Steve Bannon on third Trump term
Source: News Nation
Donald Trump says he’s not joking about trying to serve a third term as US President, the clearest indication yet he is considering ways to breach a constitutional barrier against continuing to lead the country.
The 22nd amendment – added to the constitution in 1951 after president Franklin D Roosevelt was elected four times in a row – says: “no person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice”.
But on Sunday (US time), Trump said that was a minor detail.
“There are methods which you could do it,” Trump told NBC News.
“A lot of people want me to do it … But, I mean, I basically tell them we have a long way to go. You know, it’s very early in the administration.”
Asked if one potential avenue to a third term was having Vice President JD Vance run for the top job and then pass the baton to him, Trump said: “Well, that’s one. But there are others too”.
He then refused to elaborate.
“I’m not joking … But I’m not — it is far too early to think about it.”
Trump’s openness to a third term comes after encouragement from his most ardent allies. His former adviser Steve Bannon, now a podcast host, has already endorsed Trump for 2028.
Elsewhere, Tennessee Republican congress representative Andy Ogles proposed, just days after Trump’s inauguration in January, amending the 22nd Amendment to clear the way for a third term.
But political experts say changing the US constitution to dump the two-term limit would be difficult.
Derek Muller, a professor of election law at the University of Notre Dame, noted that the 12th amendment, which was ratified in 1804, says: “No person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.”
Muller said that indicated that if Trump was not eligible to run for president again because of the 22nd amendment, he could not run for vice president, either.
“I don’t think there’s any one weird trick to getting around presidential term limits,” Muller said.
In addition, pursuing a third term would require extraordinary acquiescence by federal and state officials, not to mention the courts and voters themselves.
He suggested that Trump was talking about a third term for political reasons, to “show as much strength as possible”.
“A lame-duck president like Donald Trump has every incentive in the world to make it seem like he’s not a lame duck,” he said.
Vance’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.
Trump, who will be 82 at the end of his second term, was asked whether he would want to keep serving in “the toughest job in the country” at that point.
“Well, I like working,” he said.
He suggested that Americans would go along with a third term because of his popularity.
He falsely claimed to have “the highest poll numbers of any Republican for the last 100 years”.
Gallup data shows President George W Bush reaching a 90 per cent approval rating after the terror attacks on September 11, 2001.
His father, President George H.W. Bush, hit 89 per cent following the Gulf War in 1991.
Trump has maxed out at 47 per cent in Gallup data during his second term, despite claiming to be “in the high 70s in many polls, in the real polls”.
Trump has mused before about serving longer than two terms before, generally with jokes to friendly audiences.
“Am I allowed to run again?” he said during a House Republican retreat in January.
-with AAP