President Donald Trump said he is “not joking” about wanting to run for a third term in 2028, in a phone interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker on Sunday.
This is not the first time Trump has brought up running for office again. Last November, following his electoral victory, he said, “I suspect I won’t be running again unless you say, ‘he’s so good we’ve got to figure something else out,‘” to a group of House Republicans.
Despite Trump’s age — he will be 82 years old by the end of his second term — and the constitutional amendment prohibiting more than two presidential terms, he continues to publicly entertain the possibility of running again.
“A lot of people want me to do it,” President Trump told Welker.
The 22nd Amendment of the Constitution states, “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.”
Bypassing constitutional law would require two-thirds approval from the House of Representatives and the Senate, and three-quarters approval from state-level governments.
“It is a high hurdle to overcome,” Mark Haddad, a lecturer at the USC Gould School of Law, said. “We have had very few amendments pass since [the 22nd], so the idea that there would be a constitutional amendment that would allow a president to seek a third term is not practical.”
George Newhouse, an adjunct professor of the practice of political science and international relations, questioned the implications of Trump alleging he will run for a third term.
“The President’s stated intention to seek a third term, when viewed along with the lawlessness imbued in a bevy of executive orders, is the gravest threat to our Constitution and democracy we have seen since the British ransacked the White House.”
Kamy Akhavan, the managing director of the USC Dornsife Center for the Political Future, reiterated the importance of the democratic principles the United States was founded on.
“This is not the country where monarchies happen,” Akhavan said. “This is a country where democracy happens, and they decided that they were going to add a 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, limiting the person to two terms, and that’s it.”
Both experts projected that Trump could try to circumvent the Constitution and evade the 22nd Amendment.
“He’s thinking he could run in 2028 as the vice president, having made a deal that once they’re elected, they will step down and he will become president,” Haddad said. “But there’s a second clause in the 22nd Amendment that speaks to assuming the presidency, and it puts a limit to that as well at two years.”
NBC News mentioned the possibility of Vice President JD Vance running for president and passing the job off to Trump once elected.
“That’s one [method],” Trump replied.
Before 2024, Grover Cleveland was the only former president to serve nonconsecutive terms. This is why the term “elected” is so important, because according to the 12th Amendment, “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.”