Trump revives third term talk, saying he 'would love to do it.' But can he?

( Yahoo )

President Trump told reporters on Monday that he “would love to” run for a third term as president — despite the Constitution’s two-term limit — hinting for at least the seventh time since last year’s election that he hopes to remain in office beyond January 2029.

“Am I not ruling it out?” Trump said when pressed on whether he would do just that. “I mean, you’ll have to tell me.”

Trump’s third-term musings, which include selling “Trump 2028” hats and T-shirts online, have long been seen as a way to provoke his critics and avoid lame-duck status.

But just last week, Trump’s former chief strategist Steven Bannon claimed that there is now a plan to keep the president in the White House beyond the end of his second term.

“Trump is going to be president in ’28, and people ought to just get accommodated with that,” said Bannon, who hosts a pro-Trump podcast. (A third Trump term — which Bannon was referring to — would start in 2029). “At the appropriate time, we’ll lay out what the plan is.”

Bannon went on to describe Trump as an “instrument of divine will,” echoing the president’s own rhetoric.

Since March, Trump supporters have discussed a theory that he could run again as JD Vance’s vice president in 2028 — and then take over as president when Vance immediately resigns — in order to to sidestep the 22nd Amendment’s rule that a person can only be “elected” president twice. But Trump dismissed that loophole on Monday.

“I’d be allowed to do that,” Trump said. But, he added, “I would rule that out because it’s too cute. I think the people wouldn’t like that. … It wouldn’t be right.”

So what is the plan (if one even exists)? And could Trump actually pull off a third term? Here’s everything you need to know.

What the Constitution prohibits — and what it allows

Trump is just the second U.S. president ever to return to the Oval Office after losing reelection four years earlier. (The first was Grover Cleveland in 1893.) But the Constitution is clear. “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice,” regardless of whether their terms are consecutive.

That language comes from the 22nd Amendment, which formalized the two-term tradition established by George Washington in 1796. Ratified in 1951 — a few years after Franklin D. Roosevelt won an unprecedented third term in 1940, followed by a fourth term in 1944 — the amendment was intended to prevent any future president from doing what FDR had done.

Legal scholars have debated whether there’s a distinction between being “elected to the office of President more than twice” and serving as president more than twice. Could a former two-term president ascend to the presidency again without winning at the ballot box — perhaps by occupying a lower office that puts him next in line to succeed the current commander in chief?

On Monday, Trump ruled out the vice presidency. And the 12th Amendment — which says that “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States” — suggests he might not be allowed to return as Vance’s running mate even if he wanted to.

But there are other jobs in the chain of presidential succession that Trump would be allowed to fill — like the speaker of the House, who is next in line after the vice president. As long as Republicans control the House of Representatives, they can choose whoever they want as speaker, including a nonmember.

In 2023, Trump openly considered the possibility.

Beyond that, the only other (constitutional) option would seem to be amending the 22nd Amendment — a lengthy and involved process that requires support from two-thirds of the House, two-thirds of the Senate and three-fourths of the state legislatures.

In January, Rep. Andy Ogles, a Republican from Tennessee, introduced a resolution that would alter the 22nd Amendment to allow presidents who serve two nonconsecutive terms to run again. But it’s hard to imagine any Democratic lawmakers or legislatures voting for such a change.

All the times Trump has expressed interest in a third term

While White House aides have mocked reporters for asking about a third term, Trump himself seems content to keep the issue alive.

On Election Day in November, Trump was asked by a reporter whether the 2024 campaign was his last.

“I would think so,” he said.

But since then, he has repeatedly floated the idea of running again.

• In a meeting with congressional Republicans last November, Trump suggested they could help him seek a third term. “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 shortly after taking office, Trump said, “It will be the greatest honor of my life to serve not once, but twice or three times or four times.” (He then added that he had just created “headlines for the fake news.”)

• “They say I can’t run again — that’s the expression,” Trump said at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 6. “Then somebody said, ‘I don’t think you can.’ Oh.”

• At a Black History Month reception at the White House in late February, Trump asked the crowd whether he should run again. The audience responded with chants of “Four more years!”

• During a February interview with NBC News, Trump insisted he was “not joking” about trying to serve a third term. “There are methods which you could do it,” he said.

• In an interview with Time magazine published the following month, Trump was asked what methods” he was referring to. “I’d rather not discuss that now, but as you know, there are some loopholes that have been discussed that are well known,” the president said. “All I can say is this, I am being inundated with requests.”

During his first term, Trump publicly and privately joked about being “president for life” and posted a video on social media showing a fake Time magazine cover with imaginary campaign signs for 2024, 2028, 2032 and beyond.

He reposted the video on Sunday.

Would a third Trump term be popular?

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Trump claimed to be enjoying his “best numbers ever” in the polls.

Currently, 43% of Americans approve, on average, of how Trump is handling the presidency; 53% disapprove. That gap is smaller than it was at the same point during Trump’s first term — but most other modern presidents were faring much better with the public after nine months in office.

In May, Yahoo News and YouGov asked poll respondents whether they would approve or disapprove of Trump running for a third term. Nearly two-thirds (64%) said they would disapprove; just 21% said they would approve.

Only among Republicans did more say they would approve (45%) than disapprove (34%).