Justice Samuel Alito is alive and well, and he is not retiring anytime soon despite fake news reports.
NPR briefly told the country that Alito had retired from the Supreme Court on Tuesday. The Supreme Court itself shot the story down, and NPR later took it down from its website — but not before the false report had already spread across the country.
The article, written by veteran NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg and headlined “Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, retires,” briefly held a top featured spot on NPR’s homepage
“Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the Supreme Court’s opinion reversing Roe v. Wade, is retiring, the court announced Tuesday.” The piece went on to detail Alito’s legacy, his authorship of the 2022 Dobbs decision overturning Roe, and reactions from legal experts and friends of the justice.
There was no actual retirement announcement.
A moderator monitoring the SCOTUSblog live chat — which was tracking the court’s morning slate of major end-of-term rulings — flagged within minutes that the court’s own public information officer “just emphasized that the court has not made any announcement to that effect.”
“NPR’s reporting regarding Justice Alito is inaccurate,” Supreme Court spokeswoman Patricia McCabe said. “And their reporting that there was any kind of court statement is inaccurate.”
Oh boy. NPR reported that Justice Alito was retiring, then retracted it 10 minutes later, saying it was “published in error.” pic.twitter.com/ljqd9udn9a
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) June 30, 2026
NPR pulled the story off the website later, and in its place, the network posted a terse editor’s note: “This story has been taken down. It was published in error.” The byline was later scrubbed from Totenberg’s name to “NPR Staff,” and the note was expanded: “Earlier today we erroneously published a story saying that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was retiring. He has not announced his retirement and we have retracted the story.”
The stakes attached to the false report were enormous. Alito, 76, is one of the court’s oldest sitting justices alongside Justice Clarence Thomas, 77. Both have faced mounting retirement pressure given their age, the upcoming midterms, and President Donald Trump’s eagerness to nominate a fourth Supreme Court justice during his second term.
Indeed, Trump told reporters in recent months he is “prepared” to fill as many as three seats if vacancies arise. With Republicans holding a narrow 53-47 Senate majority, a real Alito retirement would trigger an immediate, high-stakes confirmation fight before voters head to the polls in November — a fight Republicans have the votes to win, but one that would only get harder if Democrats flip the chamber.
But as of Tuesday, despite reports to the opposite, Alito has not currently announced any retirement plans.