President Trump has mused more than once that he might like to extend his stay at the White House. But can he run for re-election in 2028 and seek a third term? The simple answer: No, the Constitution does not allow it.
By the end of his second term, Mr. Trump, now 78, would be the oldest president in history.
Here’s why the issue has surfaced and what the law says.
Trump has made several comments alluding to a third term.
President Trump told NBC News on Sunday that he was “not joking” about the possibility of seeking a third presidential term, suggesting in an interview with “Meet the Press” that there were “methods” to circumvent the two-term limit laid out in the Constitution.
It was the first time that Mr. Trump had indicated he was seriously considering the idea, which he had more often treated as a humorous aside.
At the start of his second week back in office, Mr. Trump floated the idea that the presidential term limit might be negotiable while speaking to House Republicans during their annual retreat in Florida.
“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 percent sure because I don’t know,” Mr. Trump said, drawing laughter. “I think I’m not allowed to run again. I’m not sure. Am I allowed to run again?”
On Feb. 6, at a breakfast at a Washington hotel, Mr. Trump again hinted 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.”
While talking to House Republicans in November about clinching the White House and both chambers of Congress, Mr. Trump jokingly suggested that they could help prolong his presidency.
“I suspect I won’t be running again unless you say, ‘He’s so good we’ve got to figure something else out,’” Mr. Trump said.
And during his first term in office, Mr. Trump suggested to his supporters at a September 2020 rally in Nevada that term limits were not set in stone.
“We’re going to win four more years in the White House,” he said. “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.”
Yet when Mr. Trump was asked by a New York Times reporter on Election Day whether the 2024 campaign was his last, he said, “I would think so.”
Presidential term limits are enshrined in the Constitution.
The 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, which was ratified in 1951, says that “no person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.”
Kimberly Wehle, who teaches constitutional law at the University of Baltimore and wrote a book titled “How to Read the Constitution — and Why,” said that the measure left no ambiguity and was intended to place a check on the president.
“There was a concern about entrenching power in a kinglike manner,” she said.
Can Trump get around the 22nd Amendment?
Amending the Constitution to get around the two-term limit would be a very tall order.
Two-thirds majorities in both the House and Senate are required just to propose an amendment, far more than the slender majorities Republicans hold in both chambers now, or two-thirds of the states have to call for a constitutional convention.
Ratifying an amendment is even more onerous: Three-fourths of all state legislatures — or of those state-level constitutional conventions — must approve it.
Three days after Mr. Trump was sworn in to a second term, one of Mr. Trump’s allies in the House, Representative Andy Ogles, a Republican of Tennessee, introduced a long-shot resolution to amend the Constitution to provide him with a pathway to a third term.
The part of the resolution applying to Mr. Trump is worded this way: “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than three times, nor be elected to any additional term after being elected to two consecutive terms.”
Mr. Ogles argued that Mr. Trump needed more time to accomplish his agenda and reverse the policies of the Biden administration.
“He has proven himself to be the only figure in modern history capable of reversing our nation’s decay and restoring America to greatness, and he must be given the time necessary to accomplish that goal,” Mr. Ogles said in a statement.
Is Trump really not joking?
Representative Dan Goldman, Democrat of New York, hasn’t treated Mr. Trump’s previous quips about staying in office as a laughing matter.
Soon after Mr. Trump remarked in November that House Republicans could help pave his way to a third term, Mr. Goldman introduced a resolution to reaffirm that the 22nd Amendment applies to presidents who serve nonconsecutive terms.
“How he operates is by floating trial balloons that he often claims are jokes, but he’s very serious about it,” Mr. Goldman, who was lead counsel during Mr. Trump’s first impeachment in the House, said on Bloomberg TV back in November. “And he’s been talking about staying on past this next term for years.”
He reintroduced the measure in February in response to the move by Mr. Ogles, but it had little chance of advancing to the House floor for a vote with the chamber under Republican control.
The president’s allies have floated the idea.
At the annual gala of the New York Young Republican Club in December, Stephen K. Bannon, a confidant of Mr. Trump, floated the idea of a three-term presidency. He said that a loophole in the Constitution could allow Mr. Trump to run again in 2028, citing his discussions with Mike Davis, a Republican lawyer and supporter of Mr. Trump.
“Since it doesn’t actually say consecutive,” Mr. Bannon said, “I don’t know, maybe we do it again in ’28? Are you guys down for that? Trump ’28?”
Mr. Bannon’s remarks drew cheers from the crowd.
Another seemingly far-fetched idea has been floated by Trump supporters as a potential loophole. It would involve Vice President JD Vance winning the presidency in 2028 with Mr. Trump as his running mate, only to resign from office so that the two-term president gets a third term.
But some legal scholars say that route would be complicated by the 12th Amendment, which states that “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of president shall be eligible to that of vice-president of the United States.”
Has a president ever served more than two terms?
Yes. Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to four terms, serving from 1933 to 1945, during the Great Depression and World War II. He died while in office. There was no 22nd Amendment then, but Roosevelt’s grip on power became a driving force for setting term limits for presidents.
“Four terms, or sixteen years, is the most dangerous threat to our freedom ever proposed,” Thomas E. Dewey said in 1944. He served as New York governor and lost to Roosevelt in 1944 and to Harry S. Truman in 1948.
Michael Gold and Annie Karni contributed reporting.
Neil Vigdor covers breaking news for The Times, with a focus on politics. More about Neil Vigdor
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