Trump Shares Alito Retirement Story With 'A Great Man!!!' Post as Justice Says He'll Reassess Next Year

President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social at 4:47 a.m. on Friday, Oct. 16, sharing a link to an Oct. 2 Politico article headlined "Justice Alito confirms he is considering retirement." His entire comment: "A great man!!! President DJT."

That is all he said. Neither the White House nor the Supreme Court's public affairs office immediately responded to requests for comment.

What Alito actually said

The Politico piece drew on an interview Justice Samuel Alito gave CBS News chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford. Alito said he weighed stepping down this year and decided against it.

"It's something that I think that somebody at my age has to think about every term," Alito said. "But I thought that I could still make a valuable contribution, which is why I became a justice and a judge in the first place."

Asked whether he would revisit the question each year, he said, "Yeah, I think I have to."

Crawford characterized the push on Alito to leave as "pretty intense pressure" from Republican officials who want a like-minded successor confirmed.

In comments reported by Bloomberg Law, Alito was more specific about timing: "I intend to stick around through this term. I made that decision many months ago." The Court opened its new term on Monday, Oct. 5. It runs through June 2027.

He also addressed the politics directly. "It's too hard to predict what the political situation will be, and what any president might do with respect to a replacement," he said.

Rumors, a retraction, and the Senate math

Retirement chatter around Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas, 78, has grown amid the possibility that Democrats take the Senate in November. Republicans currently hold a 53-47 majority. Bloomberg Law's reporting, as relayed by Breitbart, said neither justice has shown signs of wanting to step down.

A June 30 National Public Radio story fueled the speculation. NPR retracted it, and the reporter said they misheard information as the Court issued its last opinions of the term.

The Court currently has six conservative and three liberal justices. Another selection from Trump would most likely preserve that balance, unless one of the three liberals retires first.

Trump and his own appointees

Trump has said he wants another seat. In an April Fox News interview with Maria Bartiromo, he said he was "prepared" to nominate up to three justices if vacancies arose. "It'd be nice to say, now I have somebody for 40 years," he said.

He has also been openly angry at the three justices he already appointed. Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett have ruled against him in major second-term cases, including his use of an emergency-powers law to impose sweeping global tariffs and his executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship.

Alito has sided with the Trump administration on the vast majority of Supreme Court cases this year, including cases that Trump's own nominees have blocked. Trump, for his part, has praised both Alito and Thomas.

The Daily Mail described Friday's post as "an extraordinary effort to pressure" Alito off the bench. The Daily Beast called it a "strange hint" and suggested it could remind voters that a Court seat could soon be at stake and help mobilize voters in the midterms. Those are readings of a single-line post. Trump did not say he wants Alito to leave, and the post can also be read as plain praise for a justice he has long admired.

Campaign fallout

Senate candidates in both parties have already folded the Court into their pitches.

Michael Whatley, the Republican Senate nominee in North Carolina, said in a statement: "There is no doubt that in the next 6 years there will be one or more Supreme Court Justices who will retire – and NC needs to have a CONSERVATIVE Senator voting on their replacements."

Troy Jackson, the Democratic nominee in Maine, wrote on X that "this election will determine who confirms the next Supreme Court justice." He added that Sen. Susan Collins "voted to confirm three of the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, and she's voted with Donald Trump 96% of the time."

In Ohio, Democratic nominee Sherrod Brown wrote that the state's next senator "could be our first line of defense against another partisan Supreme Court Justice — or rubber stamp a Trump nominee."

If Democrats win the Senate, Trump could not simply nominate the most conservative candidate available. He would need someone Democrats are willing to confirm.

What comes next

Alito has not said he is leaving. By his own account, he is staying through the term that ends in June 2027 and will reassess after that. Whether he reconsiders next year with a Republican or Democratic majority waiting to vote on his successor depends on the midterm results, and it is the open question.