WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration Monday in a case over President Donald Trump's executive order restricting mail-in voting, though it remains unclear how much can be implemented before the fast-approaching midterm elections.
The decision leaves room for additional court challenges that could further slow Trump's order, and other similar cases have already been filed. The U.S. Postal Service laid out how it would implement the order last week, but time is running short to impose major changes with some states beginning to send mail ballots to voters in just a few weeks.
The Supreme Court's conservative majority didn’t decide the legality of Trump's order, instead ruling that states who sued did not have the legal right to challenge it.
“The Court’s disposition of this application does not mean that any measure taken by the Government to implement the Order will necessarily be lawful. On that score, time will tell,” the majority wrote in an unsigned order.
The three liberal-leaning justices publicly dissented, with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson writing that the rule “lets another shoe drop in the Kafkaesque nightmare that our precedents have been steadily creating for certain plaintiffs who seek to bring election-related challenges.”
New York Attorney General Letitia James foreshadowed more legal wrangling, calling the decision a “painful setback” but vowing it would “not be the final word.”
The court’s order opens a path for the administration to begin action to restrict mail voting, but it also could lead to a bevy of potential further litigation that could freeze the federal government again, all starting 10 days before the first mail ballots in the nation are scheduled to be sent to overseas and military voters from North Carolina.
“This is just the first inning of a very fast nine-inning game,” said Derek Muller, a law professor at Notre Dame University.
Mail balloting has long been a favorite target for Trump, who has claimed that it breeds fraud despite strong evidence to the contrary and his own use of the voting method.
Trump's executive order, signed in March, calls on his administration to create lists of eligible voters and orders the U.S. Postal Service to deliver mail ballots only to people on those lists. New requirements released Friday would forbid the Postal Service from sending mail ballots from any state that does not comply with Trump’s order.
Democratic officials in 23 states and the District of Columbia sued to block the order. They argued that the Constitution gives states and Congress the power to run elections, and Trump’s changes could lead to chaos and partisan abuse.
“The consequences of allowing such transformative changes to take effect so close to this fall’s elections would be extreme,” attorneys for the states wrote. Dozens of state and local election officials weighed in, asking the justices to leave the order frozen while election preparations are already underway.
A judge in Massachusetts blocked the plan for the midterm elections in those states. An appeals court upheld her decision. She later granted a second order blocking it nationwide, another remaining stumbling block for Trump administration.
The Justice Department appealed to the Supreme Court on procedural grounds in late July, arguing that the states sued too soon. They also pointed to another ruling out of Washington, where a judge allowed Trump’s order to proceed. An appeals court backed that decision, while still leaving room for future court action if the changes are implemented.
Federal attorneys argued that the Massachusetts order “blocks the government’s ability to finalize and implement the President’s proposed policies to promote election integrity for the upcoming federal elections in November.”
A dozen Republican-leaning states supported the federal government in their own appeal before the high court, saying states would have input on the final voter lists.
The Supreme Court has previously ruled against Trump-backed arguments on mail-in ballots, finding in June that states can count ballots that arrive after Election Day. That case was decided after full briefing and arguments, rather than on the court’s emergency docket.
Trump has blamed mail voting — without credible evidence — for his loss to Democrat Joe Biden in 2020. He has promoted the proposed changes in his executive order as safeguards to keep non-U.S. citizens from voting.
He’s also repeatedly pressed for the passage of the legislation that requires proof of citizenship to vote. Noncitizen voting has been shown to be rare, and is a felony that can be punishable by deportation.
Using mail ballots has become increasingly popular with voters of both parties, with about 30% of all ballots cast that way during the 2024 presidential election, according to federal data. The process also is secure. A 2025 Brookings Institution study found only about four cases of fraud out of every 10 million mail ballots cast.
David Becker, a former justice department lawyer who co-wrote a book debunking Trump’s 2020 election lies, said the high court created “pure chaos leading up to the midterm elections, waiting weeks after an administration filing, and just days before mail ballots go out, to completely rewrite the rules.”
Becker added he expects the Trump order to ultimately be blocked in the new legal process the court decision effectively greenlit.
Associated Press writer Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this story.
An election worker sorts vote-by-mail ballots at the Miami-Dade County Supervisor of Elections Office for the Florida primary election in Doral, Fla., Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
An election worker places a vote-by-mail ballot into a secure bin at the Miami-Dade County Supervisor of Elections Office during the Florida primary election in Doral, Fla., Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
The Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for President Donald Trump to move ahead with his executive order restricting mail-in voting, though it remains unclear how much his administration can implement before the fast-approaching midterm elections.
The decision appears to leave room for additional court challenges that could further slow Trump’s order. And with some states beginning to send mail ballots to voters in just a few weeks, time is running short to impose major changes.
Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Monday that new U.S. secondary sanctions in the pipeline aim to block all potential sources of revenue for Iran, telling nations to cut economic ties to Tehran or face U.S. retaliation. Tehran has withstood nearly five decades of punishing American sanctions. Ahead of the announcement, Iran’s currency hit a record low, dropping to 2.02 million to the U.S. dollar as trading opened on currency markets.
Trump threatened on Monday to impose a 50% tariff on Canadian automobiles, car parts and steel starting next year as the trade rift with Ottawa continued to deepen. The announcement comes after trade talks between the otherwise reliable trading partners collapsed last week. Long-planned U.S. tariffs on various Canadian goods went into effect after the talks broke off, and Canada has vowed to retaliate.
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Canada will announce retaliatory tariffs against the United States on Tuesday, an official familiar with the plans told The Associated Press, escalating a trade fight that has sharply worsened since negotiations with the Trump administration collapsed.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the plans publicly.
Carney said Monday that Canada may need to move away from matching U.S. tariffs dollar for dollar and instead use more targeted retaliation, saying officials were reviewing options aimed at protecting Canadian workers and businesses.
Trump escalated the dispute again Monday, telling Canadian leaders to “fall in line” or face consequences “far WORSE” than tariffs already imposed and threatening new 50% tariffs on Canadian vehicles, auto parts and steel.
— By Rob Gillies
The new tariff being weighed would penalize the world’s second-largest economy for flooding the global market with underpriced goods, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Two of the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations still being finalized, said Trump is considering setting the new tariff at 7.5%.
It’s a level administration officials believe would not endanger the one-year trade truce between Washington and Beijing or a planned White House meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping expected to take place in late September.
The move, if finalized, appears to be a calibrated effort by the White House to work around a Supreme Court decision earlier this year that struck down Trump’s plan to implement a sweeping, high-tariff scheme not seen since the 1930s.
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The final day of South Carolina’s Republican U.S. Senate runoff campaign on Monday came with a major cash infusion for Sen. Darline Graham from MAGA Inc., the super PAC that supports Trump and aligned Republicans.
The spend of nearly $830,000 came as Graham and Rep. Ralph Norman wrapped up their compressed campaigns to win the GOP nomination in a special primary to replace late Sen. Lindsey Graham on November ballots.
Tuesday’s Senate runoff tests the heft of both a famous political last name and the endorsement of Trump, who is backing Darline Graham and campaigned in the state for her days ahead of the vote.
The matchup pits the well-known Norman — fresh off an unsuccessful gubernatorial bid earlier this summer — against Graham, the late senator’s sister who was thrust into the political spotlight with her interim appointment, then a sprint of a primary campaign.
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The Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for President Donald Trump to move ahead with his executive order restricting mail-in voting, though it remains unclear how much his administration can implement before the fast-approaching midterm elections.
The decision appears to leave room for additional court challenges that could further slow Trump’s order. And with some states beginning to send mail ballots to voters in just a few weeks, time is running short to impose major changes.
Mail balloting has long been a favorite target for Trump, who has claimed that it breeds fraud despite strong evidence to the contrary and his own use of the voting method.
The case could be one of multiple voting-related challenges before the justices. The Justice Department had filed an emergency appeal asking the high court to allow work on implementing the changes before the midterms.
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The Trump administration is preparing to revoke the business and tourism visas of up to 200,000 foreigners who have applied for or are currently seeking asylum status in the United States. If it happens, the move would be the largest single mass revocation of visas in U.S. history and would likely face legal challenges.
Unless challenged or revised, the State Department is expected to announce in the coming weeks the revocation of so-called B1 and B2 visas issued between 2016 and 2026 whose holders have sought asylum or are now seeking asylum, according to State Department documents obtained by The Associated Press and two U.S. officials. The action will be taken in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security.
“We are coordinating with DHS to identify and revoke the nonimmigrant visas of foreigners who have come to the United States claiming to be short-term visitors, but then file for asylum to stay here permanently,” said State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott.
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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says he is not ruling out resuming strikes to hit Iran amid a lull in hostilities.
“By no means are we foreclosing using kinetic strikes, anywhere, in the Strait of Hormuz or around Iran,” Hegseth told reporters Monday.
It comes as the Treasury Department has announced a new round of sanctions aimed at Iran and warned nations that do business with the Islamic Republic to sever those financial ties or face retaliation from the United States.
Hegseth said that “if Iran is foolish enough to overplay their hand or mess with the American military, we’ll do what we need to do” but he added that “economic pressure we know hurts them the most right now.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says the Pentagon will proceed with efforts to significantly boost production of advanced weapons, even if it Congress fails to approve President Donald Trump’s proposed $1.5 trillion budget.
Hegseth said the Pentagon has already inked multiyear deals with various contractors, with many scaling up manufacturing capacity.
“This is not a nip around the margins of a few more weapons,” Hegseth told reporters in Wisconsin. “This is a generational investment of 2X, 3X, 4X war munitions of the ones we know we’re going to need and use.”
U.S. military officials and Washington think tanks have raised concerns that the U.S. depleted many advanced weapons during the Iran war. But Hegseth pushed back, repeating the Pentagon’s stance that the U.S. military has plenty of munitions.
The Treasury announced sanctions Monday against nearly 60 Iran-linked entities over their roles in Iran’s nuclear and missile programs, malign cyber activities and oil shipments.
It is part of the administration’s economic campaign against Iran, including warnings to other countries not to do business with Iran in sectors such as shipping, technology and aviation.
The Treasury sanctioned Hong Kong-based Sweet Ocean Industrial Limited and its associated personnel and businesses, accusing them of helping Iran acquire sensitive goods such as laser optics equipment. The Treasury also sanctioned several other Hong Kong-based entities for having provided funds to Sweet Ocean and its network.
Separately, the Treasury sanctioned China-based Shenzhen Huamei, the Hong Kong branch of the Iran-based logistics company BRE Line and its director for their ties with BRE Line in support of Iran’s missile and nuclear programs.
A sanctioned company is cut off from the U.S. financial system.
At the end of a Back to School event near the Rose Garden, the president invited the crowd — which included dozens of children — to accompany him and see the White House ballroom being built nearby.
“If anybody would like to walk with me,” Trump said, calling it “a special way the kids could see construction.”
The president added: “I love the sound of construction.”
Trump has taken to calling the project a “ballroom slash military complex.” He noted that Chinese President Xi Jinping is visiting soon and recalled his own visit to China in May.
“We saw the Great Hall of China,” Trump said. “Well, now we’re going to have a great hall, too, in the United States.”
The president’s main public event Monday is a back-to-school event featuring Education Secretary Linda McMahon.
Many schoolchildren are in the audience during the outdoor event.
“What a nice setting this is,” Trump remarked.
The Trump administration on Monday formally removed Syria from the State Department’s “State Sponsor of Terrorism” blacklist, making permanent a series of sanctions removals that had been initially announced more than a month ago.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio had announced the recission of Syria from the list in early July, but there was a 45-day period for congressional review before it was formalized. That review period has now expired and sanctions related to the state sponsor designation have been almost completely removed, the State and Treasury departments said on Monday.
“Treasury is following through on President Trump’s promise to give the Syrian people a chance at greatness,” Bessent said in a statement. “Today’s action will help foster additional investment in Syria to promote political and economic stability.”
When asked that the U.S. could go soft on China to maintain the fragile trade truce between the world’s two largest economies, Bessent said “no one is above the reach of U.S. sanctions”
“If they facilitate transactions and are part of the ecosystem that turns Iranian oil into money, into repression, they will be targeted,” Bessent said.
Experts have said the U.S. is likely to carefully calibrate its actions on China, just a month before Chinese leader Xi Jinping is expected to visit the U.S. to keep the already-fraught relations from falling out.
The Trump administration is challenged to act big with Iran “without escalating tensions with Beijing,” said Wendy Cutler, vice president of the Asia Society Policy Institute.
Asked by a reporter Monday about issuing warnings to Tehran’s financial partners instead of promising an ‘economic D-Day’, the Treasury secretary said he wanted countries to shift away from Iran before it was too late.
“Why would I want to blow up the global financial system?” Bessent said. “We believe that it is important to level set and give people a cure period.”
He added, “But they should know that that will move very quickly and that we are serious. Secondary sanctions are a very powerful tool.”
The treasury secretary said Trump has been “making phone calls to world leaders with specific request to cease their interactions” with Iran and has already seen results.
The UAE announced last week that it was suspending all trade, commercial exchanges, and financial transactions with Iran until further notice.
“I am confident the president, as you all know, is quite persuasive,” Bessent said.
Bessent said that Treasury and State Department officials are following up with calls and visits with officials from countries and entities it wants to see take action and laying out “exactly what we expect and the timelines.”
Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf on Monday said Iran’s trading partners were not taking Washington’s “statements into account,” even as the country’s economy reels from months of war and mounting pressure.
“Americans know that no one buys their bombast,” Qalibaf said in a post on X, saying that the United States was “not in an economic position to further restrict its relations with other countries.”
His comments came as Washington prepared to expand secondary sanctions targeting countries and companies doing business with Iran, in an effort to isolate Tehran from the global dollar-based financial system.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says new U.S. secondary sanctions in the pipeline aim to block all potential sources of revenue for Iran, telling nations to cut economic ties to Tehran or face U.S. retaliation.
Bessent added it’s “no longer acceptable to operate in the gray spaces” of Iran conflict as US threaten sanctions against Tehran’s trade partners.
The treasury secretary did not name what countries could face potential secondary sanctions from the United States, but China, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates are Iran’s largest trade partners.
“Let there be no ambiguity as to the position of the United States,” Bessent said at a Monday afternoon news conference. “An economic engagement of any kind with this murderous regime will expose those responsible to the full reach of American power.”
Asked about the Trump administration escalating a trade war with Canada when Maine depends so heavily on cross-border trade, the vice president said, “Canada is a state” but then added, “Sorry. Freudian slip.”
As the crowd laughed and hooted, Vance added, “That was actually an accident.”
He likened Canada to China in what he called unfair trade practices, saying that “Canada allows itself to be a backdoor for Chinese goods” that eventually are imported into the U.S.
Vance said negotiations between Canada and the U.S. were ongoing and that he thought there’d have been an agreement easing trade disputes by now — but Canada had made “unreasonable” demands.
Republican Sen. Susan Collins was not accompanying Vice President JD Vance during his manufacturing stop in Brewer, Maine on Monday.
But he still made sure that her presence was felt.
“Whenever I’m in Maine, I got to give Susan a little bit of crap,” Vance told the crowd as he began his remarks. “Because as you know, Susan is the most independent member of the United States Senate, and as the president of the United States Senate, she sometimes makes my job just a little bit harder.”
Vance said Collins, who is up for reelection in the Democratic-leaning state, has visited the vice president’s residence about a half-dozen times. In those meetings, Vance said, Collins is constantly pressing him about how certain policies affect her state.
Vance ended his brief aside on the senator by asking the crowd to give a shoutout to “our very independent friend, Susan Collins.”
“After wrongfully firing me last year, an independent arbitrator has ordered the @washingtonpost to reinstate me immediately, with back pay,” Karen Attiah posted on Instagram on Monday, calling it “a victory for journalists everywhere.”
The ruling found insufficient cause to terminate Karen Attiah, the last Black full-time member of the Post’s opinion desk at the time.
Kirk, a top conservative podcaster and Trump ally, made provocative statements about race, gender and politics, including calling George Floyd, whose 2020 murder at the hands of Minneapolis police sparked protests, a “scumbag.”
Kirk’s killing on Sept. 10 elicited a torrent of comments, and some who spoke out against him faced sanctions or dismissal at work. One post Attiah made said “Refusing to tear my clothes and smear ashes on my face in performative mourning for a white man that espoused violence is … not the same as violence.”
A Post statement said it respects the arbitration process and declined further comment.
Six people who were deported by the United States to Liberia last week resisted getting off the plane and instead were sent to Equatorial Guinea, a person on the plane and a lawyer in contact with them said Monday.
Under a series of often secret agreements, the Trump administration has deported thousands of people to two dozen countries that aren’t their own as it pushes ahead with its immigration crackdown, advocates say.
The four Cuban men, a Brazilian man and a Cameroonian woman are now being held with other migrants in worsening conditions in a hotel that lacks medical staff, said Meredyth Yoon, litigation director for Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta.
Equatorial Guinea’s all-powerful president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, turned the hotel owned by his family into a prison for deported asylum seekers under an opaque $7.5 million deal with the Trump administration. His government did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment.
By Mark Banchereau
The U.S. plans to reopen a border crossing in Arizona to cattle from Mexico on Monday as part of a broader Trump administration effort to reduce record-high beef prices. Economists doubt grocery store shoppers will see any savings soon.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said concerns about the New World screwworm’s spread lessened enough to allow the movement of cattle from Mexico.
Beef prices clearly are a concern for Trump, who announced Friday that he would allow up to 331,000 tons of ground beef imports, tariff-free, to be sold at below-market prices over the next 90 days.
But the phased reopening means it will take months for Mexican imports to regain their traditional 3% of the U.S. supply, according to Derrell Peel, a professor of agribusiness at Oklahoma State University.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks at a news conference, Monday, Aug. 24, 2026, at the Treasury Department in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Rolled coils of steel sit in the yard at the ArcelorMittal Dofasco steel plant in Hamilton, Ont. on Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026. (Nick Iwanyshyn /The Canadian Press via AP)
Air Force One and four F-35's pass over as President Donald Trump, in the presidential limousine known as "The Beast," does a lap around the track before the IndyCar Freedom 250 Grand Prix auto race in Washington, Sunday, Aug. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
President Donald Trump, left, and first lady Melania Trump attend the IndyCar Freedom 250 Grand Prix auto race, Sunday, Aug. 23, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Christian Rasmussen (21), of Denmark, leads a pack of cars during the IndyCar Freedom 250 Grand Prix auto race in Washington, Sunday, Aug. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Allison Robbert)
Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks about Canada's response to new U.S. tariffs during a news conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Saturday, Aug. 22, 2026. (Patrick Doyle/The Canadian Press via AP)
