Supreme Court news broke Friday as sources close to both justices confirmed to CBS News that neither Justice Samuel Alito nor Justice Clarence Thomas plans to retire this year, ending months of speculation that Trump might be able to lock in a fourth Supreme Court appointment before the November midterms.
Summary
- Alito, 76, has already hired all four law clerks for the upcoming annual term and intends to continue serving into at least 2027, sources close to the justice told ABC News, while Thomas, 77, the court’s longest-serving current member, is also expected to remain on the bench.
- The decision removes from the table what would have been a high-profile, high-stakes confirmation battle in an already compressed pre-midterm legislative calendar where Republicans are managing reconciliation, FISA, and multiple other priorities simultaneously.
- Trump told Fox Business this week that he is “prepared” to name two or three replacements if vacancies open, adding: “It could be two, could be three, could be one. I don’t know. I’m prepared to do it.”
Supreme Court news that both Alito and Thomas will remain on the bench removes the single biggest potential variable from the 2026 political calendar. A vacancy would have triggered a confirmation battle before a Senate that is already managing a compressed schedule and a hostile midterm environment. Republican leaders would have had to move through hearings, floor debate, and a party-line vote while simultaneously advancing the Big Beautiful Bill reconciliation package, the CLARITY Act markup, a full FISA reauthorization, and multiple other priorities.
Alito briefly had a health scare in March when he was hospitalized for dehydration after falling ill at a Philadelphia event. That episode renewed speculation he might step down. Sources told ABC News that despite that episode, he has remained active in the court’s work and hired his full complement of clerks for next term.
Trump raised the Ruth Bader Ginsburg comparison explicitly this week in his Fox Business interview, noting that she had declined to retire when she might have been replaced by a like-minded justice and then died while Trump was president, enabling the appointment of a conservative successor. “She really hurt herself within the Democrat Party,” he said.
The political logic is direct: Alito is 76 and Thomas is 77, both within four years of the average retirement age of 80 for justices since 2000. If Republicans lose the Senate in November, the next time they would likely hold both the White House and the Senate could leave both men well into their 80s. Stephen Breyer faced the same argument and ultimately retired in 2022 at 83 under Democratic pressure.
What Staying Put Means for the Court’s Balance
The 6-3 conservative supermajority remains intact regardless of what either justice decides. No replacement appointment changes the court’s ideological composition. What a vacancy would have done is extend Trump’s personal imprint on the court from three appointments to four or five, locking in that influence for potentially another generation.
The absence of a vacancy also matters for the Senate majority’s focus. Every week consumed by a confirmation battle is a week not available for the CLARITY Act markup, stablecoin legislation, or any other major crypto policy milestone that depends on Senate floor time. The compressed legislative gridlock that has already stalled crypto reform repeatedly would have become significantly worse under the weight of a Supreme Court confirmation.
