Supreme Court news broke on Friday as sources close to both justices confirmed to CBS News that Justice Samuel Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas do not plan to retire this year, ending months of speculation that Trump may be able to secure a fourth appointment to the Supreme Court before the November midterm elections.
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- Alito, 76, has already appointed all four law clerks for the next annual term and intends to continue serving until at least 2027, while Thomas, 77, the court’s longest-serving current member, is also expected to remain on the bench, sources close to the justice told ABC News.
- The decision takes off the table what could have been a high-profile, high-stakes confirmation battle in an already compressed legislative calendar heading into the midterms, with Republicans managing reconciliation, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and multiple other priorities simultaneously.
- Trump told Fox Business this week that he was “prepared” to name two or three replacements in the event of vacancies, adding: “It could be two, it could be three, it could be one. I don’t know. I’m willing to do it.”
The Supreme Court’s news that Alito and Thomas will remain on the bench removes the biggest potential variable from the political calendar for 2026. A vacancy would have set up a confirmation battle before a Senate already running a compressed schedule and a hostile environment in the midterms. Republican leaders had to move through hearings, debates, and party-line votes, while at the same time developing the reconciliation package of the Big Beautiful Bill, the Clarity Act, the full reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and multiple other priorities.
Alito briefly had a health crisis in March when he was hospitalized for dehydration after falling ill in Philadelphia. The incident renewed speculation that he might step down. Despite that incident, he has remained active in court work and has hired his full staff of clerks for the upcoming term, sources told ABC News.
Trump explicitly brought up the Ruth Bader Ginsburg comparison this week in his interview with Fox Business, noting that she refused to retire when a like-minded justice could have replaced her, and then died while Trump was president, making it possible to appoint a conservative successor. “She really hurt herself within the Democratic Party,” he said.
The political logic is straightforward: Alito is 76 and Thomas is 77, both four years away from the average retirement age for justices since 2000 of 80. If Republicans lose the Senate in November, they will likely keep both men in their 80s the next time they are likely to control the White House and Senate. Stephen Breyer faced the same argument and eventually retired in 2022 at the age of 83 under pressure from Democrats.
What does staying put mean for the balance of the court?
The 6-3 conservative majority remains intact no matter what the justice decides. Any replacement appointment does not change the ideological makeup of the court. What the vacancy would do is expand Trump’s personal footprint on the court from three appointments to four or five, preserving that influence for potentially another generation.
The absence of a vacancy is also important for the concentration of the majority in the Senate. Every week consumed by the confirmation battle is a week unavailable for The law of clarity Tokenization, stablecoin legislation, or any other major milestone in crypto policy depends on when the Senate is in session. CD-ROM Legislative deadlock What has repeatedly stalled cryptocurrency reform could become much worse under the weight of Supreme Court confirmation.
