At the beginning of the year, one of my crystal-ball predictions for 2026 was that Samuel Alito and/or Clarence Thomas would retire so President Trump could replace them before the midterms.
Recent reporting suggests that prediction may prove correct, especially with speculation that Alito is considering stepping down. So I checked with some sources to see which names are circulating as possible replacements.
Why should our side ever put a judge on the Supreme Court who sides with the left on the sanctity of life for any reason?
The reality is Alito is not easily replaced. He has been one of the best Supreme Court justices of this century. His successor cannot be some C-plus or B-minus judge with a fuzzy record and a habit of folding at the wrong moment. The stakes are too high.
That is why one name worries me: Judge Andrew Oldham.
Trump already passed on Oldham for the Supreme Court in 2020 and for good reason. What remains of our constitutional republic does not have time for a “meh” nominee.
Oldham, a former general counsel to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R), now serves on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. A quick look at his record shows a pattern that should alarm anyone hoping for another Alito.
Let’s start with life.
Alito authored the phenomenal majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson, which overturned Roe v. Wade, one of the most wicked decisions in American history. Oldham’s record points the other way. In 2000, Bill Clinton’s FDA treated pregnancy as an “illness” to justify accelerated approval of abortion drugs as the supposed “cure.” Years later, a Trump-appointed district judge rightly rejected that decision, and a Trump-appointed circuit judge backed him. Oldham, however, became the first circuit judge to side with the Clinton FDA’s position on procedural grounds.
The American Family Association called that decision “shockingly weak” at the time. The Supreme Court effectively vindicated that criticism in 2024 when it overturned Oldham by a 6-3 vote.
Why should our side ever put a judge on the Supreme Court who sides with the left on the sanctity of life for any reason?
The concerns do not stop there.
AFA, which tracks judicial nominations as well as any group on the right, has also described Oldham as “soft” on COVID shot mandates. He earned that reputation when he wrote an opinion saying schools need not require children to wear masks, not because masks do not work, but because schools could instead adopt other COVID policies involving vaccines, plexiglass, hand sanitizer, distancing, and more.
The opinion was so weak that no other judge joined it.
Then came gender ideology. Last year, my Blaze Media colleague Daniel Horowitz reported on Oldham siding against doctors and with the Biden administration’s edict that they must perform gender-transition procedures on children by refusing even to hear their challenge. Oldham had a chance to join a Trump-appointed judge who rejected Biden’s grotesque mandate. He passed.
His immigration record raises more red flags.
Oldham declined to back a Trump-appointed district judge who ruled against allowing illegal aliens to receive cheaper in-state college tuition than out-of-state Americans. That alone should have disqualified him from serious consideration.
Thankfully, Trump’s Justice Department sued last year to end that practice in Texas, where Oldham’s former client is governor. Once the Justice Department sued, Texas finally conceded the point. Now left-wing groups want the courts to restore that anti-American policy. And which legal precedent are they citing? Oldham’s.
You cannot make it up.
Nor was that his only immigration failure. Oldham also ruled against Abbott when the governor declared an invasion at the southern border two years ago. Does that sound like a judge ready to overturn Plyler v. Doe, the disastrous precedent that for illegal immigration serves much the same function Roe once served for abortion?
Now sensing that his moment may have arrived, Oldham appears to be trying to retcon himself as a reliably based jurist. Even Slate has noticed the pattern — the judicial equivalent of a comb-over meant to hide an obvious weakness. The result has been embarrassing. He now gets overturned with some regularity by one of the most right-leaning Supreme Courts in recent memory.
That tends to happen when ambition outruns conviction.
Oldham once lobbied Barack Obama to appoint Elizabeth Warren, of all people, to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Now he wants conservatives to view him as Alito’s natural heir. That kind of ideological shape-shifting should make everyone nervous. When a man’s career seems driven more by advancement than by principle, it becomes hard to know where he actually stands.
That was never a question with Alito.
Replacing a sure thing requires another sure thing. Oldham is not that. Maybe he has good explanations for parts of his record. But maybe Trump can do better.
This may be Trump’s last chance to appoint a Supreme Court justice. It would amount to a self-own of historic proportions for the most based president of modern times to replace Alito with someone appreciably weaker than a George W. Bush appointee turned out to be.
In its review of old X and Tumblr accounts believed to have belonged to New York City Democrat Mayor Zohran Mamdani's wife, Ruma Duwaji, the Washington Free Beacon discovered posts glorifying Palestinian terrorists and romanticizing Islamic martyrdom.
For instance, Duwaji, the child of Syrian migrants, appears to have posted a photo on Sept. 23, 2017, of Palestinian terrorist Leila Khaled captioned, "If it does good for my cause, I'll be happy to accept death."
'American soldiers fighting in imperialist wars are not brave.'
Khaled, a prominent member of the U.S.-designated terrorist organization Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine who claimed in a 2024 interview that the "7th of October was a must," was involved in plane hijackings both in 1969 and 1970.
On March 8, 2015, Duwaji reportedly shared a post praising Shadia Abu Ghazaleh, a PFLP terrorist who participated in the bombing of an Israeli bus and ultimately blew herself up in 1968 building a bomb she apparently meant to use on an Israeli building.
In July 2015, Mamdani's wife apparently shared a post stating, "American soldiers fighting in imperialist wars are not brave nor are they fighting for anyone's freedom. They are mercilessly slaughtering 3rd world civilians and fighting to maintain American hegemony."
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When Snapchat added Tel Aviv to its "live story" feature that same year, Duwaji reportedly retweeted a post that stated, "@Snapchat has disappointed me. F**k #TelAviv. Shouldn't exist in the first place. They're occupiers. You celebrate them."
Duwaji's old account appears to have been deactivated in the wake of the Beacon's exposé.
Blaze News did not receive a response from New York City Hall.
CNN pundit Scott Jennings and Dalia Al-Aqidi, a Republican running for Congress in Minnesota, highlighted on Wednesday the liberal media's kid-glove treatment of Mamdani's wife, especially when compared with the treatment the wife of another high-profile figure has received.
Jennings responded to the Beacon report, writing, "Remember when the national media tried to impeach Justice Alito because his wife hung up George Washington's flag on their porch?"
Whereas the liberal media appears reluctant to indict Mamdani for the foreign-focused radicalism of his 28-year-old wife, the media desperately attempted to paint Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito in recent years as ideologically compromised and incapable of faithfully executing his judicial duties because his wife, Martha-Ann Alito, supposedly hoisted American flags.
The CNN pundit highlighted headlines corresponding with the controversy ginned up by Obama hagiographer Jodi Kantor in May 2024.
Kantor concern-mongered about a "'Stop the Steal' Symbol" — the American flag suspended upside down — allegedly displayed at Justice Alito's house in January 2021. Kantor suggested on the basis of insights from so-called experts that "the flag was a clear violation of ethics rules ... and could sow doubt about Justice Alito's impartiality in cases related to the election and Capitol riot."
Justice Alito explained, however, that the distressed flag had nothing to do with the Jan. 6 protests as insinuated but was rather hoisted by his wife in response to alleged verbal abuse from a neighbor who had erected a "F**k Trump" sign within 50 feet of where children await the school bus.
'The mayor is weaponizing the mainstream media.'
Democrats nevertheless made hay of the story with the intention of sidelining Alito, while Kantor — who had effectively blown up her original framing with a report detailing the harassment Mrs. Alito endured before the distressed flag was raised — joined other liberal propagandists in penning another alarmist piece about an "Appeal to Heaven" flag spotted over Alito's New Jersey beach house.
Other publications, including Rolling Stone magazine, got in on the action, attacking Mrs. Alito for expressing mainstream conservative views.
Dalia Al-Aqidi noted in a March 18 op-ed, "When Martha-Ann Alito, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, flew an upside-down American flag at her home in 2021, it triggered national outrage and relentless media coverage. The standard was clear: proximity to power is power. And with power comes scrutiny. But in Duwaji's case, we are told to look away by the mayor. Why?"
"The mayor is weaponizing the mainstream media and the political class's fear of being labeled 'Islamophobic,'" said Al-Aqidi.
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Mere hours after the Supreme Court handed down its decision on Trump's tariffs under the authority of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, President Trump responded with a lengthy Truth Social post. Though the court ruled against him, Trump was not nearly as angry with the decision as might be expected.
On Friday afternoon, President Trump posted an unexpectedly optimistic message in the wake of SCOTUS' decision. Trump's layered response, which echoed very closely his live reaction in a press conference, spilled into two separate posts.
'Today I will sign an Order to impose a 10% GLOBAL TARIFF, under Section 122, over and above our normal TARIFFS already being charged.'
Trump began by praising the "Strength, Wisdom, and Love of our Country" exhibited by dissenting Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh before attacking those in the majority:
"The Democrats on the Court are thrilled, but they will automatically vote 'NO' against ANYTHING that makes America Strong and Healthy Again. They, also, are a Disgrace to our Nation. Others think they’re being 'politically correct,' which has happened before, far too often, with certain Members of this Court when, in fact, they’re just FOOLS and 'LAPDOGS' for the RINOS and Radical Left Democrats and, not that this should have anything to do with it, very unpatriotic, and disloyal to the Constitution."
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Trump then suggested that the court "has been swayed by foreign interests" who are "dancing in the streets" as a result of the ruling.
However, Trump then said that the decision was largely a positive development because it clarified the president's authority under the IEEPA only, while leaving open several other avenues for imposing tariffs: "All of those TARIFFS remain, but other alternatives will now be used to replace the ones that the Court incorrectly rejected."
He drew from Justice Kavanaugh's dissenting opinion to illustrate the "different direction" that he will pursue, "which is even stronger than our original choice." As Trump noted, Kavanaugh wrote,
Although I firmly disagree with the Court's holding today, the decision might not substantially constrain a President's ability to order tariffs going forward. That is because numerous other federal statutes authorize the President to impose tariffs and might justify most (if not all) of the tariffs issued in this case. ... Those statutes include, for example, the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 (Section 232); the Trade Act of 1974 (Sections 122, 201, and 301); and the Tariff Act of 1930 (Section 338).
Trump omitted Kavanaugh's mention of "a few procedural steps" that may be required with these other avenues for tariffs that the IEEPA does not require.
Nearing the end of his post, Trump argued that the Supreme Court had unintentionally made the president's "ability to both regulate TRADE, and impost TARIFFS, more powerful and crystal clear, rather than less."
As a result, Trump issued several orders at the end of his post, indicating his intention to continue the tariffs, including a "10% GLOBAL TARIFF," under the existing statutory authorities cited earlier in the post:
"Therefore, effective immediately, all National Security TARIFFS, Section 232 and existing Section 301 TARIFFS, remain in place, and in full force and effect. Today I will sign an Order to impose a 10% GLOBAL TARIFF, under Section 122, over and above our normal TARIFFS already being charged, and we are also initiating several Section 301 and other Investigations to protect our Country from unfair Trading practices," Trump wrote.
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Shortly after the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was leaked, the public saw just how far pro-abortion activists were willing to go to try and stop the court from overturning Roe v. Wade after a would-be assassin was arrested outside Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home. But the attempt on Kavanaugh’s life […]
'Abortion supporters had an incentive to kill one or more of the justices in the majority to change the outcome,' Hemingway writes in Alito>.
'If it's not crossing the physical border, what is the magic thing ... that we're looking for where we say, "Ah, now that person we can say 'arrives in' the United States?"' asked Justice Barrett.
The judges let Congress off the hook, further incentivizing the legislature’s dereliction while effectively usurping power from the political branches of government.
Where is the media outrage at Justice Jackson attending an overtly partisan awards show where the attendees trashed the Trump admin?
In no particular order, here are 10 great Justice Alito quotes to commemorate his 20 years on the Supreme Court.
In a stunning admission, Democrat Lisa Cook’s attorney conceded that President Trump possesses the legal authority to remove his client from her role as a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. The moment came during Wednesday’s Supreme Court oral arguments in Trump v. Cook, which centers around a request brought by the Trump […]
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