Justice Samuel Alito's unvarnished politics revealed in new secretly record audio

“One side or the other is going to win,” Alito told Lauren Windsor, thinking he was talking to a right-wing activist. “There are differences on fundamental things that really can't be compromised."

In a conversation he didn’t know was being recorded, embattled Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito shared his private belief that his movement’s battle with secular forces in the country was a zero-sum contest of irreconcilable values. 

“One side or the other is going to win,” Alito says in the audio, recorded last Monday. Alito thought he was speaking with a fellow right-wing movement activist, but was in fact talking to progressive activist and journalist Lauren Windsor. ”I mean, there can be a way of working -- a way of living together peacefully, but it's difficult, you know, because there are differences on fundamental things that really can't be compromised. It's not like you can split the difference.”

Alito was responding to a question from Lauren Windsor, a progressive advocacy journalist and activist who regularly records conversations with Republicans and conservative movement leaders. The conversation happened at a reception for the Supreme Court Historical Society.

Windsor is my guest on the podcast Deconstructed this week, which posts today, as well as on Breaking Points. You can find it here or by searching Deconstructed on any platform. We’re publishing the secret audio in partnership with Rolling Stone. You can also find the audios on Windsor’s Twitter feed. 

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Windsor, as she introduced herself, reminded Alito that she had spoken with him a year earlier at the same event and wanted to ask him the same question. “What I asked you about was about the polarization in this country, about, like, how do we repair that rift?” she asked. “And considering everything that's been going on in the past year, you know, as a Catholic, and as someone who really cherishes my faith, I just don't — I don't know that we can negotiate with the left in the way that needs to happen for the polarization to end. I think it is a matter of like, winning.”

“I think you’re probably right,” Alito said, before delving into his analysis that “one side or the other is going to win,” a zero-sum approach to political warfare. Windsor also spoke with Chief Justice John Roberts that evening, and the stark difference between the two answers was remarkable. Roberts rejected Windsor’s premise, suggesting that it is not the job of the Court to dictate morality. 

Alito, meanwhile, agreed with Windsor that believers need to fight “to return our country to a place of godliness.”

“I think that the solution really is winning the moral argument,” Windsor said. “People in this country who believe in God have got to keep fighting for that, to return our country to a place of godliness.”

“Oh, I agree with you. I agree with you,” Alito said.

Windsor in the past has been criticized by conservatives for leading her interlocutors on, but her conversation with Roberts shows that Alito easily had other directions to take the question. “I believe that the founders were godly, were Christians, and I think that we live in a Christian nation, and that our Supreme Court should be guiding us in that path,” Windsor said, as Roberts cut her off. 

“I don't know if that's true,” he said. “I don't know that we live in a Christian nation. I know a lot of Jewish and Muslim friends who would say maybe not, and it's not our job to do that. It's our job to decide the cases as best we can.”

Roberts also argued that it was not unusual for the court to be in the middle of heated cultural and political battles. “With everything that's going on right now, it's a very tumultuous time in the country. And I'm just curious, from your perspective on the court, how do we start to repair the polarization?” Windsor asked.

“The first thing I think is to tell me when the non-tumultuous time has been here,” he said. “I mean, you're looking at the court -- what the court was doing in the ‘60s, what the court was doing during the New Deal, what the court was doing, you know, after Dred Scott and all this. It's kind of a regular thing. People think it's so different and special. It's been pretty tumultuous for a long time. Vietnam.”

“So you think this is a normal period?” she asked. 

“You know, I don't know if it's normal,” he responded. “I mean, since I've been here all of 20 years, there've been quieter times. But the idea that the court is in the middle of a lot of tumultuous stuff going on, that's nothing new.”

“I guess I just really feel like we're at a point in our country where the polarization is so extreme that it might be irreparable,” Windsor told him, and Roberts interrupted. 

“Oh I don’t think that. Polarization that’s extreme is like the Civil War,” he said, adding that the Vietnam era was also intense. “People with their own perspective think this is so extraordinary. Eh, I don't know.”

“You don't think there's like a role for the court in, like, guiding us toward a more moral path?” Windsor asked.

“No, I think the role of the court is deciding the cases,” he said. “Would you want me to be in charge of guiding us toward a more moral path? That's for the people we elect. That's not for lawyers.”

Alito has been under fire for having flown two flags associated with insurrectionary elements of the far right. He blamed one of them on his wife. 

Windsor attended the reception under her real name and introduced herself to Alito as Lauren, reminding him they had spoken the year before. A year earlier, Alito had been more cautious in his answers to Windsor, sounding more like Roberts than the radicalized contemporary Alito. 

Windsor, at the 2023 reception, had asked Alito how we could repair the polarization rifts in the country. “I don't think it's something we can do. We have a very defined role,” he said of the court. “We need to do what we're supposed to do. But this is a bigger problem. This is way above us. I wish I knew the answer.”

Alito is under significant pressure to recuse himself as the Supreme Court weighs whether to grant former President Trump immunity from prosecution. In fact, there’s a petition urging him to recuse from the case that readers can sign here. A ruling in the case is expected before the end of the month. 

A spokesperson for the Supreme Court did not respond to a request for comment.