Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito are the two most GOP-friendly Supreme Court justices.
That was apparent long before they were the lone dissenters from Monday night’s order that rejected President Donald Trump’s desired mail-ballot restrictions for the midterm elections.
But Trump’s subsequent Truth Social post blasting his own appointees, who ruled against him, while praising Thomas and Alito as “legends,” highlights the president’s recognition that those two justices are the most likely to back him and the Republican Party in cases like the one he lost Monday night.
That recognition is significant because he may have an opportunity to appoint one or both of their replacements before he leaves office in 2029.
Although they are not very old by Supreme Court standards, Thomas, 78, and Alito, 76, are the current court’s two most senior members, having been appointed by Republican presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, respectively.
While retirement speculation has mounted ahead of the midterms, where the GOP is fighting to maintain congressional control, there is no immediate sign that either justice is going to step down soon. The court returns to the bench next month for its new term.
Yet if the time comes for Trump to nominate one or both of their replacements, he might have cases like his mail-voting loss in mind. In the Truth Social post on Tuesday in which he called Thomas and Alito “legends,” the president also resurfaced his criticism of his earlier losses in the tariffs and birthright citizenship cases, both of which likewise produced dissents from Thomas and Alito.
“These are not the people I interviewed to serve on the United States Supreme Court, they are merely a shell of their original selves,” Trump’s post said, in an apparent reference to his three appointees, who ruled against him on Monday: Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. (Kavanaugh published a concurring opinion that said he thought the administration had a decent argument on the Postal Service’s authority but that it was still too close to the midterms to implement Trump’s chosen mail-ballot restrictions.)
The president’s social media complaint therefore doubles as a job posting for potential future Supreme Court nominees that says, in effect: “Anyone thinking about ever ruling against me need not apply.”
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