Donald Trump has repeatedly mused about the prospect of serving a constitutionally-barred third term as president, though his Republican colleagues insist he’s just joking.
“I suspect I won’t be running again, unless you do something,” Trump reportedly told his GOP House colleagues as they met ahead of congressional leadership elections. “Unless you say, ‘He’s so good, we have to just figure it out.’”
The 22nd Amendment of the Constitution says that presidents can only serve up to two full terms, though Trump has said he may feel “entitled” to more while also saying he doesn’t want to run again after his next term ends in January 2029.
Republicans in the room later said the president-elect was only kidding about his future.
“That was a joke. It was clearly a joke,” Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee toldThe Hill. “I leaned over to somebody beside me, [Arizona Rep.] Andy Biggs, and I said, ‘That’ll be the headlines tomorrow: Trump trying to thwart the Constitution,’ which — there’s nothing further from the truth.”
Democrats in Congress have proposed a measure to clarify that the 22nd Amendment expressly forbids a third term in office, and 78-year-old Trump, soon to be the oldest president in history, has at times admitted the constitutional guardrails he’s up against, despite his rhetoric.
What has Trump said about a third term?
Trump has raised the prospect of serving a third term and violating other democratic norms before.
“You know, FDR 16 years — almost 16 years — he was four terms. I don’t know, are we going to be considered three-term? Or two-term?” he told a National Rifle Association convention in May, referencing Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Elsewhere on the 2024 campaign trail, Trump suggested he would be a “dictator” and abuse power only on “day one” of his new administration, and told an audience of Christians if he got elected “you’re not going to have to vote” in the future.
“We’re going to win four more years in the White House,” he said in 2022. “And then after that, we’ll negotiate, right? Because we’re probably — based on the way we were treated — we are probably entitled to another four after that.”
In 2018, he praised Chinese president Xi Jinping’s potential lifetime term in office as “great,” saying “maybe we’ll give that a shot someday.”
When pressed on whether he actually believes he can serve a third term, Trump has said he doesn’t want one.
“I wouldn’t be in favor of it. I wouldn’t be in favor of a challenge [to the 22nd Amendment]. Not for me,” Trump toldTIME in April. “I wouldn’t be in favor of it at all. I intend to serve four years and do a great job.”
Trump and his supporters often insist the Republican is joking or not being literal after he faces scrutiny for his statements, including after the Access Hollywood scandal, Trump’s call for Russia to release hacked emails from the Clinton campaign, and the president’s suggestion in his first term that disinfectant could be used as a treatment against Covid-19.
Debate around the 22nd Amendment aside, observers are alarmed that Trump adopted quasi-fascist rhetoric on the 2024 campaign trail, including claiming immigrants are ”destroying the blood of our country” and suggesting using the military to go after domestic critics, whom he dubbed the “enemy within.”
What is the 22nd Amendment?
FDR’s four terms in office helped inspire the 22nd Amendment in the first place.
The amendment, ratified in 1951, came after Roosevelt had been elected four consecutive times, from 1932 to 1944.
He died in office in April 1945, shortly into his fourth term.
The amendment states that presidents can serve a maximum of two full terms, and that if a vice president becomes president during the term of their predecessor, which has occurred nine times in US history due to death or resignation, they can still serve two full terms as long as they serve less than half of their predecessor’s remaining term.
Before Roosevelt, whose time in office coincided with the twin international crises of the Depression and the Second World War, presidents had observed an unofficial tradition of not serving more than two terms.
Despite Trump bucking constitutional guardrails in his first presidency, he would face a tall order in getting a constitutional amendment through Congress to try to secure a third term.
A proposal for a constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, where Republicans hold only slim majorities.
Ratifying an amendment would require three-fourths of all state legislatures.
How are Democrats responding?
Democratic Representative Dan Goldman of New York has introduced a resolution affirming that the 22nd Amendment would bar Trump from a third term.
He called on legislators from both parties to “stand by the oath we all took to support and defend the Constitution of the United States and confirm the Congress’ commitment to this principle.”
Goldman’s resolution would make clear that the 22nd Amendment “applies to two terms in the aggregate,” even if they are non-consecutive, like Trump’s.
Only one previous president, Grover Cleveland, has served two non-consecutive terms beginning in 1884 and 1892.
However, it is unlikely that Goldman’s resolution will make it to a vote in the Republican-dominated House.
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