There has been growing speculation surrounding the future of Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, with some suggesting their retirements could come as soon as the end of the current term in late June.
Megyn has shared her own reporting from a well-placed source is that Alito – while two years younger than his fellow conservative colleague Thomas – would be more likely to retire. The rumor mill is now suggesting he might be staying put, but there is another possible retiree who has not made as many headlines: Chief Justice John Roberts.
On Monday’s show, Megyn was joined by Mollie Hemingway, author of Alito, to discuss what she learned about a possible changing of the guard while working on her new book and her reporting on the fate of Alito, Thomas, and Roberts.
Latest on Alito
Polling indicates the war with Iran is not helping the GOP’s chances in the midterms, but one issue that could galvanize Republicans to get out to vote is the retirement of a Supreme Court justice. “If a [justice] were to retire, a political battle would unfold to replace him with a strong conservative who needed to get confirmed by the Senate,” Megyn posited. “That’s how things work. The House is irrelevant, but the Senate has to confirm the president’s choices by a 51 percent vote. It could be 50-50 in the Senate, and then the vice president would cast the deciding vote.”
Historically, Megyn said SCOTUS vacancies and/or issues related to the court have motivated right-leaning voters. “That has a way, especially with the right, of galvanizing voters. The right is very motivated by Supreme Court fights,” she explained. “But will we have a Supreme Court fight over an open seat that might lead conservatives to pressure President Trump to wrap up the Iran war to protect the Senate at all costs to get [a] replacement confirmed as soon as humanly possible before the midterms?”
The latest reporting indicates that won’t be the case. At 76 years old and with 20 years on the high court under his belt, Justice Alito has been considered the most likely candidate to retire after SCOTUS wraps up this current term, but, according to Fox News, he is not planning to step down.
Hemingway, who just wrote a book on the justice, said she has heard something similar from her sources. “People have been speculating that Justice Alito is definitely going to retire at the end of this term. They’ve been doing this for about a year, and I keep telling people I don’t actually see that happening,” she shared. “I don’t know for sure. Anything is possible, but the reporting that just came out from Fox News and also Jan Crawford at CBS matches with my understanding as well. He is not inclined to retire, and people should be prepared for that.”
A Roberts Retirement?
But that doesn’t mean that may not still end up being an open seat on the court. “Now, I do want to say that people should not assume that just because the word is that Justice Thomas and Justice Alito are not retiring, that that means there will be no retirements,” Hemingway teased. “I don’t have inside information, but I would not put it outside the realm of possibility that there might be a retirement at the end of this term.”
She said that while most people focus on Alito and Thomas because they are the two oldest Republican-appointed members of the court, Chief Justice Roberts is not that far behind at 71 years old and over two decades on the bench.
“In my book, I go through each of the justices and how their jurisprudence compares with Justice Alito’s, and Chief Justice Roberts… [is] the only one of the Republican-appointed justices who flat out admits he doesn’t really have a judicial philosophy when he comes on to the court,” Hemingway explained. “He proves that when he saves Obamacare by rewriting the law, but his big overarching goal as chief justice has been to get the justices to all kind of work together, to have more opinions from the court being handed down as opinions from the court, rather than everybody writing their own opinion or concurrence or dissent.”
While Megyn noted she was hearing rumblings about Alito as recently as six weeks ago and Hemingway admitted there is no way to know for sure, she said it might behoove Republicans to look elsewhere. “Being that Thomas and Alito are the most consistently conservative or libertarian justices on the court, conservatives who want to replace them should maybe seek other people who might be better to replace and improve,” she concluded.
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Hemingway by tuning in to episode 1,299 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s The Megyn Kelly Channel (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.