NPR retracted a story on Tuesday after falsely reporting that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito had retired.
NPR published a story headlined, “Justice Samuel Alito, who published the opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, retires,” that would have rocked the Supreme Court. However, NPR quickly retracted the story and replaced it with an editor’s note.
“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,” NPR wrote.
NPR top editor Thomas Evans said the reporter has reached out to apologize to Justice Alito.
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“Due to a misunderstanding, NPR’s Supreme Court and Legal Affairs Correspondent Nina Totenberg incorrectly reported that Justice Samuel Alito had retired. Neither Justice Alito nor the Supreme Court Public Information Office has announced his retirement,” Evans told Fox News Digital.
“As soon as the error was realized, the story was retracted and removed from NPR’s website and an on-air correction was broadcast. We regret the error and any confusion this may have caused,” Evans continued. “This afternoon, Mrs. Totenberg will appear on ‘All Things Considered’ to explain what happened. She has reached out to Justice Alito to apologize.”
The Supreme Court did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Fox News Digital. Courthouse News reporter Kelsey Reichmann posted a comment from SCOTUS public information officer declaring the NPR report to be “inaccurate.”
Rumors about Alito, 76, potentially retiring have grown because of his age, his two-decade tenure on the bench and speculation that he may want to make sure a conservative successor is confirmed by the current Republican-led Senate before the upcoming midterm elections. Former President George W. Bush nominated him for the nation’s highest court in 2005.
In April, a source told Fox News Digital that Alito “is not stepping down this term and is in the process of hiring the rest of his clerks for the next term.” Two other sources have told Fox News that Alito is not retiring this term, which lasts until the Supreme Court’s new year kicks off in October.
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President Donald Trump recently told Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo he is “prepared” to appoint up to three Supreme Court justices if vacancies arise. Trump added he has a shortlist of nominees in mind, though he did not mention any names.
During that interview, Trump said he thinks Alito, who has sided with him on most high-profile cases, is “in very good physical health” and called him “one of the great justices of our time.”
In 2025, Trump’s rescissions package included over $1 billion in cuts from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the government-backed funding arm for NPR and PBS. The clawback package teed up cuts to “woke” spending on foreign aid programs and public media, as Republicans finally yanked federal money from NPR in a move advocates said was long overdue.
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Once Trump returned to the White House, stripping public media of federal funding began to emerge as a realistic possibility after longtime NPR editor Uri Berliner spoke out about the public radio outlet in 2024 with a Free Press essay. Berliner, who detailed the “absence of viewpoint diversity” at the organization, criticized NPR’s coverage of Russiagate, the COVID lab leak theory and Hunter Biden’s scandalous laptop, among other issues.
Once Trump signed the rescissions package into law, Republicans celebrated it as a victory for cutting off the flow of U.S. taxpayer dollars to what they called “woke” initiatives.
NPR has continued to operate, relying on benefactors, member donations, and corporate sponsorship.
This is a developing story, more to come.
Fox News Digital’s Julia Bonavita, Alec Schemmel and Ashley Oliver contributed to this report.
