Three terms for Trump?

Republican lawmakers laughed in November when President Donald Trump, a week after winning the 2024 election, mentioned running for a third term.

“That was a joke. It was clearly a joke,” Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., told reporters after the Capitol Hill meeting when Trump made the quip, The Hill reported. “I leaned over to somebody beside me, [Arizona Rep.] Andy Biggs, and I said, that’ll be the headlines tomorrow, ‘Trump trying to thwart the Constitution,’ which—there’s nothing further from the truth.”

A few months into Trump’s second term as president, more Americans are taking seriously the possibility of him running for reelection again. In late January, Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., proposed an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would give presidents who served nonconsecutive terms the ability to run for a third term. In a March interview with NBC News, Trump said that he was “not joking” about considering the possibility. “I like working,” he added.

Trump’s opponents also think he is serious about a third term. “Why not? They don’t believe in the rule of law. They don’t believe in the Constitution,” Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., told CBS News. “So, yeah, I would take that seriously.”

The increasing focus on whether the president might pursue a third term raises new questions about if he can—or should. His supporters and opponents, along with political experts, are weighing in on the constitutionality, feasibility, and plausibility of Trump serving four more years.

Constitutionality

The 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1951, states that no person may be elected president more than twice. Any person who takes over another president’s term and serves more than two years of that president’s term cannot be elected president more than once after that. The amendment aims to limit presidents to two terms in office—or less.

But some see the potential for a loophole in the amendment.

“The 22nd Amendment is poorly drafted,” Regent University Law School professor Brad Jacob told WORLD. “It was drafted in a world where nobody was thinking about trying to get around it.” It doesn’t explicitly prevent an individual from serving as president for more than two terms, Jacob said. It only prevents him or her from being elected president more than twice.

Some of Trump’s supporters have suggested that Vice President J.D. Vance could run for president in 2028 and choose Trump as his running mate. Then, upon taking the oath of office on Jan. 20, 2029, Vance could resign from the presidency and have Trump succeed him.

Mark Caleb Smith, who teaches U.S. politics at Cedarville University, says the 12th Amendment would block Trump from getting back into office through that route. That amendment says that “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.”

But Jacob argues that because the 22nd Amendment only addresses a candidate’s eligibility to be elected president, Trump might still be eligible to step in for Vance if he isn’t directly elected. Trump already satisfies all the Constitution’s other requirements for the presidency—being older than 35, a natural-born citizen, and a resident of the United States for more than 14 years.

Feasibility

Meanwhile, Rep. Ogles, who proposed the amendment that would allow for a third term, and other Trump supporters are working on amending the Constitution to create a clear legal path for Trump to serve another term.

Shane Trejo, the campaign lead for the grassroots advocacy group Third Term Project, is optimistic that the American people can pass such an amendment. “There’s very, very few people we encountered who did not like the idea of Trump 2028,” Trejo said. “Some people didn’t initially think it was practical, but after talking to them for a minute, they seem to be on board.”

Trejo’s organization is working to generate support for Ogles’ proposed constitutional amendment. Trejo echoed Ogles’ point that Trump needs more than four years to accomplish his agenda.

“This is a gargantuan task that’s at hand for him, to clean up the swamp, so to speak, and all the different corrupt aspects of the government,” Trejo said. “So it’s going to be tough for him to do that with just this term, to make those changes permanent, and something that just can’t be overturned on a whim by whoever the next president is.”

Smith and Jacob say a constitutional amendment is unlikely to make much headway.

“In today’s political climate, there is no chance of any constitutional amendment being enacted. Period. Much less one as controversial as this would be,” Jacob said. Amending the Constitution would require the support of three-fourths of the states and likely two-thirds of both chambers of Congress.

“Almost everyone in Congress is concerned about posturing to their base, to the most extreme people in their party, and they will not compromise. Compromise has become a bad word in Congress,” Jacob said. “So the thought of getting every single Republican and enough Democrats to get you over two-thirds in both the House and the Senate to agree to amend the Constitution to permit Donald Trump to get another term in office? It’s not going to happen. It has no chance.”

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi told Fox News on Sunday that it would be a “heavy lift” to get President Donald Trump into office, legally, for a third time. She did not confirm whether she saw a constitutional amendment as the only way to unlock a third term for Trump. Administration officials would have to look at the U.S. Constitution to see how it would work, she said. But she added that she expected Trump would be done serving as president after this term.

Plausibility

Regardless of whether the Constitution could be interpreted or amended to permit Trump to serve a third term, a question remains about whether he would seek to do so.

“I think it’s fair to say that the Trump administration so far has been controversial. Pretty extensive amount of criticism, pushback. Some of that’s taking place in Congress, some of it’s taking place in the courts, some of it in the public,” Smith said. “Maybe this is really an effort to distract from that kind of criticism, change the conversation, maybe control a couple of news cycles.”

A recent YouGov poll showed that more than half of American adults expected Trump to try to win a third term somehow. Fewer than one-third of respondents said he would most likely be done at the end of this term.

“So maybe he’s just pulling our legs, maybe he isn’t … At this point, I don’t put anything out of reach for President Trump to try things,” Jacob said. “If he thinks it’s in his best interest to run for a third term, he’ll probably try to find a way to do it.”

WORLD’s Carolina Lumetta contributed to this report.