A map of Europe's natural gas pipelines from the trade body ENTSOG.
ENTSOG
The security of Europe's energy infrastructure is in the spotlight after the Nord Stream damage.
Norway, now Europe's biggest supplier of oil and gas, is on high alert after acts of "sabotage".
Take a look at the sprawling network that transports natural gas around Europe.
The security of Europe's oil and gas infrastructure is under scrutiny following the discovery of leaks in the Nord Stream pipelines that have further heightened tensions with Russia.
On Thursday, Sweden's coast guard said it had identified a fourth leak earlier this week, meaning there were two in the Swedish exclusive economic zone and another two in Denmark's zone.
NATO has warned it could retaliate against what it called "sabotage", while Norway – a member of the military alliance – is planning to mobilize its military around its own infrastructure.
"The military will be more visible at Norwegian oil and gas installations," prime minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said on Wednesday, Reuters reported.
The United Nations Security Council is due to meet on Friday to discuss damage to the pipelines at Russia's request.
Moscow has also said sabotage was a possibility and branded claims that it was responsible for the damage as "stupid".
A wider map of European natural gas infrastructure.
ENTSOG
Norway is now the biggest exporter of oil and gas to Europe, overtaking Russia following the imposition of Western sanctions in the wake of the Ukraine invasion. The Nordic nation has several undersea pipelines running to the rest of the continent, according to the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Gas (ENTSOG), a trade body.
But experts say that also makes Norway, and its Baltic neighbors, more vulnerable to potential sabotage.
"Norway's gas supply is probably the biggest and most strategically important target for sabotage in all of Europe right now," Lieutenant Colonel Geir Hågen Karlsen told state broadcaster NRK, The Financial Times reported.
Norway has more than 5,000 miles of oil and gas pipelines, according to Norwegian Petroleum, making the security task difficult.
"The Norwegian response is understandable," Britain's first sea lord and chief of naval staff Adm Sir Ben Key told The Guardian about Norway's mobilization.
Kay pointed out it wasn't just energy that was at risk of interference. Most of Europe's internet connectivity comes from undersea cables, according to the European Parliament.
"There is a vulnerability around anything that sits on the seabed, whether that's gas pipelines, whether that's data cables that places an obligation on organizations like the Royal Navy – but not just us – to have a means of monitoring and providing security around it," he said.
Happy Friday, readers! The air is getting cooler and Spirit Halloween stores have overtaken defunct big-box retailers, so you know what that means: It's nearly October.
Today, we're looking back to a simpler time — earlier this year. It was before Elon Musk had announced his decision to buy Twitter (and even longer before he announced his decision not to buy Twitter).
In those days, Musk was messaging industry heavyweights from Jack Dorsey to Sam Bankman-Fried's advisor. And now, as his legal battle with Twitter continues, some of those texts have been released — and there were some juicy revelations.
Let's take a look at the messages, shall we?
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1. A trove of Elon Musk's texts have been released. As part of Twitter's lawsuit against Musk, texts between the Tesla billionaire and other powerful figures, including Twitter cofounder and former CEO Jack Dorsey, Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner, and Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, have been disclosed.
In a series of texts between Dorsey and Musk, Dorsey said he'd pushed Musk's addition to Twitter's board a year earlier, but Twitter's board "said no." Dorsey continued: "I trust you."
Meanwhile, a text exchange showed Döpfner encouraged Musk to buy Twitter in March. He added that the move would be "a real contribution to democracy."
In the crypto space, Sam Bankman-Fried's advisor told Musk the FTX founder was also possibly interested in buying Twitter. See more from their conversations.
As you can see, Musk's phone has been bombarded by texts from executives, bankers, and other notable figures from tech, finance, and media. We sifted through text logs from the likes of Reid Hoffman and Joe Rogan to find the juiciest private texts released.
2. A musician who raised an AI "baby" has another experiment that could usher in a new world of art. Holly Herndon, an experimental musician and artist, created a digital twin of herself (named Holly+) to harmonize with. Her project highlights the advantages of AI, while proving it isn't merely a substitute for human creativity. Take an inside look at the future of art.
3. Google is shutting down its game-streaming service Stadia. After two years, Google announced it'd be shutting down the cloud-gaming service, saying it "hasn't gained the traction with users that we expected." Users will have access to their games through January 18 — here's what else users should know.
4. How much do Apple employees get paid? By combing through data, Insider was able to determine how much engineers, data scientists, and thousands of other employees at the tech giant make, and many salaries start in the six-figure range. See how much you could make at Apple.
5. Meta just announced a hiring freeze. According to Bloomberg, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the freeze, saying most team budgets would be reduced and warning employees of a potential restructuring. Get the full rundown here.
6. TripActions has filed confidentially for an IPO. A person familiar with the matter said the startup, which aims to modernize business travel, has filed to go public next year. TripActions is targeting a $12 billion valuation — a rare exception in the frozen IPO market. Read our exclusive report.
8. Leaked screenshots reveal new pay scales that Amazon is using to increase compensation for warehouse workers. Amazon is raising starting pay for its 750,000 US warehouse workers to an average $19 an hour, but the amount of individual workers' pay bumps varies by location and their tenure — and some workers aren't thrilled. Here's how the raises will be allocated, and what workers told us.
9. Elon Musk says Tesla's Cybertruck will be able to "serve briefly as a boat." In a tweet, the Tesla CEO said the electric trucks will be waterproof and able to "cross rivers, lakes & even seas that aren't too choppy." What to know about the Tesla Cyber… boat.
10. Amazon just announced several new smart home products. The lineup includes a new Ring camera with radar sensors, and Echo devices that can turn into Eero mesh Wi-Fi satellites. Take a look at all of Amazon's new gadgets and features.
Keep updated with the latest tech news throughout your day by checking out The Refresh from Insider, a dynamic audio news brief from the Insider newsroom. Listen here.
Jareh Sebastian Dalke had worked at the NSA for a month and took three classified documents with him when he left the agency.
Jens Buettner/picture alliance via Getty Images
A former NSA employee is accused of attempting to sell top-secret files to a foreign government.
Jareh Sebastian Dalke tried to sell these files to an undercover FBI agent.
Dalke now faces, per the DOJ, three charges under the Espionage Act.
A former National Security Agency employee has been accused by the Department of Justice of trying to sell US defense secrets to a foreign government.
Jareh Sebastian Dalke, 30, was arrested on Wednesday in Denver, Colorado, per a DOJ press release. Dalke was caught after he liaised with an undercover FBI agent posing as a representative of a foreign government.
Dalke worked as an information systems security designer at the NSA from June 6 to July 1, per the DOJ's press release.
The DOJ alleged in its criminal complaint that between August and September, Dalke had used an encrypted account to send excerpts of classified documents to someone he thought was a foreign official, who turned out to be an FBI agent.
Per the DOJ, Dalke had taken three classified documents with him when he left the NSA. According to the criminal complaint, Dalke sent excerpts of the documents — including their classification markings — as a "small sample to what is possible."
The affidavit stated that Dalke had also sent the undercover FBI agent a complete, four-page document containing information on an unnamed foreign leader as a "show of good faith," saying he was "willing to provide full documents without reservation."
The undercover agent paid Dalke around $16,000 in the cryptocurrency he requested. Dalke then asked for $85,000 to hand over the files he had on hand.
On August 11, several days after this exchange, Dalke applied to rejoin the NSA. The DOJ alleged in its affidavit that it believed Dalke was "seeking to access additional national defense information."
Dalke currently faces charges for three violations of the Espionage Act, which "carries a potential sentence of death or any term of years up to life," per the DOJ.
Friday eve means the weekend's just around the corner, but it seems like nobody told the British bond market. I'm your host, Phil Rosen, and boy do we have action to sort through today.
Here's the TLDR of today's newsletter: The Bank of England is in a pickle because it's trying to ease and tighten its monetary policy at the same time.
It's a tricky, unusual situation. The balancing act, at worst, could mean a calamity for the British economy and prolonged volatility in markets.
And at best, policymakers thread the needle and stabilize markets, tame inflation, and regain the confidence of traders and everyday folks dealing with a tough economy.
Let's break it down.
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1. The Bank of England announced Wednesday that it would snap up as many UK government bonds — "gilts" — as needed in order to stabilize debt markets, as well as delaying the start date of its bond sales.
The decision to intervene followed the pound's drop to a record-low Monday, and a significant rise in yields on gilts, all in response to a dramatic, debt-funded tax-cut proposal.
Remember Econ 101? A weaker currency means imports get more expensive, and higher bond yields mean government borrowing gets more expensive.
So, the bank decided it wouldn't allow yields to climb to the point where they caused a credit crunch, making it impossible for households or businesses to take out loans.
After it said it would make temporary purchases of gilts until October 14 at "whatever scale necessary," the yield on the UK 10-year bonds did fall 43 basis points to 4.08%, after closing at 4.51% on Tuesday.
"The Bank of England is facing a very, very difficult dilemma right now," Christoph Schon, senior director of applied research at Qontigo, told me on the phone from London yesterday. "The bank wants to quiet down markets and stabilize credit conditions in the UK."
Schon added that the volatility has made forecasting all but impossible, and that the bank is deploying two opposing forces simultaneously.
"There's a lot of concern and confusion,"he said. "Really, there's almost no trust in the prime minister and the Chancellor."
The UK's bond-buying spree is quantitative easing, which usually is how banks stimulate economies via injecting more liquidity into them, as Insider's Theron Mohamed writes.
It can, however, stoke inflation, which goes against the BoE's rate-hiking cycle which aims to bring down inflation.
"In the same day, we've had rate hikes being priced in and out of the market," Schon said. "It's extremely volatile right now, and it's hard to trust any predictions."
What will it take for bond market traders to regain confidence in the UK debt market? Emailprosen@insider.comor tweet@philrosenn.
7. The US economy is heading for a hard landing and a downturn next year because of the Fed's aggressive tightening measures, according to Stanley Druckenmiller. "I will be stunned if we don't have a recession in '23," the billionaire investor told CNBC on Wednesday. See what else he expects to happen.
8. Jeremy Grantham and four other money managers shared their top strategies for navigating a bear market in stocks. When the going gets tough in financial markets, it can be hard to know the safest places to invest your money and where to get the best returns. Here's what some of Wall Street's top experts had to say.
9. Stifel's stock chief shared four places to put your money now as an "immediate window" for returns opens up even as stocks hit a near-term bottom. Barry Bannister said inflation is slowing fast enough that the Fed will announce a data-dependent pause by early next year — and that the S&P 500 could climb back to 4,400 before another sell-off and recession.
Keep up with the latest markets news throughout your day by checking out The Refresh from Insider, a dynamic audio news brief from the Insider newsroom. Listen here.
An Amazon delivery worker pulls a delivery cart full of packages.
Brendan McDermid/Reuters
Amazon announced Wednesday it's upping pay for warehouse workers and drivers by roughly $1 per hour.
Insider reported earlier Wednesday Amazon was planning pay increases.
Amazon has faced organized worker protests and unionization battles this year.
Amazon announced Wednesday it is increasing the average starting pay for its warehouse workers and drivers from $18 per hour to $19 per hour, starting in October.
Insider's Katherine Long reported Amazon was planning broad pay raises of between $0.50 and $1 on Wednesday before Amazon's announcement.
Amazon said in its press statement it will spend almost $1 billion on the pay changes over the next year.
Amazon also announced it is changing a program it calls Anytime Pay, which allows workers to access up to 70% of their pay at any point during the month.
Whereas previously workers picked times once or twice a month to get paid, Amazon says they'll now be able to access Anytime Pay "as often as they like."
Amazon did not say specifically why it had chosen now to up pay for its warehouse workers and drivers.
"Continuing to invest in pay, providing easy access to earned wages at any time during the month, and offering great benefits and career advancement opportunities are all part of our long-term efforts to be the best employer in the world," Senior Vice President of Worldwide Operations John Felton said in a statement.
Some Amazon workers have been pressuring Amazon to improve pay and benefits this year.
The UK government's plan to slash taxes and stimulate economic growth has backfired spectacularly.
Most Britons support raising taxes, and the proposals would likely widen the country's wealth gap.
The episode risks lifting inflation higher still and levying new economic pain on all Britons.
UK Prime Minister Liz Truss has been in office for just 22 days, but her new plans to cut taxes on the wealthy have already sent markets plunging, solicited ire from an international banking group, and sown outrage among the country's taxpayers.
What was introduced as an effort to boost the UK's economic growth is backfiring to an extraordinary degree. The blowback could range from a weaker British pound to a government default, even higher inflation, higher unemployment, a bigger wealth gap, and a crippling recession.
It all began when Truss unveiled a mini-budget on Friday that proposed sweeping tax cuts for the rich and abolishing a tax on property purchases less than £250,000 ($269,000). According to Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, the aim was to lift the struggling UK economy and cut the risk of a near-term downturn.
It didn't take long for economists and investors to see through the veil. The British pound slumped to a record low against the US dollar on Monday as investors bet the tax cuts would weaken the pound and balloon the British deficit.
The International Monetary Fund called on Truss to "re-evaluate" the package on Tuesday, saying the plan as it stands would likely increase economic inequality and undermine the Bank of England's efforts to cool inflation.
"Given elevated inflation pressures in many countries, including the UK, we do not recommend large and untargeted fiscal packages at this juncture," the IMF said.
For most Britons, the plan's passage could quickly translate to a wider wealth gap plummeting investment balances, and even faster inflation. The economy has already been slowing under the weight of massive interest rate hikes and surging energy prices. Short-term stimulus from the tax cuts could lift growth for a short period, but the hangover could leave many Britons jobless and struggling to cover even higher costs.
The Bank of England has stepped in with emergency bond purchases to ease market functioning, but the move undermines its own plans to start selling bonds and tighten financial conditions further. With inflation still raging across the UK, the intervention threatens to keep price growth at a historically fast pace.
Economic chaos is set to weigh on Britons one way or another
Tax cuts may seem like welcome relief to most Britons, but if enacted, the economic pain is likely to be significant.
For one, the Bank of England will probably need to hasten its efforts to pull inflation lower. That means that what some Britons might save in levied taxes, they'll pay for in higher mortgage rates, pricier credit-card debt, and weaker business investment.
A more aggressive hiking cycle would also weigh heavily on the labor market. Higher rates tend to curb companies' hiring plans and even spark layoffs as firms look to cut costs and preserve margins. As such, the Bank of England's actions could pull the UK into a self-imposed recession as jobs are lost, spending slows, and the economy weakens.
The British public is likely to push back against the reforms. A survey conducted by the National Centre for Social Research earlier in September found most Britons support hiking taxes and spending on health, education, and social programs. Almost half of the surveyed adults said they back redistributing income to those in need, and more than two-thirds of respondents said working Britons don't get a fair cut of the country's wealth.
The richest 10% of households held 43% of the country's wealth from April 2018 to March 2020, according to the Office for National Statistics. The bottom half of earners, meanwhile, held just 9% of national wealth.
Truss' shift toward Reaganomics puts the UK economy in a bind
The Conservative government's proposal will sound familiar to Americans with knowledge of US fiscal policy in the 1980s. President Ronald Reagan pursued similar tax cuts for corporations and wealthier Americans as well as widespread deregulation, arguing the measures would pay for themselves by stimulating economic growth and that the benefits would "trickle down" to all Americans over time.
The policies amounted to an economic sugar rush. Growth improved modestly for some time before returning to the historical trend. Yet the tax reforms also grew the deficit dramatically throughout the 1980s, paving the way for dramatic cost-cutting in the following years.
There are similar concerns with Truss' economic plan. Since the proposal is far from fully paid for, its enactment would almost surely create a huge government deficit. If the market carnage continues, the government could be forced to either default on its debt or print more money to pay for it and risk hyperinflation.
It also injects more cash into the economy when inflation already sits at a 9.9% year-over-year rate. The Bank of England will either have to raise interest rates even more aggressively to further cool inflation, or inflation will run so hot that spending weakens and the economy backslides. Either way, some form of a recession looks increasingly likely.
Even if Truss' proposals are shelved, it would likely take some time to reverse the past week's damage. The pound remains dramatically lower against the dollar, placing more pressure on businesses that rely on imported goods. The UK also imports nearly half of its food and much of its energy commodities. A weaker pound could lead to dramatically higher prices for such goods, particularly as the winter brings colder weather and energy demand soars.
The dramatic events of the past several days leaves Truss with a steep uphill battle if she still aims to pass her proposals. And with markets still reeling from the Friday announcement, damage control is likely top-of-mind for many in Parliament.
Russian servicemen take part in military exercises at the Uspenovskyi training ground outside the city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Russia, on September 4, 2022.
Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images
The Defence Intelligence of Ukraine shared audio it said was intercepted from a Russian soldier.
The clip shows a man complaining about Putin and his partial mobilization plans.
He also says he will "pray for a wound" in Ukraine so he can go home.
Ukraine shared what it said was intercepted audio that showed a Russian soldier saying that he will "pray for a wound" so he can leave the front lines as soon as possible.
A four-minute clip of the intercepted phone call was shared by The Defence Intelligence of Ukraine on Tuesday. It said the conversation was between a Russian soldier based in the occupied city of Kherson and an unidentified woman.
In the call, the man tells the woman woman that his morale is "complete shit" and that he needs "to get wounded" so that he can go home, according to a translation from The Daily Beast.
It is unclear what the relationship between the man and the woman is. The audio has not been independently verified.
"If I get lucky I'll get pneumonia and leave," the man said in the audio, adding that he will "pray for a wound" because the soldiers who get wounded "leave here with tears [of joy] in their eyes," according to The Daily Beast.
The man also curses out "fuck face" Putin for his mobilization plans, adding that because the government is sending "half of Russia" to the front lines, they won't be able to pay everyone, according to the translation.
"Fuck, if they don't give me benefits and medals after all this bullshit, I'll go against the country [and join] the fucking opposition," the man added, according to The Daily Beast.
Putin's mobilization decree has prompted protests across Russia and even instances of violence, as thousands of Russians are desperately trying to exit their country.
A former US general said Tuesday that Putin's draft is a "recipe for slaughter" and that the conscripted Russians "will not be prepared for what they will encounter."
Gautam Adani is bullish on India, but not so much on China.
Ramesh Dave/Mint/Getty Images
Gautam Adani says China will feel "increasingly isolated," and sees a harder economic bounce back.
Companies and countries are turning away from globalization in favour of nationalism.
However, the global turbulence has quicked opportunities for the rise of India, plugs Adani.
India's Gautam Adani, the richest person in Asia, says China has an increasingly isolated outlook on the world stage.
"I anticipate that China – that was seen as the foremost champion of globalization – will feel increasingly isolated," Adani said in his keynote speech at the Forbes Global CEO Conference in Singapore on Tuesday. "Increasing nationalism, supply chain risk mitigation, and technology restrictions will have an impact."
The founder of the Adani Group conglomerate has a net worth of $139.8 billion as of September 27, and is the world's third-wealthiest person after Elon Musk and LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault, according to Forbes.
Following the COVID-19 pandemic and amid the war in Ukraine, companies and countries around the world are looking to protect their supply chains and reduce their dependence on others. As the factory for the world, China has benefited from globalization, but its tide may be turning — and its bounce back will be challenging,Adani said.
"China's Belt and Road initiative was expected to be a demonstration of its global ambitions, but the resistance now makes it challenging. And its housing and credit risks are drawing comparisons with what happened to the Japanese economy during the 'lost decade' of the 1990s," said Adani.
Meanwhile, global turbulence has "accelerated opportunities" for India, Adani said.
India has a burgeoning middle class and a young population that will drive its GDP to $30 trillion by 2050, up from $3 trillion currently, making it "bright spot" in the political and market perspective, Adani said. His projection echoes that of DK Srivastava, chief policy advisor at Ernst & Young India.
It would be in Adani's benefit to present India as a country of opportunity and potential: the Adani Group is a huge enterprise, with interests from energy to transportation and real estate. It's worth almost $234 billion as of September 29 — and that's just from seven publicly traded companies in the conglomerate.
"What I see ahead are the new principles of global engagement based on greater self-reliance, lowered supply chain risks, and stronger nationalism," Adani said.
Roger Stone, once an adviser and confidante to former President Donald Trump, addresses reporters in front of the Thomas P. O'Neill Jr. Federal Building
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Stone, a Trump confidante, sought a second pardon from the former president after the Capitol riot.
Stone was seen in footage saying "let's get right to the violence" the day before the 2020 election.
Stone had a prison sentence commuted by Trump before he left the White House.
Roger Stone sought a second pardon from former President Donald Trump after the Capitol riot, The New York Times reported Tuesday.
According to texts seen by the outlet, Stone — a former adviser to Trump — approached David Schoen, an attorney who represented Trump in his second impeachment trial, following the events of January 6, 2021.
Stone asked Schoen to "plug" his request for a pardon when he spoke to Trump, per the outlet. "At this point, I'd be happy if he pardoned me and Kerik again," Stone told Schoen, referring to Bernard Kerik, a former New York City police commissioner who Trump pardoned.
Kerik was sentenced to four years in prison in 2010 after he pleaded guilty to eight felony charges, including dodging taxes and giving false statements to White House officials while being vetted to be chief of the Department of Homeland Security.
"He's already pardoned both of us so he would take no heat for it whatsoever," Stone added, per The Times.
Per the outlet, he also told Schoen that there would be "mass prosecutions" following the Capitol riot. "If he can be the only president impeached twice maybe you should be the only person pardoned twice," Schoen replied, referring to Trump.
Trump commuted Stone's 40-month prison sentence before he left the White House. The pardon concerned Stone's November 2019 indictment and February 2020 sentence on one count of obstruction, five counts of making false statements to the FBI and congressional investigators, and one count of witness tampering in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe.
"Fuck the voting, let's get right to the violence," Stone can be heard saying to his associates during a car ride. "Shoot to kill, you see an Antifa — shoot to kill."
Russians are paying up to $27,000 to escape the country on private jets after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a partial mobilization of his country's reservists last week, The Guardian reported.
Companies that offer private jet flights have reported a sharp increase in requests for one-way flights out of Russia, according to The Guardian.
They are now charging between $21,500 and $27,000 for a seat on a private plane, as per the report.
Russians are predominantly heading to countries that still allow them to enter without a visa, including Turkey, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, The Guardian reported.
Many European countries say they will not allow Russians fleeing mobilization to enter, and many had already blocked Russian tourists.
Yevgeny Bikov, the director of a broker jet company Your Charter, told The Guardian that they used to get around 50 requests a day, but this number has now increased to 5,000 a day.
"The situation is absolutely crazy at the moment," he added.
Eduard Simonov, the CEO of aviation company FlightWay, told The Guardian that the demand for private jets has "increased by 50 times," adding that they're struggling to meet demands after EU sanctions earlier this year severely limited jet availability.
"All the European private jet firms have left the market. There is more demand than supply now and the prices are through the roof compared with six months ago," Simonov said.
Simonov also said that it's not only the rich that are looking into renting private jets, but that they are getting a "completely new client base ... people who never flew private before."
"There are many who had some extra money left and are looking to get away," Simonov added.
Putin announced a partial mobilization of reservist troops last week as part of the next phase of his ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
The announcement sparked panic among many Russians. Google searches for how to leave Russia surged, one-way plane tickets out of Moscow sold out, and satellite imagery shows long lines of cars at crossing points along Russia's borders.
There are widespread fears of a border closures as the outflow of military-aged men out of Russia continues.
But the Kremlin's official spokesperson Dmitry Peskov denied to reporters on Monday that he had any knowledge of planned border closures.
"I don't know anything about this. At the moment, no decisions have been taken on this," he said, according to Reuters.
After several years on the federal trial court in Manhattan, Shira Scheindlin began noticing signs that some of her senior colleagues were losing sharpness in their old age. She wasn't the only one.
And so, in her early 50s, Scheindlin found herself making a pact with two of her fellow judges: They would tell one another if they felt it was time for one of them to retire.
"I had seen too many judges stay too long," Scheindlin said. "It's a problem. It's just a problem. Some judges get too old to do it well."
Across the federal courts, other judges have quietly struck up similar ways to initiate retirement conversations if a colleague's sharpness dulls or competency wanes. The informal, if imperfect, arrangements reflect an awareness that age can affect the performance of federal judges, whose lifetime tenures come with the pitfall of growing doddery to the detriment not only to their own legacies but also to the functioning of the legal system and those subjected to it.
The Constitution conferred lifetime appointments on federal judges, including the justices of the Supreme Court, to shield the judiciary from political pressures of the day. But with lengthening lifespans, that bulwark for judicial independence has increasingly presented the risk of judges remaining in robes well past common retirement age and presiding over cases with diminished mental capacity or physical health.
While keenly aware of that risk, the court system has few tools — aside from gentle persuasion — to address those seen as having lost a step in old age, according to numerous current and former federal judges and other legal experts.
In interviews, several current and former judges said lifetime tenures came with considerable upside. On the whole, they said, lifetime tenures preserve the experience and expertise of judges who might otherwise be forced out prematurely by a mandatory retirement date.
"People age differently," Scheindlin said. "Some judges are 95 years old and they're terrific, but a whole bunch of others at 75 or more are not so terrific. It's hard to have one age cutoff when some people are fine in their 80s or 90s and others aren't."
But judges wield immense power, and the diminished capacity of any one can undermine the legitimacy and efficiency of the court system.
In criminal cases, they're tasked with ensuring a fair trial and, in the event of a guilty verdict, often hold the liberty of a convicted defendant in their hands. In other cases, judges are tasked with resolving high-stakes, costly private disputes. They oversee challenges to controversial government policies involving environmental protection, workers' rights, immigration, and healthcare.
"You have this dichotomy: There's absolute value to having older judges because of their breadth of experience," said Judge Frederic Block of the federal trial court in Brooklyn, New York, who at age 88 described himself as "very blessed" and in "great shape."
But, he added, "I do think there is this issue."
"For an attorney or a client," he said, "when you see a 99-year-old judge sitting, it adds — automatically — an X-factor into the case."
Judge Richard Posner once called for a mandatory retirement age, "probably 80.”
John Gress/Corbis via Getty Images
A cautionary tale
In nearly four decades on the federal bench, Richard Posner won renown as a prolific, widely cited judge who brought a brilliant legal mind and vivid writing style to the US Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit.
Such was his aura that — apart from his day job — Posner wrote or coauthored dozens of books on judging, including a memoir the Harvard University Press published in 2013.
Posner had planned to stay on the bench until age 80, which he believed was the upper limit for federal judges. But in 2017 he retired at age 78, citing "difficulty" with colleagues over the treatment of so-called pro se litigants who represent themselves in legal disputes.
His retirement stunned the legal world, bringing an abrupt end to a 36-year career on the bench. Soon, though, even his longtime admirers quietly wondered whether he had stayed too long.
Posner soon helped found a center devoted to supporting pro se litigants.
But his namesake legal organization — the Posner Center of Justice for Pro Se's — folded within a year of its founding. And in litigation over unpaid wages at the organization, Posner disclosed through his lawyer that he received a "confirmed diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease" about six months after his retirement, Reuters reported.
It was a painful end to a storied career — and, for some, a cautionary tale of a lifetime-tenured judge who may not have known when to quit.
"No one can force a federal judge to retire, really," said David Lat, a former clerk on the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit who is the author of "Original Jurisdiction," a newsletter covering legal issues. "The challenge, though, is that there are many excellent judges who are well into their 70s or 80s or beyond, but there are also some older judges who are not so great. For every Ruth Bader Ginsburg, you also have some judges who probably should have left the bench years ago."
The late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg resisted pleas for her to retire through two bouts with cancer.
Caron Creighton/AP
'The Notorious RBG'
It is the rare judge who ascends to pop-icon status. Ginsburg reached it — in her ninth decade of life.
Her fiery dissents earned her the nickname "The Notorious RBG," a moniker inspired by the late rapper Notorious B.I.G.
A night owl, she was known to pore over decisions until 3 a.m. She inspired films and books.
And she hit the gym. Her routine drew such attention that, with Ginsburg's encouragement, her trainer published a manual with illustrations of the justice performing planks and push-ups.
But her mental and physical tenacity into old age didn't shield her from criticism that she remained on the bench too long.
Despite two bouts of cancer — in 1999 and 2009 — and pleas from liberals, Ginsburg declined to retire during the Obama administration and open a Supreme Court seat for a younger, Democratic-appointed justice. That decision would come to expose the political consequences of a judge continuing to serve through old age — and serious illness — and dying while on the federal bench.
In September 2020, Ginsburg died at age 87 while still serving on the high court. She was nearly two decades older than the median age — 68 — for all federal judges, according to an Insider analysis.
Her death opened a seat for President Donald Trump to fill, and the Republican-controlled Senate confirmed Trump's nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, 39 days after Ginsburg's death.
The rapid sequence of events denied the Democrat Joe Biden, who'd go on to win the presidency in November, an opportunity to nominate another liberal to the Supreme Court and temper the court's ideological balance.
In the eyes of many liberal admirers, Ginsburg's decision not to step down earlier tarnished her legacy and opened the door to conservatives consolidating what's now a 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court.
"That was the biggest consequence, and I think a lot of people who admire her on the left would say it definitely mars her legacy somewhat," Lat said. "It's really what led to Justice Barrett joining the court and, ultimately, the overruling of Roe."
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has been a vocal advocate for the independence of the federal bench.
AP Photo/Alex Brandon
An imperfect system
At the federal level, the question of mandatory retirement or lifetime tenure has been the subject of debate dating back to the late 18th century.
In "Federalist 79," Alexander Hamilton defended the need for "permanency in office" for judges, considering "how few there are who outlive the season of intellectual vigor."
More than a century later, in the 1920s, future Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes argued for a mandatory retirement age. He cautioned that "the importance in the Supreme Court of avoiding the risk of having judges who are unable properly to do their work and yet insist on remaining on the bench, is too great to permit chances to be taken."
Congress has tried — and failed — to introduce a similar age cutoff to the federal courts. In 1954, the Senate passed a resolution proposing a constitutional amendment that'd require retirement at age 75 for federal judges.
The federal judiciary has proved averse to outside oversight.
In a 2021 year-end report, Chief Justice John Roberts addressed the need for the judiciary to "manage its internal affairs, both to promote informed administration and to ensure independence of the Branch."
Congress can impeach federal judges, but it has hardly ever done so. As a Brennan Center for Justice study noted in 2018, the impeachment of federal judges "is rare, and removal is rarer still."
In 2010, the Senate voted to convict Thomas Porteous, then a federal judge in New Orleans, after the House impeached him on allegations of bribery and making false statements. Other judges have resigned in the face of threatened impeachment and removal from their lifetime appointments, but such situations are exceptional across US history.
That has left it largely up to the judiciary to self-police. But with age-related loss of cognition, it faces an issue that is difficult to detect and sensitive to address. The instinct of self-policing leaves the court system relying largely on itself — in the form of the buddy systems, for instance — to flag judges whose competency comes into question.
But it can be difficult for judges, after years of working together, to act on those informal arrangements and candidly broach the subject of age and retirement.
"It's easier to say that and set it up than to do it," said Arthur Hellman, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh who is an expert on the federal judiciary. "It's a helpful thing to have, but it's not something you can rely on to catch people early enough."
Hellman added that the informal arrangements struck up across the judiciary were inherently private, leaving it unclear when they failed to catch judges in time.
"There's so much that goes on that we don't know about," Hellman said. "Certainly, when the system works through these informal means, you just never know that a failing judge has been eased out of office and is not deciding cases anymore. There's no formal record that it happened, but it did happen, and the litigants and the system are better off for it."
For Scheindlin, the retirement pact proved unnecessary. Eager for a new challenge and to leave at the top of her game, Scheindlin retired in 2016 at age 70 and returned to private practice.
Scheindlin said she was mindful that, with age-related issues, "one never knows when that might happen and then it might be too late to recognize the problem."
Explaining her decision to leave the judiciary for a "second act," Scheindlin wrote in an American Bar Association journal that she "did not want to stay past my prime or preside over cases when I could no longer do my very best."
"I saw some judges becoming unfit for the pressures and burdens of the difficult dockets they managed, and I heard the discontent of the lawyers when those judges were assigned to their case," she wrote. "I heard lawyers say, 'He was once so great … but no longer' or 'She was so smart … but is starting to lose it.'"
Judge Thomas Griffith (left) introduced now-Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson at her Senate confirmation hearing in March 2022.
Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
A whispered sense
At a conference in Washington, DC, last month, federal judges were thrust into a delicate exercise.
The Federal Judicial Center, an education and research agency for the federal courts, had convened the training for judges across the US. For one session, the judges received one of two roles: chief judge of a court and an elderly colleague who was beginning to slow down.
The judge in the chief's role was tasked with approaching the aging colleague for a difficult discussion.
"It's definitely on the judiciary's mind," a person familiar with the conference told Insider.
Indeed, in recent years, discussions of age in the judiciary have picked up as some activists have called for changes to the Supreme Court and more broadly for judicial term limits or a mandatory retirement age.
In the face of those calls, Biden pledged on the 2020 campaign trail to study the issue.
The commission, in a nearly 300-page report, noted that "life tenure is virtually unique to the US federal judiciary" and that "states have decidedly moved away from life tenure for justices of their highest courts."
According to the report, 31 states and Washington, DC, have some form of mandatory retirement for their judges. A majority of those states set the mandatory retirement age at 70; Vermont allows judges to remain on the state bench until 90.
A recent poll by Insider and Morning Consult found that 71% of 2,210 respondents said the federal judiciary should have a mandatory retirement age. Of that pool, nearly two-thirds said the judiciary should "definitely" have an age limit, with the rest answering that it should "probably" have one.
"The United States is the only major constitutional democracy in the world that has neither a retirement age nor a fixed term limit for its high court justices," the report said.
The commission stopped short of making a recommendation but explored setting term limits through either a statute or a constitutional amendment.
"It would take a constitutional amendment to change that, and that's unlikely to happen," he said. "But even if you could find a mechanism to enforce term limits, I think it would take something like 50 years to implement."
Nancy Gertner, a former federal judge in Massachusetts who served on the commission, said she saw several colleagues during her judicial career who grew unfit to sit on the federal bench but declined to step down.
Gertner said that while there were procedures for judges and staff members to raise concerns about a judge, they were not used enough.
"It is extraordinarily delicate to initiate that kind of process," she said. "It's very difficult for one judge to do that with respect to another judge."
At the time of Posner's sudden retirement, Judge Diane Wood served as chief judge of the US Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit. In a recent podcast, Wood weighed in on a proposal in Congress to cap Supreme Court justices' terms at 18 years, calling it "intriguing."
Wood said she would "favor something like" an age limit for judges set at 75 to 80, noting the risk of aging jurists developing dementia or other impairing conditions.
"The people who wrote the Constitution didn't think that everybody was going to live to 90 and keep on serving as a judge because life expectancies just weren't that high," Wood told David Levi, who hosts the podcast and is the director of Duke Law School's Bolch Judicial Institute.
Hellman, the University of Pittsburgh law professor, said the key for any such procedure was to alert the chief judge of a particular court.
"That faces a number of obstacles," he said, because those with inside information — secretaries and law clerks — may fear reprisal or have long-standing loyalty to the judge in question.
"The essence of the problem is that you have, on the one hand, the chief judge who has the responsibility and, on the other, the people with the information who, for a variety of reasons, might be reluctant to say anything," Hellman said.
Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote that the decision to retire — or take senior status — is "absolutely a personal one" for a judge.
Getty Images
In defense of seniority
In 1992, Judge Jack Weinstein was in his early 70s when he wrote a letter to former Justice Thurgood Marshall.
Just a year earlier, Marshall had resigned from the Supreme Court, and Weinstein wanted his advice about whether to take senior status — a form of semiretirement for judges that allows them to take a reduced caseload.
"Now, as an old man, I have to decide whether to take senior status or keep fighting the good fight as an active judge," Weinstein wrote in the letter, a photograph of which was provided to Insider. "I'm inclined to do the fighting."
Marshall responded that the decision of whether to take senior status was "absolutely a personal one and there is no help anybody can give."
"I have for myself narrowed it down to the doctor, my wife, and me," he wrote. "Together we went over all the conditions year after year after year and eventually the doctor persuaded us that it was time to retire and I retired."
Weinstein would serve on the federal trial court in Brooklyn for another three decades and maintain a nearly full docket well into his 90s. In his chambers, he kept a framed copy of his correspondence with Marshall on the wall.
For Scheindlin, the former federal judge in Manhattan, Weinstein was an example of an older judge who was "terrific to his last day."
Block had similar praise for Weinstein, his former colleague on the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Like Weinstein, Block said he's mindful, at 88, of what his age meant for his continued service on the federal court in Brooklyn.
"It's a year-to-year proposition now, when you reach the age I'm at," he told Insider. "And there's no magic formula. You need common sense and an ability to assess your own ability to function."
But Block said he's "blessed with good health" and felt fully equipped to write "good books and write good decisions."
In one of those books, "Disrobed: An Inside Look at the Life and Work of a Federal Trial Judge," Block directly posed the question: "What happens … if a judge starts to lose it?"
Block invoked Judge Wesley Brown, who served on the federal trial court in Kansas until he died at age 104. In his 2012 book, Block said Brown's presence on the bench was "seen as a daily miracle."
A tube under his nose fed oxygen, Block wrote, and Brown was known to warn lawyers preparing for long trials that he might not survive to finish them.
"At this age," Brown would tell them, "I'm not even buying green bananas."
But, Block wrote, "the consensus is that Judge Brown remained sharp and capable."
Block came out against term limits in the book and said he hoped, if his "faculties start to seriously fade," that the decision of whether to retire would be left to him.
"At the present time, however, I feel that I can do a better job at my age than at any other time in my judicial career. If we had term limits, Judge Weinstein would no longer be on the bench, nor would four other EDNY colleagues who are outstanding jurists in their late 80s," Block wrote in 2012.
A decade later, Block told Insider he's hitting his stride in his ninth decade of life — and not just because of his decades of experience on the bench.
"You reach the point, because we have a lifetime appointment and because we've been on the bench for many years, you feel psychologically freed up. You really are more inclined to do the right thing without having any thoughts in your head about being reversed, about whether the public will like what you do," Block said. "It frees you up, because you have the security and maturity now to feel like you can do that."
"I do feel within my own bones that I've reached the stage where I don't have any restrictions psychologically or otherwise to reach the decision that is the right decision," he added.
But his retirement, namely the timing of it, remains on his mind.
"I'm definitely mindful about it, there's no question about it," he said. "I talk to my wife about it. I think I will probably make the right decision at the right time. When that will be, I don't know."
Particularly in the past several years, the idea of setting some sort of age cap on public service — particularly when it comes to the presidency — has been entertained by op-ed writers, interrogated by pollsters, and even floated by long-shot political candidates as both a populist and technocratic solution to our contemporary frustrations with gerontocracy.
And if the US Constitution sets clear minimum age requirements not just for the presidency (35) but also for serving in the Senate (30) and the House (25), why wouldn't an upper age limit make sense as well?
"It seems like the de facto threshold for running for president is not 35, but 80," said Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York, who at age 34 can serve in Congress but can't yet serve in the nation's highest office.
Fresh polling by Insider and Morning Consult indicates that three in four Americans favor an age limit for members of Congress. More than four in 10 viewed the ages of political leaders as a "major" problem.
Mandatory retirement based on age is standard practice in other industries — most notably for air-traffic controllers, airplane pilots, and within the military. Age-related declines in vision and hearing, the ability to endure stress, and the increased risk of medical emergencies rank among the reasons.
But service ceilings aren't entirely alien to politics: Thirty-one states and the District of Columbia require state-level judges to retire when they reach a certain age, generally 70 to 75.
Nevertheless, Congress' youngest and oldest lawmakers seem to agree: An age limit is not on the table. Yet.
"I don't know how you do that. You would have to amend the Constitution?" asked Republican Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, who at 88 is among the Senate's most elderly lawmakers. "I think it depends on the person too, a lot of times. I've known some people sharp in their mid-90s."
Torres, too, said he'd "be against it," using the 82-year-old speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, as an example of an older lawmaker who by all accounts remains healthy and firmly in control of her caucus. "She is one of the sharpest people I've ever met in my life," he said. "She has a command of the institution."
That doesn't mean Torres doesn't see a problem.
"I'm concerned that politics has become a gerontocracy," he said. "If I become a shadow of my former self, then it's time for me to go. There's something to be said for exiting gracefully."
Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff, the chamber's lone millennial, takes a selfie with a voter during a 2022 Juneteenth celebration.
Brynn Anderson/AP
The more immediate problem, according to lawmakers critical of the gerontocratic nature of American politics, is that the country's oldest politicians have not just the incentive to stick around but the power to remain entrenched. And it is those mechanisms — the seniority system, a campaign-finance system that favors incumbents, gerrymandered congressional districts, and the ability to continue to seek office indefinitely — that members of Congress are most eager to discuss.
"More important than those constitutional limits," said Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia, the youngest member of the Senate at age 35, "are the various structural impediments in our political system as it functions today that deter, and make it so difficult, and discourage young people from seeking office."
What's in an age limit?
The arguments in favor of limiting the country's oldest people from serving in public office involve a series of distinct concerns: that younger people need to be better represented in politics, that humans typically experience cognitive and physical decline with age, and that with both technological innovation and societal change, it's simply time for a new generation with more intimate knowledge of these issues to be given the chance to lead.
And the advanced age of the country's top political leadership is striking, particularly when viewed through the lens of history.
Joe Biden, at 79, is the oldest president in US history. Pelosi is the oldest House speaker, at 82. The person third in line to the presidency is the 82-year-old Democratic Sen. Pat Leahy of Vermont, the president pro tempore of the Senate. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is 83, while House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn is 82. The majority and minority leaders of the Senate — Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell — are 71 and 80.
As it stands, age is one of just three constitutionally enumerated requirements for serving in Congress or the White House — the other two pertain to citizenship and state residency.
Generally speaking, these requirements were based on a belief that one had to reach a certain age to have the maturity to fulfill the duties of the office.
Arguing for a minimum age of 25 to serve in the House, George Mason — one of Virginia's delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 — said his "political opinions at the age of 21 were too crude and erroneous to merit an influence on public measures."
Noting the "more advanced age" required of senators versus representatives, James Madison, it is believed, argued in the unsigned Federalist No. 62 that the "nature of senatorial trust" required a "greater extent of information and stability of character," and that age 30 represented a "period of life most likely to supply these advantages."
"Those who drafted the Constitution had sound reasons to set the minimum standards for various federal offices, you know?" said Ossoff, who became eligible to run for president just this year. "I've not given thought to whether any reevaluation of those limits is called for."
But the potential for inexperience in youth is different from the negative consequences of aging, and those consequences certainly aren't uniform.
James Chappel, an associate professor at Duke University who researches the topic of aging, has warned that seeking to sweep aside older elected officials purely by virtue of their age is not just ageist, but misguided.
"If it's true that what you're trying to test for is a kind of mental acuity, controlling for age is not a good way to do that," Chappel told Insider. "There are plenty of people who are younger than Joe Biden who are way dumber than him."
"The 85-and-up population is really going to skyrocket in the 21st century," he added. "And just as that community is growing, we are going to ensure that they aren't represented in Congress?"
Some lawmakers aren't willing to discuss age caps in Congress.
Asked about age limits by Insider at the Capitol, the 34-year-old Republican Rep. Peter Meijer — a man known for facing down tough political questions — demurred.
"That's probably more than just something I want to offer a little quip on, off the floor," he said.
Beyond normative arguments about the wisdom of such a change, it's also exceedingly difficult, almost certainly requiring an amendment to the Constitution.
First, either two-thirds of both the House and the Senate would have to approve it, or 34 states would have to call for a constitutional convention. Then, 38 state legislatures would have to approve the change.
'Tenure yields power yields tenure'
While no lawmaker ventured to endorse age limits in interviews with Insider, many reflected on an underlying system that prioritizes tenure and seniority over other potential measures of political acumen, generating a political leadership that skews older.
"Congress itself is a gerontocracy," Torres said. "It's an institution that prioritizes seniority to the exclusion of everything else."
Under the so-called seniority system, members of Congress are able to gain power simply by remaining in office; their standing within such a hierarchy is dependent solely on the length of their tenure. Seniority is used to determine who gets first choice at offices and, more important, who gets to chair committees.
Seniority itself isn't necessarily a negative attribute; over time, members may develop institutional knowledge and close working relationships that allow them to be more effective legislators.
To that point: Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who just turned 89 years old and has served in the US Senate for 41 years, touted in a recent ad that he would have the "most seniority in the entire Senate" if reelected.
"That's priceless for Iowa," the ad intones. "It's easier to fight the rising cost of living when you have clout."
Combined Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa (left) and Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California have spent over 87 years in Congress. The pair, who are both 89, are also the oldest senators in the chamber.
Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call
But that system can also lead to certain perverse incentives, including remaining in office even amid obvious signs of mental decline.
"Every other state benefits from California not having seniority, because our appropriations are so much larger," Jeffrey Millman, another aide who served as her 2018 campaign manager, told the outlet.
"Puppies have a nap. Now it's time for you to have one," fellow Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts reportedly told Feinstein with a chuckle in August.
It's a system that Congress' best-known young lawmaker — Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who's 32 — has spoken about on her widely viewed Instagram account.
"If you are on a committee and want to chair it, you basically have to wait until almost everyone before you resigns or leaves office," she wrote in a post on June 18. "That often takes decades."
"So people wait. And wait. And wait," she continued. "Those who DID wait and are in leadership (or next in line for it) are incentivized to protect the automatic seniority system as much as possible because of their sunk time cost."
Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York explained to her Instagram followers earlier this year how the deck is stacked against younger members.
Screenshot/Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Speaking at the Capitol, Ocasio-Cortez told Insider it was "important for us to figure out perhaps a better way of determining who should lead a committee, beyond who's been here longest."
And there's an asymmetry between the parties when it comes to the seniority system; Republicans, unlike Democrats, impose six-year term limits for chairmanships and ranking members.
"We're considerably younger than the Democrats, by the way," Republican Rep. Don Bacon, 59, of Nebraska told Insider. He praised his party for enacting the limits, pointing out that it "creates a bit of a turnover." And he joined others in pushing back on age limits.
"I think Chuck Grassley does a pretty darn good job," he said. "I think in the end the voters should be able to choose, and if they think someone is too old, then they can make that choice."
But aside from the power amassed within the halls of the US Capitol, the power of incumbency in one's home district can often ensure that upstart candidates have a hard time mounting a credible challenge to those longtime incumbents.
"Tenure yields power yields tenure," said Ossoff, referring to the campaign-finance system, partisan gerrymandering, and the centralization of power within party apparatuses.
"Some of the same dynamics that drive partisan polarization also make the political system less competitive," he added. "Those sorts of anticompetitive dynamics can make it more difficult for younger candidates to get a shot."
'The principle of democracy is taking turns'
In the absence of an age cap, term limits offer another potential solution, though that too would require going through the arduous constitutional-amendment process.
The history of the contemporary movement for term limits largely dates back to the early 1990s, when dozens of states enacted term limits not just for their own legislatures but for their federal representatives in Washington.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich made the idea a core pillar of his "Contract with America" in 1994, and a majority of House members even voted 227-204 for a constitutional amendment that would have imposed 12-year limits on members of Congress — six two-year terms for House members, two six-year terms for senators — though that fell short of the necessary two-thirds majority necessary to begin the process.
That same year, the Supreme Court — which has no age or service limits — ruled that states couldn't impose requirements on their representatives that are more strict than those laid out in the Constitution, overturning federal term-limit laws passed by 23 states.
Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, 42, (left) turns toward Sen. Tom Cotton, 45, of Arkansas during a July hearing on Capitol Hill. The two lawmakers are the youngest Republican senators.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, the Senate's second-youngest member, at 42, suggested that term limits could ameliorate concerns about aging public servants.
"I think that would do it," he told Insider. "You know, once you've served two or three, especially three, terms in the Senate, that's a long time."
While Republicans, generally antagonistic toward the federal government, have generally been quick to affirm their support for the idea, Democrats have not. But if frustration with gerontocracy continues to mount, there's some evidence that the idea could gain broader support within the party.
"Put it this way: I'm a little more interested in term limits than age limits," Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland told Insider.
He noted the existence of term limits on the presidency, while quipping that his openness to the idea might make him a "pariah" within the party.
"There's a logic to term limits, because the principle of democracy is taking turns," Raskin, 59, said.
And Torres squarely blamed the lack of term limits for the gerontocracy of which he spoke, though he stopped short of endorsing the idea. "If there were to be term limits, the legislature certainly should have more terms than the executive," he offered.
But the pull of tenure is strong, even for those who have voted for term limits. Grassley, who voted in favor of term limits in 1991 and 1993, told Insider he still supported the idea even while running for reelection this November: "Yes, I would vote for it again."
Perhaps the most important force driving anxieties about gerontocracy, particularly for the young, is a greater desire for political power. And Pelosi is said to have her own adage on how that power changes hands.
"Nobody's going to give it to you," she says. "You've got to take it."
Even Torres noted that alongside his desire for new "opportunities for a new generation of public servants," there were signs of younger generations beginning to dislodge incumbents.
"We're living in a time where incumbency is no longer an insurance policy against primary challengers," he said. "In order to be a member of Congress, even in a safe district, you have to be on the top of your game."
"It seems like the de facto threshold for running for president is not 35, but 80," Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York told Insider.
John Minchillo/AP
And being on top of one's game is a challenge that the oldest Americans, for better or for worse, are largely continuing to meet. Grassley, though often reliant on staff members for assistance, recently completed his annual 99-county tour of Iowa as he seeks his eighth term in the Senate.
"I've chaired four committees. I've had a good run," he said, explaining why he made what he called the "mature" decision to step down. "I said, I want to walk out of here while I know who I am."
"So everybody has to make their own decision," he added.
And while former President Jimmy Carter, who's nearly 98, once casually suggested an age limit because he couldn't undertake presidential duties even if he were "just 80 years old," others may reach a different conclusion.
"It's fair to ask about anything that's reasonable, including age," said Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, who just turned 81 this month.
But it's a politician's views on policy that are most important, Sanders said.
"Because somebody is young, because somebody is old, or whatever they may be, it is not a reflection of their views on the issues," he said.
In Feinstein's view, arguing against an age limit is ultimately a matter of fairness.
"I've had a lot of life and I've seen a lot of people die very young, and so I think age is just something that you contend with," Feinstein told Insider.
"No, I don't," she replied when asked whether an age limit might be prudent. "This has always been an open place, and it should stay that way."
