There are ‘Plans’ For Third Term US Presidency – Trump

US president, Donald Trump has stated ‘there are methods’ if not ‘plans’ for him to seek a third term in the White House.

In a recent interview, Trump said he wasn’t joking when he alluded to a purported loophole for a third term as President circumventing the constitutional limit preventing US presidents from serving three terms.

In an interview aired Sunday on NBC, Trump was asked by host Kristen Welker about his trying to stay in office beyond his second presidency, an issue he has repeatedly raised while sometimes claiming he is just joking.

In response Trump said “there are methods which you could do it” – and this time made it a point to say he was not joking.

“Well, there are plans,” Trump said to Welker. “There are – not plans. There are methods – there are methods which you could do it, as you know.”

Potential Loophole in US Constitution

Welker alluded to a purported loophole some Trump supporters have fantasized about finding in which he could be the running mate to his vice-president, JD Vance, or someone else in the 2028 election. The person to whom Trump would be the running mate in that scenario could then immediately resign after winning and being sworn in as president, letting Trump take over by succession.

This argument is premised on the fact the constitution’s 22nd amendment only explicitly bans being “elected” to more than two presidential terms without saying anything about becoming the commander-in-chief on an additional occasion through succession.

However an election law professor at Notre Dame, Derek Muller, told the Associated Press that the constitution’s 12th amendment 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 indicates that if Trump is not eligible to run for president again because of the 22nd amendment, he is not eligible to run for the vice-presidency, either.

“I don’t think there’s any ‘one weird trick’ to getting around presidential term limits,” Muller said.

Trump has however stated there are other ways he could achieve his aim even though he says it was “far too early to think about” trying to defy the two presidential term limit in the constitution to stay in office and that he was “focused on the current”.

Asked if he was just joking, as he and his supporters like to say whenever he floats anti-constitutional ideas, he said: “No, no, I’m not joking. I’m not joking.”

Trump’s comments came after he previously likened himself to a “king” – the royal title without term limits – on social media.

Legislative Resistance

Not all members of the Trump-led Republican party are on board with the idea of changing the constitution to let the president stay in power beyond the end of his second term in early 2029.

After Trump’s “King” comments in February, the Republican US senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma said he would not back an unconstitutional third term under Trump.

“I’m not changing the constitution, first of all, unless the American people chose to do that,” Mullin told NBC.

To modify presidential term limits would require two-thirds approval from both the Senate and the House, as well as approval from three-quarters of the country’s state legislatures. Trump’s enablers do not have the numbers required in those various contexts to easily get that approval democratically.

The 22nd amendment was ratified after Franklin D Roosevelt served two terms following his election in 1932 – and was then re-elected in 1940 and 1944 amid the second world war. He died as president in 1945, and the 22nd amendment was ratified in 1951.

 

 

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