The vultures can keep circling, but Samuel Alito is NOT going anywhere.
The 76-year-old Supreme Court Justice just dropped the hammer on all those retirement whispers, confirming in a new interview that he plans to stick around for the Court's upcoming term. Speaking with the Wall Street Journal's James Taranto inside his own chambers, Alito made it crystal clear. "Obviously, I'm here for another term," he declared.
Boom. Just like that, months of breathless speculation go right into the garbage.
And oh boy, was there speculation. The rumor mill was spinning so fast it nearly broke in late June when NPR correspondent Nina Totenberg actually ran a report claiming Alito was hanging up his robe. The Court itself had to step in and confirm that no such announcement existed and that the story was flat out wrong. NPR yanked the report, and Totenberg later explained she had misheard something about staff retirements. Staff retirements! That is one heck of a mix-up.
So what sparked all this chatter in the first place? Well, certain conservative voices had been publicly floating the idea that Alito and his colleague Clarence Thomas, who is 78, should consider stepping aside. The logic? Let President Trump appoint younger replacements who share their judicial philosophy while Republicans still control the confirmation process. The November 2026 midterm elections could shake up the Senate's makeup, which would obviously complicate any future nomination battle.
Alito acknowledged that he pays attention to all the noise about his future, but he was characteristically blunt about how it makes him feel. "It's not pleasant, in the sense that it's a reminder of mortality," he told the Journal. "It's like, what are those vultures doing up there? They are flying around. But it goes with life tenure."
Vultures! The man compared retirement speculators to actual carrion birds. You have to respect the honesty.
He also took a swipe at anyone suggesting his judicial votes are politically motivated. "I vote in every case the way I think the case should be decided," Alito said. He added that if his rulings happen to align with what Trump wants, that is fine, and if they show zero correlation with Trump's preferences, that is equally fine. He made clear he refuses to engineer some artificial appearance of balance across his decisions.
Appointed by George W. Bush back in 2006, Alito has now completed 20 full terms on the nation's highest court. He stands as the second oldest sitting justice and remains one of the most reliably conservative votes on the bench. Along with Thomas, he anchors the rightward flank of the Court's 6-3 conservative majority, which solidified after Trump placed Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett on the bench during his first term.
The next Supreme Court term kicks off in October 2026 and should wrap up by late June or early July 2027. Beyond that? Alito gave no specific timeline. But for now, the message is loud and unmistakable: he is staying put.
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