{"id":922139,"date":"2026-07-24T06:14:06","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T11:14:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/24\/samuel-alito-is-not-retiring-from-supreme-court-npr-retracts-story-published-in-error\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T06:14:06","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T11:14:06","slug":"samuel-alito-is-not-retiring-from-supreme-court-npr-retracts-story-published-in-error","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/24\/samuel-alito-is-not-retiring-from-supreme-court-npr-retracts-story-published-in-error\/","title":{"rendered":"Samuel Alito Is Not Retiring From Supreme Court-NPR Retracts Story Published In Error"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Topline<\/h2>\n

National Public Radio retracted a story that reported Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito would retire, insisting the story<\/u><\/a> was \u201cerroneously published\u201d minutes after it went viral online\u2014although speculation about the 76-year-old judge\u2019s possible retirement has continued since he was briefly hospitalized<\/u><\/a> in April.<\/p>\n

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Alito has not announced his retirement as of Tuesday morning.<\/span><\/p>\n

Getty Images<\/small><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Key Facts<\/h2>\n
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Alito has not announced his retirement as of Tuesday morning, and Forbes has reached out to the Supreme Court\u2019s public information office for further comment.<\/p>\n

Alito, a conservative justice who has served on the court since 2006, is the second-oldest justice serving on the high court, after 78-year-old fellow conservative Clarence Thomas.<\/p>\n

Alito\u2019s retirement would have handed President Donald Trump an empty seat to nominate a new justice months before the midterm elections, after which possible Democratic gains in Congress could limit his ability to quickly confirm a nominee.<\/p>\n

The incorrect report came shortly after the Supreme Court handed down consequential rulings at the end of its term, including upholding state bans on transgender participation<\/u><\/a> in sports, striking down limits on political spending and denying Trump\u2019s attempt to restrict birthright citizenship<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Retirement Speculation Has Been Growing<\/h2>\n

Supreme Court watchers have been speculating that both Alito and Thomas could retire before Trump\u2019s term in office ends. Republicans are hoping to avoid either septuagenarian dying during a Democratic president\u2019s term in office\u2014similar to what happened after former Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in 2020, which allowed Trump to nominate Justice Amy Coney Barrett and expand the high court\u2019s conservative majority to 6-3. Speculation that Alito might hang up his robes soon ramped up after he was briefly hospitalized following a Federalist Society dinner in April. Alito was \u201cadministered fluids for dehydration,\u201d a Supreme Court spokesperson told SCOTUSblog<\/u><\/a> one day later, and returned to work the next Monday. Despite the brief health scare, sources told multiple<\/u><\/a> outlets<\/u><\/a> later in April that neither justice was planning to retire in 2026. Ed Whelan, a conservative legal scholar, initially predicted after Trump\u2019s 2024 electoral victory that both Alito and Thomas would retire in spring 2025, but walked that prediction back<\/u><\/a> this year. Whelan told the New York Times<\/u><\/a> in April that Alito was now \u201cin the majority in a way that he couldn\u2019t count on in his first dozen years,\u201d and likely looked forward to ruling on major cases.<\/p>\n

Key Background<\/h2>\n

Tuesday\u2019s false report on Alito\u2019s retirement was written by Nina Totenberg, NPR\u2019s veteran legal correspondent and Supreme Court reporter, who has worked for the broadcaster since 1975. Totenberg has broken countless stories about the high court, including reporting on the sexual harassment allegations<\/u><\/a> from Anita Hill during Clarence Thomas\u2019 fraught Senate confirmation in 1991. In a statement sent to Forbes, NPR\u2019s editor-in-chief Thomas Evans said Totenberg \u201cincorrectly reported\u201d Alito\u2019s retirement and the story was removed \u201cas soon as the error was realized.\u201d NPR also issued an on-air correction, and Evans said Totenberg would appear on \u201cAll Things Considered\u201d this afternoon to explain the situation. Totenberg also apologized to Alito, Evans said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Zachary Folk
Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Topline National Public Radio retracted a story that reported Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito would retire, insisting the story was \u201cerroneously published\u201d minutes after it went viral online\u2014although speculation about the 76-year-old judge\u2019s possible retirement has continued since he was briefly hospitalized in April. Alito has not announced his retirement as of Tuesday morning. Getty<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":922140,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108067,3419],"tags":[151245,13955],"class_list":["post-922139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-alito","category-samuel","tag-alito","tag-samuel"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=922139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/922140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=922139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=922139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=922139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}