Justice Alito Says He Is Staying for Another Supreme Court Term — Weeks After NPR Falsely Reported His Retirement1
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has put an end, at least for the coming term, to months of speculation that he might retire while President Donald Trump and a Republican Senate are positioned to choose his successor.
“Obviously I’m here for another term,” Alito, 76, told The Wall Street Journal in an interview published August 7.
The statement means Alito expects to remain on the bench for the Supreme Court term beginning in October 2026 and running through late June or early July 2027. It does not amount to a promise that he will serve beyond that term.
The timing was especially striking because only weeks earlier NPR had briefly published and broadcast a false report saying Alito had retired — an error veteran Supreme Court correspondent Nina Totenberg later called the worst professional mistake of her more than 50-year journalism career.
Alito confirmed that he is staying for the 2026–27 Supreme Court term. He did not announce that he will remain on the Court indefinitely or rule out retirement after that term.
Alito: ‘Obviously I’m Here for Another Term’
The Wall Street Journal interview was unusually direct about a subject justices typically avoid discussing publicly.
Asked about the retirement speculation, Alito said he was staying for another term and described the constant discussion of his age and possible departure as an unpleasant reminder of mortality.
He compared the speculation to seeing vultures circling overhead, while acknowledging that such talk comes with a lifetime appointment.
Alito also rejected the idea that his votes should be understood simply as support for the Trump administration. He said he decides each case as he believes the law requires, regardless of whether the result aligns with what Trump wants.
That point matters because Alito has both joined and opposed Trump administration positions in major disputes. Reuters noted that he dissented when the Court rejected Trump efforts involving sweeping tariffs, Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook and birthright citizenship.
The Biggest Retirement Pressure Was Not Simply Coming From the Left
One of the central problems with the original framing is the suggestion that progressive activists were the principal constituency hoping Alito would retire now.
In reality, some of the most consequential pressure came from conservatives who wanted Alito — and sometimes Justice Clarence Thomas — to step down while Trump remained in the White House and Republicans controlled the Senate.
Their strategic argument was straightforward: a retirement now could allow Trump to nominate a much younger conservative who might hold the seat for several decades.
Reuters specifically reported that Alito and Thomas had faced calls from conservatives to step down for that reason.
Democratic legal groups were certainly preparing for a possible vacancy and planning opposition campaigns against a Trump nominee. But that is different from saying Democrats uniformly wanted Alito to retire during a period when Trump could choose his replacement.
The retirement debate cut across ideological lines. Some conservatives wanted a strategically timed retirement; many Democrats feared that exactly such a retirement would let Trump lock in a younger conservative justice.
His Decision Keeps the Current Nine Justices Together for the Next Term
Alito’s decision means the Court’s current membership is expected to remain intact when oral arguments resume in October, absent an unexpected vacancy involving another justice.
The Court currently has six justices generally identified with its conservative bloc — Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — and three generally identified with its liberal bloc.
That 6–3 ideological balance has shaped major decisions involving abortion, administrative power, voting, guns, affirmative action and presidential authority.
But saying Alito’s decision alone “preserves the 6–3 majority” overstates what was actually at stake.
If Alito had voluntarily retired while Trump and the current Republican Senate controlled the nomination and confirmation process, Republicans would have been positioned to try to replace him with another conservative jurist. The exact ideological result would depend on the nominee and confirmation process, but a retirement would not automatically have turned the Court into a 5–4 liberal or moderate institution.
Alito staying preserves the current personnel. It does not mean a retirement under the current political alignment would necessarily have ended the Court’s conservative majority.
NPR Really Did Publish a False Alito Retirement Story
The June 30 NPR episode is not an exaggeration.
On the final day of the Supreme Court’s 2025–26 term, NPR briefly published a prepared story stating that Alito was retiring. The erroneous information was also carried on NPR’s airwaves.
According to NPR’s public editor, the online story went live at approximately 10:51 a.m. Eastern time and remained up for about five minutes. It was replaced by an editor’s note by roughly 10:57 a.m., and an on-air correction followed at about 11:07 a.m.
Some NPR member-station websites displayed the story longer.
The Supreme Court’s public-information office confirmed that no Alito retirement had been announced.
A Prewritten Story Was Ready to Go
The speed of publication was aided by a practice that is common in major newsrooms: preparing background stories in advance for predictable major events such as the death or retirement of a prominent public figure.
NPR already had a lengthy retrospective on Alito’s career ready for the day he eventually retired.
After Totenberg relayed the mistaken information, NPR Executive Editor Krishnadev Calamur surfaced the prepared article and published it.
The existence of a prewritten story was not itself unusual or evidence that NPR had secret advance knowledge of a retirement.
The journalistic failure was that the trigger for publishing it was not independently verified.
Having an advance obituary or retirement profile is standard newsroom practice. Publishing it without confirming the underlying event was the error.
Totenberg’s Actual Explanation Was More Specific Than NPR First Reported
NPR’s first explanation also required a same-day correction.
The public editor initially wrote that Totenberg had misheard Chief Justice John Roberts as he announced upcoming retirements at the end of the Court session.
Later that day, Totenberg appeared on “All Things Considered” and gave a more precise account.
She said she had rushed out of the courtroom after the opinions and announcements. When she noticed that other people had not followed, she asked someone outside what was happening inside.
The response, according to Totenberg, was “retirement announcements.” She said she failed to hear the plural and interpreted the phrase as a single “retirement announcement,” then assumed it referred to Alito.
NPR’s public editor updated the explanatory article to clarify that Totenberg had not personally heard the retirement announcement from Roberts.
It is fair to say NPR corrected its explanation. It is less accurate to portray the entire explanation as a second fabricated story: the core cause remained the same — a misunderstood reference to retirement announcements — while the correction clarified who Totenberg actually heard.
Totenberg Took Responsibility in Unusually Direct Terms
Totenberg did not defend the mistake.
On “All Things Considered,” she called it a “rookie mistake” and described it as the worst professional error of her career.
She also said she had written directly to Alito to apologize and accepted responsibility for the chain of events that followed.
NPR Editor-in-Chief Tommy Evans said he also bore responsibility and that the newsroom would review its systems to understand how the false report was allowed to reach publication and broadcast.
The episode remains a serious accuracy failure precisely because retirement from the Supreme Court can immediately reshape national politics, confirmation strategy and expectations about the Court’s future.
The NPR Error Was Serious — but ‘Your Tax Dollars at Work’ Is Now Outdated
Another line in the original article needs updating for the 2026 funding environment.
In July 2025, Congress passed and Trump signed legislation rescinding roughly $1.1 billion previously allocated to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for the following fiscal years.
The cuts eliminated the federal public-media funding pipeline that had supported local public-radio and television stations, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting began winding down.
National NPR had always received most of its money from nongovernment sources, while local member stations were more dependent on federal support distributed through CPB.
By 2026, describing a fresh NPR reporting error simply as “your tax dollars at work” omits the major change in federal funding that occurred the previous year.
NPR historically benefited from the federally supported public-media system, especially through member stations. But Congress rescinded CPB funding for FY2026–27, so the old shorthand about current federal support is no longer an accurate description of the funding structure.
Alito Remains One of the Court’s Most Consequential Conservatives
Alito joined the Supreme Court in 2006 after being nominated by President George W. Bush.
His most historically significant majority opinion is Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the 2022 decision that overruled Roe v. Wade and returned abortion regulation largely to elected governments.
He is also known for forceful dissents and for a judicial approach rooted in textualism and originalism.
Those positions have made him a hero to many conservatives and a frequent target of criticism from progressive legal groups.
The last several years have included repeated disputes over Supreme Court ethics, recusals and politically charged flags flown at properties owned by Alito and his wife. Democratic lawmakers and outside groups argued those incidents raised questions about impartiality; Alito rejected recusal requests and said his wife was responsible for the flags.
Those controversies are real. Characterizing every ethics criticism, protest or media investigation as a coordinated “harassment campaign,” however, turns a contested political judgment into a factual claim the available evidence does not establish.
Alito has faced intense political criticism, recusal demands and ethics scrutiny. Whether those efforts amount to an organized pressure campaign is a matter of interpretation, not an established fact.
The Real Political Stakes Come After the Midterms
Alito’s decision also pushes the retirement question into a potentially different political environment.
Republicans currently hold a 53–47 Senate majority. If a vacancy opened now, Trump would nominate a successor and Republicans would control the confirmation calendar.
The November 2026 elections could change that equation.
If Democrats were to capture the Senate before a future vacancy, confirmation of a Trump Supreme Court nominee could become dramatically more difficult.
That is why Alito’s comment matters beyond the next docket. By staying through another term, he is choosing not to create a planned vacancy before the midterms — despite arguments from some conservatives that doing so would be strategically safer for their long-term control of the seat.
What Can Actually Be Said With Confidence
Samuel Alito is not retiring before the start of the Supreme Court’s 2026–27 term.
In an August 7 Wall Street Journal interview, he said plainly that he is staying for another term.
That keeps the Court’s current nine-member lineup intact for the coming session unless an unexpected vacancy occurs elsewhere.
The statement does not guarantee that Alito will stay beyond the term ending in 2027.
The retirement pressure surrounding him was more complicated than a left-versus-right storyline. Some conservatives publicly wanted him to retire while Trump and a Republican Senate could replace him with a younger conservative, while Democratic groups prepared for the possibility of a Trump nomination.
NPR did falsely report on June 30 that Alito was retiring. The story was online for roughly five minutes, was also broadcast, and was quickly retracted.
Nina Totenberg later explained that she had asked someone outside the courtroom what was happening, heard “retirement announcements” as if it were singular and mistakenly assumed Alito was the justice retiring.
NPR’s public editor also corrected an initial description that had implied Totenberg personally misheard Chief Justice Roberts.
Totenberg apologized directly and called the episode the worst professional mistake of her career.
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So the strongest version of the story does not need to claim that liberal activists forced Alito’s hand, that his staying alone saves a 6–3 Court, or that NPR is currently operating on the same federal-funding structure it had before 2025.
The verified story is sharp enough: the retirement rumor was wrong, NPR’s brief scoop collapsed almost immediately, and Alito has now said for himself that he intends to be back on the bench when the justices return in October.
