Despite being prohibited by the Constitution under the 22nd Amendment from standing for election again, President Donald Trump did not rule out the possibility of seeking a third term in the White House during an interview with NBC News.
Trump said that there were methods for doing so, even clarifying that he was “not joking” in his conversation with Kristen Welker, moderator of Meet the Press.
“A lot of people want me to do it,” the president said, referring to his allies. “But, I mean, I basically tell them we have a long way to go, you know, it’s very early in the administration.”
“I’m focused on the current,” Trump added.
When asked whether he really wanted another term, the president responded: “I like working.”
“I’m not joking,” Trump said when asked to clarify by Welker, who even began her line of questioning with the assumption that he was. “But I’m not — it is far too early to think about it.”
Asked how he might go about seeking a third term and whether he has been presented with plans to allow him to do so, the president replied: “There are methods [by] which you could do it.”
Welker asked about a possible scenario in which Vice President JD Vance ran for the presidency with Trump as his running mate and then passed the role over to him. The president responded, “That’s one” method, adding: “But there are others too.”
Asked to share another method, he responded: “No.”
Amending the Constitution to eliminate the two-term limit would be extremely challenging, requiring either a two-thirds vote in Congress or two-thirds of the states to agree to convene a constitutional convention to propose changes. Either option would then need ratification from three-quarters of the states.
Trump maintains that “a lot of people would like me to” hold office for a third term.
Speaking to reporters on board Air Force One as he flew back to Washington, D.C. after a weekend in Florida, he was asked about whether he was serious about serving a third term.
Trump said: “I'm not looking at that but I'll tell you, I have had more people ask me to have a third term, which in a way is a fourth term because the other election, the 2020 election was totally rigged, so it's actually sort of a fourth term. I just don't want the credit for the second because Biden was so bad, he did such a bad job, and I think that's one of the reasons that I'm popular, if you want to know the truth.
“I think I'm popular because we've done a great job. I think we've had the best hundred days of almost any president. Most people are saying that and it's an honor, bringing back our country. We're respected as a country again. We're strongly respected and people are amazed.”
Asked about the constitutional limits he faced, he said: “I don't even want to talk about it. I'm just telling you I have had more people saying, please run again. We have a long way to go before we even think about that but I've had a lot of people.”
These were his most extensive comments on the matter. Previous remarks have often been dismissed as jokes or the president trolling his critics and opponents.
The 22nd Amendment says “no person shall be elected” as president “more than twice.”
While the first president, George Washington, set an example of serving a maximum of two terms, Franklin D Roosevelt was beginning his fourth when he died in office in 1945. Six years later Congress passed the 22nd Amendment to constitutionally limit presidents to two full terms.
The main body of the amendment reads: “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this Article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.”
As to the idea of running as vice president in a Vance campaign and having power handed to him, the 12th Amendment says: “No person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice President of the United States.”
Such a plan would depend on Vance being elected in his own right and then choosing to give up power to Trump, who would by then be in his 80s. Those supporting this theory could argue that it does not flout the terms of the 22nd Amendment, which talks about limits on how many terms a president can be elected to, not how many they can serve.
However, such a move would be sure to trigger a constitutional dispute, with others arguing that it flew in the face of the principles of the amendment, and was hardly a proper way for the United States to choose a leader.
