Trump appeared to concede Wednesday that he’s not allowed to run for reelection in 2028 — after teasing the idea of running for a third term on and off for months.
The 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1951, explicitly bars anyone from being elected to more than two terms as president.
Mr. Trump has periodically toyed with the idea of seeking another term. In some cases, he’s seemed to bring up the idea in a tongue-in-cheek manner, offering up “Trump 2028” hats to friends and foes alike. But he told NBC News earlier this year he’s “not joking” and he believes “there are methods” by which he could run for president again. And Trump ally Steve Bannon said in an interview released last week that “there’s a plan” for Mr. Trump to win a third term.
The 22nd amendment, which limits the president to two terms, also applies a restriction to a two-term president running as someone else’s vice president.
The next option would be to have Trump be appointed as speaker of the house, which does not have any eligibility guidelines at all (like you don’t even need to be an elected official first), and then have both the president and vice president abdicate.
But with all of the checks on power basically removed from the position, Trump would have to somehow find two sycophants who are both electable and would be willing to surrender absolute power just to give a sundowning octogenerian a third term.
Or, easier method. He runs. Democrats sue saying he clearly can’t have a third term. SCOTUS declines to take the case because the constitution says he can run, he just can’t be elected.
States wait for each other to take him off the ballot, since elections are state run and eventually none of them do because they waited too long and they are super-duper sure he won’t win this time.
He wins, Sued again, SCOTUS declines to take the case because he’s a sitting president and who are they to mingle in elections “we can’t set a precedent of stealing elections from the people’s choice” or something of that nature.
Opposition falls in line because, yet again, the majority of Americans decided he and the GOP were the best choice and they’ll lose if they fight back. But really, if he wins a third term, GOP owns Congress and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it anyway.
Boom, third term for Trump
Basically, laws are only good if they’re enforced. Otherwise they’re just words on paper.
Yeah, I’m tired of the “x law says he can’t legally do y action, so we don’t need to worry about it” discourse that the media keeps amplifying. The executive branch is in charge of enforcement, and he’s made it clear to congress that he has sole control of the branch, and he’s wielded that power to break so many laws already.
It’s not like there’s some constitutional overlord that steps down from heaven to put him in jail if he tries to run again.
Se can call one Romulus and the other Augustus, if it’s not too on the nose