By: Snigdha Chakravarti
On an Air Force One flight to Asia on Monday, October 27th, President Trump hinted at the possibility of running for a third term. This isn’t the first time the President remarked how he “would love” to run for a 3rd term; in fact, in January 2025, Trump mentioned that the “greatest honor” in his life would be “to serve not once, but twice or thrice or four times.” He later commented that his statement was intended to be a joke for “false media.” However, in the past few weeks, the President has appeared to genuinely consider running in 2028. Even Trump ally Steve Bannon explained that there is an ongoing “plan” to keep Trump in power past 2028 and how people “ought to just get accommodated to that.”
Whether or not the President runs again in 2028, there is one thing that’s clear: the 22nd amendment of the Constitution affirms that a president cannot run for a third term after holding two terms in office. The interpretation, though, has been contested among Trump supporters, who believe that the amendment would only ban the President from being “elected” for more than two terms, not from succession. In other words, it would technically allow the President to run for vice president in the next election, and if the president-elect in the 2028 election resigns, he [Trump, as the vice president] could come back to power again. President Trump, on the other hand, saw the prospect of running for vice president in 2028 as “too cute” and “not right”, especially if the current Vice President JD Vance decides to run for president then. Furthermore, according to Derek Muller, an election law professor at the University of Notre Dame, the 12th Amendment states that being ineligible to run for another presidential term makes it illegal to also run for vice president. Essentially, in Muller’s perspective, the Constitution doesn’t allow Trump to run for vice president in 2028.
Since the 22nd Amendment prevents a president from holding more than two terms in office and President Trump has rejected the idea of running for vice president in 2028, it may seem like the possibility of the President running for a third term is highly unlikely. Moreover, changing an amendment in the Constitution would take years. According to Speaker Mike Johnson, who doesn’t “see a path” for this, two-thirds of the states or of both the House and Senate must propose the change, and following this, three-fourths of the states must ratify it. Even the President, upon hearing this, admitted that he is “not allowed to run” but also asserted how “it’s too bad”, especially because he has the “best numbers for any president in many years.”
However, circumventing the Constitution has already been seen before with the President in 2024, when the Supreme Court allowed Trump to stay on the ballot despite the 14th Amendment making it illegal for insurrectionsists to be on the ballot. The Supreme Court claimed that the president or any ex-president cannot be charged with criminal offense committed in office, so technically, in the Court’s view, the ruling did not directly go against the 14th Amendment. Critics like Judge Sonia Sotomayor saw the ruling as a “mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government” since the President was placed above the law.
Similarly, several critics view the President’s attempt for reelection as undermining the nation’s democracy. New York Representative Daniel Goldman, for example, perceives it as “yet another escalation in his [President Trump’s] clear effort to take over the government and dismantle our democracy.” Even some Republicans oppose a third term for the President. Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma expressed how he would not support “changing the Constitution” unless the “American people chose to do it.”
The President’s desire to run for a third term has brought out several debates regarding its constitutionality. As for now, the President seems to have abandoned the idea after admitting the unconstitutionality of running again. In a broader sense, though, these debates have shaken the walls of democracy once again in the country.