Embattled U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was thrust into the middle of yet another controversy Monday when Rolling Stone published remarkably candid audio of him talking about the battle between America’s ideological poles—citing “fundamental” differences between the two sides that he says “can’t be compromised.”
“It’s not like you are going to split the difference,” he said of his beliefs on the increasingly factional battle between Democrats and Republicans.
He made the remarks at the Supreme Court Historical Society’s annual dinner on June 3, part of a secretly recorded conversation with Lauren Windsor, a documentary filmmaker and reporter who approached the justice “as though she were a religious conservative” after joining the organization under her real name, she told Rolling Stone.
The conversation underscores how little effort Alito makes in private to frame his role on the Supreme Court—long held as a nonpartisan institution concerned only with the law—as a neutral arbiter of legal doctrine, instead openly endorsing partisan ideas and frameworks.
At one point, he endorsed the need to “return our country to a place of godliness” in response to a pointed comment from Windsor.
“I agree with you, I agree with you,” he said in a more than six-minute long clip Windsor published on X.
“I don’t know that we can negotiate with the left in the way that needs to happen for the polarization to end,” Windsor said at another point in the conversation. “I think that it’s a matter of, like, winning.”
“I think you’re probably right,” Alito replied. “One side or the other is going to win. I don’t know. I mean, there can be a way of working, a way of living together peacefully, but it’s difficult, you know, because there are differences on fundamental things that really can’t be compromised. They really can’t be compromised. So it’s not like you are going to split the difference.”
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