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U.S. appeals courts have overturned or stayed lower court rulings blocking President Donald Trump’s policy priorities at a rate far higher than during the Biden administration, a disparity Trump allies point to as evidence of the president’s strong track record in higher courts.
The contrast was highlighted by Chad Mizelle, a former senior Justice Department official, who noted that district court rulings against the Trump administration are being reversed or paused on appeal far more frequently than similar rulings issued during President Joe Biden’s time in office — even when the relief is temporary.
“Over 4 years of the Biden administration, 9 district court rulings against the administration were later overturned on appeal,” Mizelle said in a post on X. “About 2.25 per year.”
Mizelle compared that average to Trump’s first year back in office in 2025, when he said that “32 district judges issued 133 rulings against the Trump administration that were stayed or overturned on appeal,” adding: “Simplified, district judges are now issuing rulings that ultimately fail on appeal at more than 50x the rate compared to the previous presidency.”
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His post comes as senior Trump officials have blasted district court judges who have blocked or paused the president’s most sweeping policy initiatives in his first year back in office, arguing that what they call “activist judges” have overstepped their bounds and are intruding on the president’s executive authority.
As court watchers have previously pointed out to Fox News Digital and other outlets, the post presents a somewhat incomplete picture of the legal landscape during Trump’s second term. While Trump’s appeals court wins indeed far outpace his predecessors, they were also issued in response to an unprecedented surge of executive orders and actions.
Trump spent much of his first year in office signing hundreds of executive orders aimed at enacting his biggest policy priorities, including slashing government spending, cracking down on illegal immigration and eliminating many diversity and equity initiatives enacted under the Biden administration. Those actions also triggered a torrent of lawsuits seeking to block or pause his policies from taking effect, teeing up a high-stakes showdown over how far Trump can push his Article II powers before the courts can or should intervene.
Many of the early lawsuits filed sought relief by way of temporary restraining orders and universal injunctions, which paused or blocked executive action temporarily to give the court time to hear the case on its merits.
Other lawsuits sought a longer-lasting form of relief via preliminary injunctions, which require plaintiffs to satisfy a higher legal burden in court.
The Supreme Court in June narrowed the ability of district court judges to issue so-called “universal injunctions” blocking a president’s policy from taking effect nationwide. The high court’s 6-3 ruling allowed district courts to issue injunctions only in limited instances.
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As of this writing, 597 lawsuits have been filed against the Trump administration’s actions, according to Just Security’s litigation tracker.
Few cases have been fully adjudicated by the lower courts. Rather, the temporary rulings are almost always appealed by the Trump administration to a higher appeals court for relief — often in the form of an emergency or temporary stay.
As Fox News Digital previously reported, the Trump administration has indeed seen a record number of Supreme Court victories in the last 12 months.
That trend is overwhelmingly due to the so-called emergency or “shadow docket” challenges, which allowed the administration to appeal cases to the court’s 6-3 conservative supermajority for immediate intervention.
Mizelle concluded the post by touting Trump’s Supreme Court “win rate,” which he said “is roughly 90%,” though he appeared to be referring to the same practice.
Though they are not intended to be permanent, the Supreme Court “shadow docket” rulings have allowed the Trump administration to proceed with a wide range of its policies, including its ban on transgender service members in the military, its termination of millions of dollars in Education Department grants and DEI funding, among many other things.
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Attorney General Pam Bondi touted similar numbers during a Cabinet meeting last month. “We have been sued 575 times,” she said then. “More than every administration going back to Reagan combined.”
She also echoed similar numbers shared by Mizelle. “Twenty-four Supreme Court wins, President Trump,” Bondi told the president in December. “A 92% success rate.”