Rogers made at the debate, and that El-Sayed has denied. Reuters has reported that Rogers made the allegation without evidence. Trump’s post offered none.

What the Two Visits Show

Taken together, the Saturday and Sunday events give the clearest picture so far of how each party sees Michigan. Democrats sent their most popular former president to Detroit on the weekend before the final full week of campaigning. Republicans answered by sending the sitting president to a part of the state he won by a wide margin in 2024.

Each choice reflects a need. Democrats want to fire up their supporters in a tight race. Republicans want to make sure their own base turns out, and they want El-Sayed’s religion and background to stay in the conversation until Election Day. Rogers has to manage both a president whose tariff policy has hurt Michigan automakers and a campaign message about El-Sayed that Trump is pushing harder than he is.

The attacks on El-Sayed carry a risk for Republicans that is separate from the tariff issue. Rogers made an allegation about terrorist groups without presenting evidence, and El-Sayed answered by calling it “shameful.” Trump’s post goes further than Rogers’ language, which puts pressure on the Republican nominee to say whether he agrees with it.

For Democrats, the risk comes from the same dispute. A race that becomes a debate about El-Sayed’s faith and name leaves less room for other subjects, including the tariff fight that Rogers has already stepped away from. Obama tried to turn the discussion in a different direction by calling the attacks a repeat of what he faced, and the El-Sayed campaign may find that framing useful for the next ten days.

The Tariff Fight Complicates the Republican Pitch

The Port Huron rally will also feature the tariff standoff with Canada. That is a subject on which Trump’s own party’s Senate nominee has distanced himself from him. In Michigan, Rogers has moved a short distance away from the president on one issue that touches a major employer in the state.

This gives El-Sayed an opening that does not depend on religion or identity. He can say that Rogers backs a president whose trade policy has hurt Detroit’s automakers, and Rogers has to answer by pointing to the distance he has already put between himself and Trump on tariffs. Voters who care mainly about the auto industry will hear a different argument from voters who respond to the Muslim Brotherhood claims.

The Senate Math

The Michigan race matters beyond the state because the Senate is closely divided. Democrats need a net gain of four seats in both the US Senate and the US House of Representatives to overturn the Republicans’ narrow majorities, which stand at 53-47 in the Senate and 218-214 in the House.

A four-seat gain in the Senate would give Democrats a 51-49 majority. That leaves almost no room for error. Democrats cannot afford to lose an open seat that they hope to win, and Republicans cannot afford to lose one they hope to hold. An open seat has no incumbent, so neither party can lean on an established record, and the nominees are judged on their campaigns, their party labels and the national mood.

Michigan fits that description. Rogers and El-Sayed are both new to the Senate, the race has no incumbent to defend, and voters have received a steady stream of national figures telling them how to see it. In the last 48 hours alone they have heard from a former Democratic president and a sitting Republican one.

Rogers is the one candidate in the race whose name Trump did not use in his Sunday post. The president named Obama and El-Sayed, and the Republican nominee’s own message on tariffs sits apart from the one Trump is bringing to Port Huron.

What Comes Next

Trump’s rally in Port Huron is the first test of how he talks about Michigan when he is physically in the state. Voters and reporters will be watching for three things: whether he repeats his language about El-Sayed, how he defends the tariff standoff with Canada in a state with a large auto industry, and whether Rogers shares the stage.

After Sunday, both campaigns have little more than a week to turn the weekend’s attention into votes. El-Sayed has one claim to rebut and one historic first to argue for. Rogers has one president to stand behind on most issues and one policy to separate himself from. Michigan voters will settle both questions on November 3.