Trump says Alito and Thomas are ‘fantastic,’ rebukes calls for them to step down

President Donald Trump has abandoned calls for a Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas resign, calling them both “fantastic”.

Trump made a remark to Politico The publication reported this week that some GOP members hope the court's two oldest conservatives will consider resigning before the midterm elections. This would allow Trump to nominate conservatives to replace them while the GOP would still have guaranteed control of the Senate.

“I hope they stay,” Trump said, adding: “Because I think they’re fantastic.”

Alito, 75, has no plans to retire from the Supreme Court anytime soon, a source close to the justice said. Wall Street Journal in November 2024 after Trump's election.

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“Despite what some may think, this is a man who has never thought about this job in political terms,” ​​a person close to Alito told the newspaper.

“The idea that he is going to resign for political reasons is not consistent with who he is,” the person added.

Alito was appointed to the Supreme Court in 2006 by the President. George Bush.

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Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh laugh as they wait to leave the stage at the conclusion of the inauguration ceremony in the Rotunda of the US Capitol on January 20, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Chip Somodevilla/Poole/AFP via Getty Images)

Thomas is 77 years old. He was appointed to the court by President George H. W. Bush in 1991.

Sonia Sotomayor, appointed by President Obama in 2009, is 71 years old.

In 2022, a handful of House Democrats demanded that Thomas resign or be impeached because he would not recuse himself from cases related to the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot.

United States Supreme Court: Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts, Associate Justice Samuel Alito and Associate Justice Elena Kagan, Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

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Select committee investigators on Jan. 6 learned that the judge's wife, Ginny Thomas, sent text messages to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows urging him to challenge Donald Trump. Lost in the 2020 elections.

Fox News Digital's Brynn Deppisch and Chris Pandolfo contributed to this report.