Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said in an interview this week that he “thought about” retiring during the Supreme Court term that concluded in July but decided to continue serving out of a belief that he was making “a valuable contribution.”
Speaking to CBS News, Justice Alito described the calculation as a natural one that comes with age. At 76, Justice Alito is the second-oldest justice on the court.
His age and political alignment with President Trump have spurred rounds of speculation that he might soon retire, particularly with Democrats’ surge in the polls and control of the Senate in November in doubt.
“It’s too hard to predict how, for anybody, particularly when you reach a certain age, what your situation will be a year from now, two years from now, and so forth,” he said in the interview, clips of which were posted online on Friday. “And it’s too hard to predict what the political situation will be, and what any president might do with respect to a replacement.”
He added that he would “have to” consider retirement each year that he serves.
The comments were a reminder that Mr. Trump, who remade the court, building a six-member conservative supermajority in his first term, may have the opportunity to appoint another justice or more before he leaves office.
Justice Clarence Thomas, who at 78 is the court’s oldest current justice, has over the years ruled out retiring, indicating he intends to serve for decades more. If he stays through spring 2028, Justice Thomas would set the record as the longest-serving justice in the Supreme Court’s history.
Speculation about Justice Alito’s intentions erupted in June, when National Public Radio published a story reporting that the justice was stepping down. NPR quickly retracted the story and apologized.
People close to Justice Alito said at the time that he planned to return to the court for the term that begins on Monday, noting that as one of the court’s senior justices, he was in a position to wield expansive influence on long-sought conservative goals.
Over two decades on the court, he has emerged as one of the bench’s most reliable conservative votes, and has also gained the trust of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who has assigned him to write opinions in major cases. He wrote the landmark 2022 decision eliminating a constitutional right to an abortion.
But should Democrats gain control of the Senate in November’s midterm elections, Justice Alito would most likely come under pressure to retire before the new Congress was seated in January, to give Mr. Trump more leeway in picking a conservative successor who could win Senate confirmation.
People who know Justice Alito say that he may not want to jeopardize the chance to have a successor who aligns with his ideology, and that he is mindful of what unfolded when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in September 2020. Her death set off a confirmation scramble that allowed Mr. Trump to appoint her successor, the conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett, shifting the makeup of the court.
Justices rarely, if ever, cast their decisions in political terms, and Justice Alito also steered clear in his interview with CBS News.
“Well, it’s something I think that somebody at my age has to think about every term,” he 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. So that was basically it.”
Ann E. Marimow contributed reporting.
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