President Donald Trump has often reflected, he even joked, on looking for a third mandate, but during the weekend he made his strongest and most serious comments about a movement that constitutional academics ABC News spoke with Call practically impossible.
“I’m not joking,” News “Meet the Press” Moderator Kristen Welker told NBC in a Telephone interview Sunday, before adding that it was “too soon to think about it.”
“There are methods that could do it,” Trump said, including a scenario in which Vice President JD Vance ran at the top of the 2028 ticket with Trump as his formula partner, just for Trump to assume the Oval office after the elections.
Legal and electoral experts told ABC News any attempt to win another four years, since the president would be an unprecedented violation of the Constitution.
“Trump may not want to rule out a third term, but the 22nd amendment to the Constitution does so,” said David Schultz, a professor at Hamline University and constitutional law expert.
The amendment establishes, in part: “No person will be chosen for the president’s office more than twice.”
President Donald Trump down the Air Force One stairs upon arrival at the Andrews joint base, Maryland, on March 30, 2025.
Luis M. Alvarez/AP
It was ratified in 1951, years after President Franklin D. Roosevelt broke with the tradition of two periods established by George Washington and secured a third mandate when World War II broke out.
“It would be completely unprecedented that a president openly challenges the dictates of the 22nd amendment and, even more, try to run or serve as president again,” said Michael Gerhardt, a constitutional expert at the University of North Carolina.
“Threats and insinuations certainly excite its base, but there is no constitutional basis for the current president to try as president after two elected terms,” Gerhardt said.
The experts said that the only legal way for Trump to run for a third mandate would be to amend the Constitution, an incredibly unlikely result, since it would take two thirds of the Chamber and the Senate, or two thirds of the states that agree to call a constitutional convention. Then, any change would require three quarters of the states to sign for ratification.
“This Trump statement was brilliant in terms of capturing and diverting attention,” said Schultz. “His followers love him and his detractors will be enraged. In the process, no one will talk about the price of eggs, tariffs and an unstable stock market.”
Experts break down ‘methods’ floated by Trump and his allies
As for Trump’s statement that one of the “methods” could be executed as vice president of Vance and then be approved by the witness, experts indicate amendment 12 since 1804 as a barrier.
“The 12th amendment establishes that anyone who is not eligible to be president is also considered illegible to serve as vice president,” said Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “This means that Trump could not serve as vice president, which is the position that would need to execute the Vance scheme.”
President -elect Donald Trump and elected vice president JD Vance attend the inauguration of Donald J. Trump in the Capitol roundabout, on January 20, 2025.
Julia DeMaree Nikhinson /Pool /Getty Images
Steve Bannon, a fierce ally of Trump, has also presented what he has called alternatives to allow Trump to run in 2028.
Bannon, in Observations in the The New York Youth Republican Club Gala in December, has argued that it could work again since Trump’s two terms were not consecutive.
“As he doesn’t really say consecutive, I don’t know, maybe we do it again in ’28? Are they down for that? Trump ’28?” Bannon said.
Schultz said the argument does not have a solid legal basis.
“The general limit of serving as president for ten years is a textual test at the bar to be executed for a third mandate and an indication of the intention of the editors of the Congress that they did not want anyone to serve for more than two terms,” said Schultz.
Section 1 of the 22nd amendment establishes: “No person who has held the position of president, or acted as president, for more than two years of a period to which some other person was elected president will be elected for the president’s office more than once.”
Schultz added that the measure “was implemented to allow a situation in which a president dies more than half a period and the vice president succeeds that person. The Constitution allows the vice president to fulfill the remaining term and then fulfill two more terms, for a total of ten years.”
What happens if Trump tries anyway?
Trump has already proven the limits of the Constitution that governs the presidential power several times in the first months of his second term.
Several Democrats saw their comments on Sunday as another climb against the rule of law. The president of the National Democratic Committee, Ken Martin, wrote in X: “This is what the dictators do.”
In the past, Republicans have played largely in Trump’s reflections on a third mandate as a joke destined to irritate their opposition. But a few days after its inauguration, the republican representative of Lantliner Andy Ogles Lanter introduced a resolution that requested the extension of the presidential term limits to allow Trump to look for another four years in the White House.
“A crisis could arise if Trump is postulated for president or vice president in 2028,” Burden said. “The Constitution prohibits serving in office but not running for position. If the Republicans nominated him, they would bet that they can violate the Constitution and somehow will allow him to serve if he wins.”
If Trump tried to run, it would depend on the electoral officials and then, ultimately, the courts decide. In the 2024 campaign, several states challenged Trump’s eligibility to seek the Republican presidential nomination under section 3 of the 14th amendment due to their actions around the attack of January 6, 2021 to the United States Capitol. The legal battle went to the Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of Trump.
“If an inelegable person as Trump is allowed to run knowing that he is not eligible to serve, it is a dangerous collision course in which the United States Constitution and the rule of law would be seriously proved,” Burden said.
James Sample, an expert in constitutional law at the University of Hofstra, said Trump would lose in court if he tried to work again.
“Most of the Constitution is written in broad, textured, difficult to define. What is a fast trial? What is a cruel and unusual punishment? What is the same protection? How much process is due process? The amendment 22, however, is in white and black,” the exhibition said.
“But if it can succeed in converting the questions that are so clear in the debates, then the general objective of undermining the Constitution and undermining the rule of law and maximizing the Executive Power is used even if it loses the particular battle,” he continued. “This particular battle is not a won battle. It will not fulfill a third mandate, but simply by framing this as a debate, it will succeed in eroding even more respect for the Constitution.”
