Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is confirming he has no plans to step down even as Republicans’ ability to confirm judges will end in January.
The current Republican majority allows Donald Trump to appoint potentially two more justices in place of aging court members Alito, 76, and Clarence Thomas, 78.
However, now that Democrats won a majority in the Senate, they can filibuster a nominee once they take power in two months.
Alito told close allies he will not retire in time for the GOP to try and rush a Trump-picked replacement, The New York Times reported.
Two sources told the paper that Alito, who votes with Trump 89 percent of the time according to SCOTUSblog, told friends he’d stay on the court after it became clear the Democrats would win.
Trump suggested a few weeks ago that Alito was weighing retirement in what appeared to be an extraordinary effort to pressure him off the high court.
His remarks on Truth Social were short, but come after months of speculation and about Alito’s possible retirement.
‘A great man!!! President DJT,’ Trump said Friday morning, before sharing the link to a report headlined, ‘Justice Alito confirms he is considering retirement.’
Alito, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, told CBS News in a rare public interview last month that he had weighed retiring this year, and said he plans to do so again in 2027.
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito (pictured) is confirming he has no plans to step down even as Republicans’ ability to confirm judges will end in January when the Democrats take power
Trump suggested a few weeks ago that Alito was weighing retirement in what appeared to be an extraordinary effort to pressure him off the high court
‘It’s something that I think that somebody at my age has to think about every term,’ Alito said.
‘But I thought that I could still make a valuable contribution, which is why I became a justice and a judge in the first place,’ he added.
Trump, for his part, has cheered Alito on social media as one of the ‘Greatest of All Time’ – even while using the same posts to excoriate the three Supreme Court justices he nominated to the high court just several years earlier.
Trump has assailed his three appointees – Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett – for ruling against him in major cases in his second term, including his use of an emergency powers law to impose sweeping global tariffs and his executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship.
And he has not shied away from his desire to tap a fourth justice, should the opportunity arise.
Trump said in a Fox News interview earlier this year that he is ‘prepared’ to nominate up to three justices in the event of any vacancies.
‘It’d be nice to say, now I have somebody for 40 years,’ Trump told then-Fox News host Maria Bartiromo in an April interview.
He said then in that interview he was ‘prepared’ to appoint up to three justices to the high court, indicating that his administration has been vetting potential replacements.
A Republican majority would have allowed Donald Trump to appoint potentially two more justices in place of aging court members Alito, 76, and Clarence Thomas, 78 (pictured right)
Supreme Court justices pose for their group portrait at the Supreme Court in Washington in 2022
Still, Trump has always couched his remarks with plenty of praise for Alito, and for Justice Thomas, another conservative fixture on the high court appointed by then-President George W. Bush who has also been the subject of some retirement speculation – though far less than Alito.
Trump moved quickly to make his most recent Supreme Court appointments happen during his first term.
The President announced Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination and got her confirmed within 30 days following the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, just a week before Trump lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden.
Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation took a little over two months, while Brett Kavanaugh’s brought along controversy and scandal but ultimately took a little less than three months.
Trump has assailed his three appointees for ruling against him in major cases in his second term, including his use of an emergency powers law to impose sweeping global tariffs and his executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship.
And he has not shied away from his desire to tap a fourth justice, should the opportunity arise.
But as the Times pointed out, Trump was not guaranteed to get a fourth judge through even if Alito had retired.
With a 53-47 majority in the Senate, not only would moderates like lame duck Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski need to be appeased, so would fellow outgoing Senators John Cornyn, Bill Cassidy and Thom Tills, all of whom have clashed with the President in recent months.
The President now faces having to make a deal with a Senate that would need at least half a dozen Democrats to approve to continue his generation dominance of the court.
