Justice Samuel Alito has no plans to retire this year, sources close to him told CBS News, closing the narrow opening that would have let President Donald Trump try to name a fourth Supreme Court justice before the November midterm elections. The same report said Justice Clarence Thomas also has no retirement plans, all but ending speculation that the court could change hands again before voters go to the polls.
The news landed as Trump was already telling allies he could be looking at more than one vacancy. This week, he told Business host Maria Bartiromo that he was prepared to nominate two or three justices if seats opened during his tenure. “I don’t know. It’s possible, you know. In theory, it’s two or three, they tell me,” Trump said. He added, “If you just read statistics, it could be two, could be three, could be one. I don’t know.”
That possibility mattered because Trump has already reshaped the court once. He filled three Supreme Court vacancies in his first term with Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. Alito, 76, has served since 2006, and Thomas, 77, since 1991, making both justices long-tenured fixtures on a court where even one retirement can shift the balance for a generation.
The report that Alito intends to stay was first reported by. It came amid rumors that had picked up steam after Alito was hospitalized in March for dehydration, with a book publication scheduled for October and public comments about his judicial legacy adding to the sense that a retirement might be near. For Trump, that mattered because a vacancy before the election would have given him a chance to cement another conservative majority while Republicans still control the Senate.
But the politics around any confirmation are harder than they look. Analysts consulted by Newsweek said Trump does not have the votes to confirm a nominee if Alito or Thomas retired before the end of the year. Republicans hold 53 Senate seats, so if every Democrat voted no, Trump would need 50 Republicans and Vice President JD Vance would break the tie. That leaves him able to lose only three Republicans on a confirmation vote.
Several of those potential holdouts are already on shaky political ground or have clashed with Trump directly. Susan Collins of Maine is running for reelection this year in a state that has trended Democratic, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska defeated a Trump-backed primary challenger in 2022. Thom Tillis of North Carolina announced in 2025 that he would not seek reelection in 2026, while Bill Cassidy of Louisiana lost his primary on May 16 to a Trump-backed opponent.
The sharpest break may be with John Cornyn, who recently chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee and would play a central role in vetting any nominee before a full Senate vote. Trump endorsed Ken Paxton over Cornyn in the Texas Republican primary runoff for U.S. Senate on May 26, a move that highlighted the split between the president and senators whose votes he would need on the court.
Jim Kessler, a political analyst, said the fight has become personal enough to boomerang. “Revenge is a two-way street,” Kessler said. “All the politicians that he’s gone after are either finished with their career or they hope to have a second start by being someone who took Trump on. So somebody like John Cornyn [of Texas], who’s been a Republican loyalist his entire life and was stabbed in the back by Trump.”
Collins also questioned Trump’s backing of Paxton over Cornyn. “I don’t understand,” she said. “He [Paxton] is an ethically challenged individual. John Cornyn is an outstanding senator and merited the president’s support.” For now, though, the immediate question has a clean answer: Alito is staying, Thomas is staying, and Trump’s next chance to change the court has been pushed off the table.
