# Trump won't rule out 3rd term **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Tags:** trump\ **Created:** [March 31, 2025, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wont-rule-out-3rd-term/1016371 "2025-03-31T01:50:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![survinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cab0a1/32.png) [@survinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/survinga)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wont-rule-out-3rd-term/1016371/1 "2025-03-31T01:50:48Z")
I hate that the media even asked him. But we all knew what he’d say if asked. [https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/30/us/politics/trump-third-term.html?smid=url-share](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/30/us/politics/trump-third-term.html?smid=url-share) The 22nd Amendment won’t allow him to be elected POTUS. The 12th Amendment won’t allow him to be VP, because he wouldn’t be eligible to be POTUS. There’s no legal way for him to remain in power, and if he tried, I think the courts & states would reject it. So, I think Trump will try to do something to stay in power in 2028 that’s likely illegal. He’s likely try to declare martial law or cancel the election somehow with some bullshit national “emergency” or “war”. I do have comfort that he’ll be gone in 2029, due to the 22nd & 12th Amendments. But I worry that there are other things he’ll try to do. Talk me off the ledge. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wont-rule-out-3rd-term/1016371/2 "2025-03-31T01:55:24Z")
Suppose he did this: get two stooges to run for president and vice president. Get a Republican House elected. Get himself named Speaker. Order the president and vice president to resign. Waltz back into the White House. Perhaps not so much talking you off the ledge as pushing you, but I’m not sure that wouldn’t work. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wont-rule-out-3rd-term/1016371/3 "2025-03-31T01:57:47Z")
> [@survinga](#): > > The 12th Amendment won’t allow him to be VP, because he wouldn’t be eligible to be POTUS. That is still an open question. He is still eligible to become President: 35 years old, natural-born citizen, 7 year resident of the United States. He is not eligible to be _elected_ President but if one were to take a literal reading of the Constitution, he could be elected Vice-President then become President that way. Ninja’d by BobLibDem, same plan but he adds one extra stooge. Also, the Speaker would become Acting President. No one knows what that means but the VP actually becomes President. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wont-rule-out-3rd-term/1016371/4 "2025-03-31T01:58:09Z")
If the Speaker of the House were a naturalized United States citizen now, that person would be skipped in the line of succession. I offer this as an example of a person ostensibly in the line of succession but still ineligible. So, even if Trump were to manage to become speaker, he still would not be eligible for president again as he is already disqualified. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wont-rule-out-3rd-term/1016371/5 "2025-03-31T01:59:26Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > If the Speaker of the House were a naturalized United States citizen now, that person would be skipped in the line of succession. So, even if Trump were to manage to become speaker, he still would not be eligible for president again Wouldn’t be eligible to _be_ president again, or wouldn’t be eligible to be _elected_ president again? ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wont-rule-out-3rd-term/1016371/6 "2025-03-31T02:02:39Z")
So were all on the same page > No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States. > No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wont-rule-out-3rd-term/1016371/7 "2025-03-31T02:09:04Z")
If he gets the GOP nomination, no state he needs to win would stop him from being on ballots and winning. We already saw him being elected despite not meeting 14th amendment criteria for the presidential office. This would be no different. However, the issue of disrespecting the constitution would be effectively used against him in the campaign. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wont-rule-out-3rd-term/1016371/8 "2025-03-31T02:09:31Z")
Trump will do anything and everything the Congress and the Courts allow him to do…and, more and more when it comes to the court the Trump administration has a two-pronged approach: Stall/delay, and “Make me!” ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wont-rule-out-3rd-term/1016371/9 "2025-03-31T02:12:31Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Suppose he did this: get two stooges to run for president and vice president. Get a Republican House elected. Get himself named Speaker. Order the president and vice president to resign. Waltz back into the White House. Doesn’t work. Under the Presidential Succession Act, holding an office in the line of succession doesn’t make you eligible to be president - you still have to meet the other requirements, which Trump would not. Madeline Albright wasn’t eligible to be in succession when she was Secretary of State, for example, because she wasn’t a natural-born citizen. Moreover, anyone lower on the list than the veep only becomes acting president in such a scenario - as soon as Congress appointed a new vice president, that person would become president and the acting president would revert to their former office. > [@PhillyGuy](#): > > If he gets the GOP nomination, no state he needs to win would stop him from being on ballots and winning. To the best of my knowledge all 50 states require that you be eligible for the presidency to be listed on the ballot, which is why Cenk Uygur’s stunt run for the Democratic nomination last year went nowhere. He wouldn’t be able to get listed in the primary. > [@PhillyGuy](#): > > We already saw him being elected despite not meeting 14th amendment criteria for the presidential office. Trump was never convicted of a crime of insurrection, so he wasn’t ineligible under the 14th amendment no matter how much we might wish it had been so. > [@survinga](#): > > Talk me off the ledge. Trump is an idiot suffering from dementia. He has absolutely no understanding of why he can’t run for a third term and no idea what it would take to change that - he probably thinks he can just call up Mike Johnson and ask him to pass a “Trump can be president forever” bill. He’s just babbling. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wont-rule-out-3rd-term/1016371/10 "2025-03-31T02:15:10Z")
I don’t think he’s going to run again - I think he just enjoys scaring the people who don’t support him. And I’m not worried about Vance ( or anyone else) running and resigning - who would resign after they were elected so Trump could have a third term? ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wont-rule-out-3rd-term/1016371/11 "2025-03-31T02:18:26Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > We already saw him being elected despite not meeting 14th amendment criteria for the presidential office. This would be no different. According to SCOTUS, he had to be convicted of insurrection at a Federal level and he never was. Therefore he was not ineligible under 14/3. There real issue is if SCOTUS will allow individual states to keep him off of the ballot or if he needs to be declared ineligible at the federal level … not there is no mechanism in place for that since elections are conducted at the state level. ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wont-rule-out-3rd-term/1016371/12 "2025-03-31T02:26:35Z")
I suspect, but of course cannot prove that Trump is saying it because he knows it will make people crazy, because he’d enjoy it if he could get away with it, and before all else, because it will keep him feeling and being _important_ in a way he otherwise would not be to the future if term limitations were likely to apply. I find if I assume he’s motivated first by what gives him the most attention, preferably good, but bad is acceptable, that it’s at least close to the actual circumstances. I’m sure he plans to break out systems enough that he cannot ever be held accountable for what he’s done, and absolutely will self-pardon (buying himself the probable rest of his lifespan) if he does leave office. And assuming he’s live and even partly functional, he’ll be kingmaker until he’s no longer to form even the most vaguely coherent sentence (even if it takes a few tries!). ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wont-rule-out-3rd-term/1016371/13 "2025-03-31T02:31:23Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > And I’m not worried about Vance ( or anyone else) running and resigning - who would resign after they were elected so Trump could have a third term? Definitely this. I don’t think there’s ANYONE so subservient to an 82-year-old dementia patient that they’d put themselves through running for president, and winning, just to immediately hand it over to him. Especially not an amoral opportunist like Vance, who probably wouldn’t hesitate to have Trump thrown in Gitmo if he had the power to. In any event, it seems to me like there’s one good way to make sure Trump doesn’t try to run for a third term - start suggesting that if he does, Obama could and should run for one as well. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wont-rule-out-3rd-term/1016371/14 "2025-03-31T02:55:41Z")
Who is going to enforce the 22nd and 12th amendments? The supreme court? The federal police? > [@ParallelLines](#): > > I suspect, but of course cannot prove that Trump is saying it because he knows it will make people crazy I assume the strategy of Trump’s handlers is to let Trump say irrational things so all the attention is on those things, while they work quietly behind the scenes to actually accomplish their goals of promoting authoritarianism and plutocracy. Trump may just be their idiot distraction so nobody notices all the evil things Trump’s handlers are quietly doing behind the scenes. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wont-rule-out-3rd-term/1016371/15 "2025-03-31T03:08:10Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Who is going to enforce the 22nd and 12th amendments? > > The supreme court? The federal police? Democratic-controlled state supreme courts could rule that Trump can’t be on the primary ballot. We have a majority Democratic Supreme Court in a Pennsylvania, but the state is trending GOP. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wont-rule-out-3rd-term/1016371/16 "2025-03-31T03:14:03Z")
It is obvious to the average third grader that, short of an amendment, Trump is not eligible to run for a third term. Yes its possible for the rule of law to deteriorate so badly that he could run, but at that point it has deteriorated so badly that the results of a third term election is irrelevant to whether or not he stays in power. So the question is pretty much moot. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wont-rule-out-3rd-term/1016371/17 "2025-03-31T03:15:39Z")
> [@survinga](#): > > I think the courts The courts as they currently constituted would **probably** strike down any attempt at a third term as blatantly unconstitutional. They will look very different after four years of Trump appointments. Personally I’d put more stock in the cold hand of the grim reaper preventing a third term than the constitutional checks and balance 😟 ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wont-rule-out-3rd-term/1016371/18 "2025-03-31T03:15:39Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > > [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > > > Who is going to enforce the 22nd and 12th amendments? > > > > The supreme court? The federal police? > > Democratic-controlled state supreme courts could rule that Trump can’t be on the primary ballot. > > We have a majority Democratic Supreme Court in a Pennsylvania, but the state is trending GOP. How does this apply? > **[Supreme Court Rules Trump Can Stay on Colorado Ballot](https://www.ncsl.org/state-legislatures-news/details/supreme-court-rules-trump-can-stay-on-colorado-ballot)** > > Only Congress can remove candidates for federal office from the presidential ballot, the U.S. Supreme Court says, overturning a Colorado Supreme Court decision that would have removed Donald Trump from that state’s primary ballot. Six Colorado... > Only Congress can remove candidates for federal office from the presidential ballot, the U.S. Supreme Court says, overturning a Colorado Supreme Court decision that would have removed Donald Trump from that state’s primary ballot. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wont-rule-out-3rd-term/1016371/19 "2025-03-31T03:16:08Z")
Using insurance statistics for 80 year old American men, Trump has roughly a 26% chance of dying in the next four years. If he lives through his term, he has roughly a 37% of dying over the next four years. In other words, the chance of Trump living through two more full terms is under 50%. No doubt he would prefer to die in office than in prison. Even if he can outwit the Constitution, which seems unlikely but stranger things have happened, he also has to beat Father Time. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wont-rule-out-3rd-term/1016371/20 "2025-03-31T03:20:58Z")
Sure, the Donald wants to be King, or rather Emperor, King of Kings. Nobody talking back to him, decisions made on whim, golden toilets, all that jazz. But this is much more practical. He knows he can’t do a third term because there is no constitution loophole to slip through. He doesn’t care, and not just because he wanna. The point is to taunt Congress in general and the Republicans in Congress in particular. Will any of them have the guts to be the first to step up and say that the Emperor has no clothes? That weakling will be cut from the herd immediately. As long as he has Congress in his fist he can get away with all the other unconstitutional and illegal things he wants done. And the Republicans won’t say a word until the pressure from the home folks becomes too great. Win/win. He understands the secrets of magic. Don’t look at what the displayed hand is doing. The hidden hand is working the real scam. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wont-rule-out-3rd-term/1016371.md?page=2)