Donald Trump’s interest in seeking an unconstitutional third term as president, like many of his most dangerous or illegal ideas, began as a joke. Trump would muse on the stump that he deserved an extra term because he was robbed of his first (by Robert Mueller’s investigation) or his second (by imagined vote fraud in 2020) without quite clarifying his intent. But in an interview with NBC News this weekend, and then in remarks on Air Force One, Trump said he was completely serious about at least exploring the notion.
“A lot of people want me to do it,” he told NBC, adding, “I’m not joking.” When he was asked if the method he envisioned was to have J. D. Vance run at the top of the ticket, and then pass the baton to Trump, he said, “That’s one.” Later, on Air Force One, reporters asked him if he intended to stay on beyond the end of his current term. “I’m not looking at that,” he replied, “but I’ll tell you, I have had more people ask me to have a third term, which in a way is a fourth term because the other election, the 2020 election, was totally rigged, so it’s actually sort of a fourth term.” When a reporter mentioned the Constitution’s prohibition, Trump brushed it off. “I don’t even want to talk about it,” he said. “I’m just telling you I have had more people saying, please run again. We have a long way to go before we even think about that, but I’ve had a lot of people.” In Trump’s mind, the timing is an impediment to declaring for a third term—it’s too early—but the Constitution is not.
One question is, does Trump seriously mean this? Perhaps not. Trump has a long-standing habit of answering reporters’ questions about future actions in the most open-ended way, refusing to commit to any specific course of action, which means he often refuses to rule out even the most outrageous things. This can give ammunition to his political opponents, such as when he said he would “look at” cuts to Medicare and Social Security. But it is also a way to “flood the zone with shit,” as Steve Bannon put it, by proposing an endless stream of wild ideas and reducing the shock effect of any of them.
And Trump admires dictators, and enjoys the power that comes with serving as president. Having concluded that his first term failed because his enemies in the “deep state” and the independent media stopped him, he is now carrying out an elaborate set of schemes to sideline, control, and intimidate them. To concede that he will leave office in 2029 would reduce the atmosphere of menace he has cultivated. Why forfeit the power of another term, or at least the threat of one?
Another question is whether we should take this threat seriously. The Constitution is clear that he cannot run for a third term as president, and most scholars agree that running as a vice president, and then having the elected president step down, is not a valid loophole.
But as Trump has repeatedly demonstrated, questions of the law and the Constitution ultimately reduce to power struggles. If you hear somebody say Trump is not allowed to do something, the first question to ask is, What’s the enforcement mechanism? The courts may be likely to rule against permitting him to run as either president or vice president. But such cases are unlikely to be decided until after the Republican convention has locked in the party’s choice, forcing the courts to choose between effectively canceling the presidential election and enforcing the Twenty-Second Amendment.
Would five justices on the Supreme Court have the guts? Would the states follow such a ruling in a white-hot atmosphere where Republicans would accuse the judicial branch of nullifying democracy? Every apparently solid assumption about the inviolability of the two-term limit gets porous upon close inspection.
Over the past eight years, in case after case, the protections that seemed to be hard laws have turned out to be softer norms. Trump has erased a series of norms by reimagining reality, first as a joke, and eventually in earnest.
There is a pattern to the way in which transgressive ideas occupy a liminal space in MAGA discourse between troll and policy platform. Trump has often floated running for a third term as a joke, and his supporters have repeated the joke as a way to indicate their own loyalty. The Conservative Political Action Conference in February featured a Trump 2028 sign, depicting the president in Roman imperial iconography, promoting a bid to amend the Constitution. That same month, The New York Times reported that “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.”
The notion of violating Canadian sovereignty likewise circulated on the right as a joking way to imagine Trump acting out imperial fantasies. Trump himself seemed to be in on the joke, repeatedly calling Canada the “51st state” and referring to its prime minister as “governor.” But more recently, he has crossed over into something closer to earnestness. His trade policies toward Canada have a more aggressive tinge than his general support for tariffs, and appear designed to collapse the country’s economy. Canadian officials reported alarm when Trump told them he refuses to accept the legitimacy of the border between the two countries.
He has likewise floated the idea of turning the Gaza Strip into an American-owned international resort, a campaign that includes sharing overtly ridiculous memes on social media, but also giving Israel’s government the green light to carry out a military operation that may well displace the Palestinian population.
These jokes, while frequently absurd and often genuinely funny, serve a serious purpose. They allow the most committed diehards to spread edgy new ideas, expanding the boundaries of the possible for Trump. But their initial humorous quality allows traditional Republicans to keep their distance. Slowly, though, the unthinkable becomes normalized, so that when the moment finally arrives, it feels inevitable.
When Trump entertained questions on his plane about a third term, he had a faint smirk on his face, indicating that the idea hasn’t fully progressed from the joke phase into a plan of action. Trump turned the question into an opportunity to extoll his alleged popularity—people are asking about another term, he says, because he is so successful and wonderful. Trump has always understood questions about his abuses of power as a kind of compliment. The prospect of smashing imagined limits on his power gives him an obvious thrill. He is probing, exploring. And when he finds softness, as he so often does when he presses against a supposed boundary, he presses on.
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