make a federal case out of

idiom

US, informal

: to become very upset or angry about (something that is not important)

I agree that he shouldn't have said that, but there's no reason to make a federal case out of it.

Do you have to make a federal case out of it every time I come home late?

Examples of make a federal case out of in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

On one hand, this sort of issue scares politicians, who feel greater pressure from vocal diehards than from the vast majority of their constituents who might prefer to see more projects built faster but aren't about to make a federal case out of it. —Oren Cass, CNN, 11 Aug. 2022