Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito says he considered retiring this year but chose to remain on the bench, citing his ability to keep contributing, and will revisit that choice every term.
Justice Samuel Alito told CBS News he thought about leaving the Supreme Court this year. He decided against it because he still believes he can do valuable work on the bench.
The 76-year-old justice, nominated by President George W. Bush and seated in 2006, made the comments in an interview with CBS News chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford. A clip of the exchange was released Friday, and Breitbart News reported the remarks in full.
Alito did not set any departure date. He said retirement is something a person his age has to weigh regularly, and he expects to take another hard look at it with each new term.
That stance keeps one of the Court’s most consistent originalist voices in place for now, and it leaves open questions about when any vacancy might arise.
Crawford pressed him on why he stayed despite talk of retirement. Alito answered directly.
He said he had thought about stepping down. Then he explained the reason he stayed.
"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. So that was basically it."
He also confirmed the decision is not a one-time call. Asked whether he would reconsider each year, Alito said he thinks he has to.
"Well, it’s something I think that somebody at my age has to think about every term."
Those lines track with earlier coverage of Alito shutting down retirement talk and signaling he intends to keep serving. The latest interview adds a clearer timeline: he weighed leaving this year, chose to stay, and will keep reviewing the choice term by term.
He refused to project beyond that. When Crawford asked about the risk of waiting too long, Alito said the future is too uncertain to map out.
"I think it’s too hard to predict. It’s too hard to predict how for anybody, and particularly when you reach a certain age, what your situation will be a year from now, two years from now and so forth. And it’s too hard to predict what the political situation will be and what any president might do with respect to a replacement."
Any future vacancy would land during a presidency already familiar with Supreme Court nominations. In his first term, President Donald Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. All three won Senate confirmation.
In a July interview with Breitbart News, Trump said he was ready if seats opened up. He pointed to talk of multiple potential vacancies and said he had people in mind for the job.
"Well I think, you know, if you listen to people, there are three potential vacancies for various reasons, so I’m certainly prepared."
He added that many strong candidates want the role. Trump also praised Alito as one of the greatest justices of all time and said he would like to appoint a younger version of him. He did not name a specific replacement.
That praise fits earlier reporting on how Trump called Alito one of the greatest of all time while the justice confirmed he would remain on the Court. Alito’s latest comments keep that seat filled for the near term.
A vacancy during Trump’s current term would give him a chance to select a fourth justice. Alito’s decision to stay means that opportunity is not immediate.
Alito joined the Court nearly two decades ago. At 76, he is treating retirement as an ongoing judgment rather than a fixed plan. He tied the choice to the same reason he sought the job: the chance to contribute.
He gave no health details or other personal factors beyond age and the work itself. He also declined to forecast the political climate or how a future president might fill his seat.
Readers following Court personnel news have seen similar signals before, including when Alito confirmed he would serve another term and cooled months of speculation. Friday’s clip restates the point in his own words and adds that he will run the same analysis again with every new term.
The practical result is continuity on a Court that regularly decides major separation-of-powers and executive-authority disputes. Recent cases have kept that stakes list long, including a 5-4 ruling that let White House ballroom construction continue. Personnel stability shapes how those fights are briefed and decided.
Trump has also spoken publicly about his own nominees’ voting patterns in other settings, including comments covered when he faulted his three Court picks for frequent no votes. Alito’s seat is not one of those three, and his stated plan is to keep serving while he can still add value.
The interview does not identify who has pressed him to retire, or on what timeline. It does not define the “three potential vacancies” Trump mentioned in July. And it offers no date, even tentative, for when Alito might step down.
What it does establish is straightforward. He considered leaving this year. He stayed because he believes he can still contribute. He will ask himself the same question every term. And he will not pretend he can predict his health, his stamina, or the political map years ahead.
For now, the seat remains filled by the justice who has held it since 2006. Conservatives who want a Court grounded in the Constitution’s text and history have every reason to prefer that outcome to an early exit on someone else’s schedule.
Judges who still believe the work matters should keep doing it, and leave the vacancy talk to the people who cannot win the arguments on the merits.
