Just eight days after he won a second term, Donald Trump mused about whether he could have a third presidential term, which is barred by the Constitution. Photo / Cheriss May, The New York Times
Just eight days after he won a second term, Donald Trump mused about whether he could have a third presidential term, which is barred by the Constitution. Photo / Cheriss May, The New York Times
The president’s suggestion that he would seek to stay in office beyond the constitutional limit comes as he has pushed to expand executive authority.
Standing inside the Capitol for the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, President Donald Trump declared his plans to resurrect an idea he hadin his first term: to create a national garden filled with statues of notable Americans.
The choice of who would be included would be “the President’s sole opinion,” Trump said, chuckling. And he was giving himself “a 25-year period” to make the selections.
A short time later, at a breakfast at a Washington hotel, Trump flicked again at the prospect that his time in office could extend beyond two four-year terms.
“They say I can’t run again; that’s the expression,” he said. “Then somebody said, I don’t think you can. Oh.”
Just eight days after he won a second term, Trump – whose supporters attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in an effort to prevent Joe Biden’s victory from being certified – mused about whether he could have a third presidential term, which is barred by the Constitution.
At the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, Trump spoke of giving himself a “25-year period” to choose statues for a national garden. Photo / Eric Lee, The New York Times
Since then, he has floated the idea frequently. In public, he couches the notion of staying in office beyond two terms as a humorous aside. In private, Trump has told advisers that it is just one of his myriad diversions to grab attention and aggravate Democrats, according to people familiar with his comments. And he has made clear that he is happy to be past a gruelling campaign in which he faced two assassination attempts and followed an aggressive schedule in the final weeks.
The third-term gambit could also serve another purpose, political observers noted: keeping congressional Republicans in line as Trump pushes a maximalist version of executive authority with the clock ticking on his time in office.
“It serves Donald Trump’s public relations to start the bantam rooster crowing that he may serve a third term because it makes him not a lame duck,” said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian.
“It insinuates that he’s one of the greats like Franklin Delano Roosevelt, that the people are demanding another term and, ‘I guess I’ll do it because I’m a patriot,’” Brinkley added, referring to the 32nd President, whose four terms in office spurred the constitutional amendment setting presidential term limits.
A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Trump’s advisers mock those who take his comments about a third term seriously, saying he has been trolling his critics with the idea of a permanent presidency since he launched his campaign to return to the White House.
But his suggestion that he could stay in office beyond January 2029 now comes against a very different backdrop. In the first three weeks since his inauguration, Trump has sought to sweepingly expand executive power and granted the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, seemingly unfettered reach to dismantle federal agencies and to push roughly two million federal workers to consider leaving their posts.
Even when Trump presents something as a joke, the idea he suggests often becomes socialised by his supporters, both those in office and in the right-wing media. The concept then often takes on more weight, including for Trump.
Recently, some Republicans have started pushing the idea of changing the Constitution for him.
“People are already talking about changing the 22nd Amendment so he can serve a third term,” Dan Patrick, the Lieutenant Governor of Texas, posted on the social platform X on January 25, a message that Trump elevated on his own platform, Truth Social. “If this pace and success keep up for four years, and there is no reason it won’t, most Americans really won’t want him to leave.”
Dan Patrick, the lieutenant governor of Texas, said on social media that “most Americans really won’t want” Trump to leave office in four years. Photo / Dave Sanders, The New York Times
Three days after Trump was sworn in for the second time, Representative Andy Ogles of Tennessee, a relative newcomer in the House, proposed an amendment to the Constitution that would allow the President to serve a third term. His proposal: that presidents who serve two non-consecutive terms, like Trump, would be able to run again.
“He is dedicated to restoring the republic and saving our country, and we, as legislators and as states, must do everything in our power to support him,” Ogles wrote in a statement accompanying the joint resolution.
The chances of his proposal succeeding seem dim: Ogles’ measure would have to be approved by a two-thirds vote of Congress and then ratified by three-fourths of the states.
In a text message, Ogles, who is not known to be close to the President, told The New York Times that he had not spoken with Trump or anyone close to him before he filed the resolution.
Giving voters “the choice to reelect Trump to serve a third term is the path to saving our Republic,” which he said incurred years of damage under Biden, he added.
Trump’s first musing about a third term came at a House Republican event in Washington, shortly before he met with Biden after the election.
“I suspect I won’t be running again unless you say, ‘He’s so good we’ve got to figure something else out,’” Trump said.
At a rally in Las Vegas on his first weekend in office, the President joked, “It will be the greatest honour of my life to serve not once, but twice or three times or four times.” The crowd applauded, before Trump suggested it was a joke.
“Headlines for the fake news,” he said. “No, it will be to serve twice. For the next four years, I will not rest.”
And on January 27, at a House Republican event at his club Doral, Florida, Trump said, “I’ve raised a lot of money for the next race that I assume I can’t use for myself, but I’m not 100% sure.”
He asked at another point, rhetorically, “Am I allowed to run again?”
Trump then turned to Speaker Mike Johnson, a former constitutional lawyer who would have to be involved in such a matter as whipping votes for a change to the Constitution.
Trump said, to chuckles from Johnson and others, “Mike, I better not get you involved in that”.
