‘I’d love to do it’: Trump refuses to rule out third term — despite constitutional limit

In yet another defiance of the US Constitution, President Donald Trump on Monday said he would “love to” serve a third presidential term — irrespective of the constitution’s two-term limit.

Trump and his supporters have repeatedly said he could run for the president again in 2028 and serve another term. While some of them have suggested workarounds to bypass the constitution, others have simply said that the constitution does not have any limitations at all.

The 22nd Amendment of the US Constitution says that no one can be elected as the president more than twice. But that has not stopped Trump and his supporters from hailing future terms.

“I would love to do it,” Trump said when asked about a run in the 2028 presidential election.

“I have my best numbers ever. It’s very terrible. I have my best numbers,” Trump told reporters on the Air Force Once, according to CBS News.

Trump further said, “Am I not ruling it out? You’ll have to tell me. All I can tell you is that we have a great, a great group of people, which they [Democrats] don’t.”

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However, Trump said he would not follow a workaround that many supporters have suggested — getting elected as a dummy presidential nominee’s vice president in 2028 and then becoming the president upon the dummy’s resignation.

Trump said, “Yeah, I’d be allowed to do that. I guess I think it’s too cute. Yeah, I would rule that out because it’s too cute. I think the people wouldn’t like that. It’s too cute. It’s not — it wouldn’t be right.”

Constitution bars third term but Trump doesn’t care

The 22nd Amendment of the US Constitution says that “no person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice”.

To bypass this, Trump’s supporters have suggested that he could run as the vice presidential nominee of a dummy presidential nominee, such as JD Vance, and then become president upon the dummy’s resignation. Their rationale is that the 22nd Amendment bars a person from being “elected” president but not necessarily becoming president by means other than election, such as the vice president becoming the president in case of the president’s resignation.

However, critics say that such an approach is flawed as they say that such a move is barred by 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”.

As per this clause, having served two terms, Trump will be ineligible to be the president for a third time and hence ineligible to be the vice president. But none of these constitutional prohibitions have stopped Trump and his supporters from saying Trump would run for a third term.

Increasingly, Trump’s critics and Democratic leaders are voicing fears that Trump could run for a third term unconstitutionally or simply refuse to leave the White House at the end of his current term and refuse to hold any elections.

In an interview last month, California Governor Gavin Newsom said he feared from the core of his soul that Trump could simply refuse to hold elections in 2028 and continue to stay in the White House indefinitely.

“I fear that we will not have an election in 2028. I really mean that in the core of my soul. Unless we wake up to the code red of what’s happening in this country and we wake up soberly to how serious this moment is,” said Newsom.

Even though Trump’s supporters dismiss such concerns as fearmongering, Trump himself promised his supporters on the campaign trail that there would not be any election in the country after 2024 if he won .

“Christians, get out and vote. Just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore, you know what? Four more years, it’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians,” Trump said at a rally in in July 2024.