Neither Justice Samuel Alito nor Justice Clarence Thomas intends to retire from the Supreme Court this year, according to people close to both men, a development that shelves, for now, any prospect of President Trump adding a fourth nominee to the nation's highest bench.
Sources close to Alito confirmed he is not planning to step down, a report first broken by CBS News and initially flagged by Fox News. Separately, sources close to Thomas told CBS News that he, too, has no plans to leave. The two justices, ages 76 and 77, respectively, are the oldest members of the court's conservative majority and the names most frequently floated in Washington retirement chatter.
The news arrives days after President Trump told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo that he stood ready to fill vacancies if they materialized. That readiness will have to wait.
In the Fox Business interview earlier this week, Trump addressed the retirement speculation head-on. He acknowledged the possibility of multiple openings without claiming inside knowledge of any justice's plans.
"In theory, it's two, you just read the statistics, it could be two, could be three, could be one. I don't know. I'm prepared to do it."
Trump also praised Alito by name, telling Bartiromo, "when you mention Alito, he is a great justice." The president has previously signaled his willingness to move quickly on any Supreme Court vacancy, a posture consistent with his first-term record of filling three seats, nominating Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.
With both Alito and Thomas staying put, Trump will not have the opportunity to make a fourth Supreme Court nomination this year. For conservatives who hoped to lock in younger replacements while the Senate remains in friendly hands, the timeline just got longer.
Thomas has served on the Supreme Court since 1991, more than three decades. Alito joined in 2006 and has been a reliable anchor of the court's originalist wing ever since. Together they form the senior core of the six-justice conservative majority that has reshaped American law on issues from the Second Amendment to administrative power.
Speculation about Alito's future intensified after he was hospitalized for dehydration following a March incident in Philadelphia. But the word from those around him is unambiguous: he plans to stay.
Thomas, the court's longest-serving current justice, has given no public indication of slowing down. At 77, he continues to author or join some of the most consequential opinions each term. His allies say retirement is simply not on the table.
The court faces a slate of high-profile cases this spring, with decisions expected by late June or early July. Among the most closely watched: rulings on President Trump's effort to end birthright citizenship, on revoking deportation protections for Haitians and Syrians, and on invalidating late-arriving mail-in ballots. Each case carries enormous political weight heading into the next election cycle.
Trump himself sat in the Supreme Court chamber as justices heard arguments challenging his birthright citizenship executive order, a rare presidential appearance that underscored how personally invested this White House is in the court's work.
The birthright citizenship case alone could redefine the boundaries of executive power over immigration. The mail-in ballot dispute touches election integrity. And the deportation-protection cases test how far a president can go in unwinding humanitarian designations created by a predecessor. None of these are small-stakes questions, and the justices deciding them will be the same nine who started the term.
Progressive commentators have spent months oscillating between two contradictory hopes: that Alito or Thomas would retire and give Trump another pick, fueling fundraising outrage, or that both would cling to their seats until a future Democratic president could replace them. The first scenario is now off the table for this year. The second remains a gamble that depends on election outcomes neither justice can control.
For the institutional left, the real frustration is simpler. A 6, 3 conservative court remains intact, with no vacancy to campaign around and no confirmation fight to weaponize. The court that overturned Roe v. Wade, curtailed agency power, and expanded gun rights will keep issuing opinions with the same lineup.
Trump's first-term record of placing three justices, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett, already reshaped the court for a generation. His relationship with those justices continues to play out in real time as they rule on his administration's policies. A fourth pick would have been a historic bonus. It simply isn't happening yet.
Neither Alito nor Thomas has spoken publicly about retirement. The information comes entirely from unnamed sources described as close to each justice. That leaves room for plans to change, life tenure, after all, ends only when the justice decides it does, or when health intervenes.
No one outside each justice's inner circle knows the full reasoning. The sources offered no stated motive for staying, and neither man owes anyone an explanation. They were confirmed by the Senate, granted life tenure by the Constitution, and answer to no political calendar.
What is clear is that the current court will remain whole through this consequential term. The decisions landing in late June and early July will carry the weight of a full bench, including two justices who have outlasted every effort to push them toward the exit.
Washington's retirement rumor mill runs on speculation and wishful thinking. Alito and Thomas, it turns out, run on their own schedule.
