Steve Bannon is a troll. Never forget that. Because trolling is exactly what he was doing last weekend when he suggested Donald Trump could run for president in 2028 to serve, if he won, a third term in office.
Trump can’t do this, and don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.
Now, if you’re someone who believes that there are no rules, or at least that there are no rules that apply to Donald Trump, and that any norm-breaking democracy-threatening thing he, his advisers, or even his opponents can imagine is possible — well, then nothing I say here will convince you. Just go ahead and give up now.
But for everyone else, the Constitution is eminently clear. The 22nd Amendment says: “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.” It was added to the Constitution after Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected for a fourth term, to prevent anyone else from serving as long as he did. No other president has served more than two terms. And neither will Donald Trump.
Some folks may be wondering whether the 22nd Amendment applies to nonconsecutive terms, like Trump’s two terms in office. It does. When the amendment was written, it could have said: “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice consecutively.” But it doesn’t. It puts a numerical limit on the number of times someone can be elected. That total of two can be reached by two consecutive terms or two nonconsecutive terms. The language covers both options.
I am confident Bannon knows this and made his comments this weekend knowing they would rally his crowd (which cheered enthusiastically) and that his comments would get liberals all worked up about the prospect (and many have been). But even the person Bannon credited with the idea — conservative movement lawyer Mike Davis — told a reporter who asked whether he told Bannon that Trump can serve a third term, “Of course not! That’s crazy.”
To be clear, we could walk down some technical rabbit holes to get to a possible third term for Trump. The 22nd Amendment mentions only that someone cannot be elected more than twice to the office of the presidency. What if Trump is J.D. Vance’s vice president on the 2028 ticket and then Vance resigns? Or if Trump is elected speaker of the House in 2029 (a position that doesn’t need to be filled by an actual member of the House) and becomes second in line for the presidency and then both the president and vice president resign? Scenarios like these have received the attention of scholars of the 22nd Amendment. Does the Constitution’s use of the word “elect” mean these other routes are possible, or do we hew to the clear spirit of the provision by prohibiting someone from serving more than two terms, no matter the path taken?
Or, possibly, Trump could just decide to run a third time and dare someone to stop him. Ultimately, the Supreme Court, with three justices currently appointed by Trump and possibly more by 2028, would decide the matter — the same court that, earlier this year allowed him to remain on the ballot even though people had accused him of being an insurrectionist and thus ineligible to run for president under the 14th Amendment.
If this comes to pass, nothing matters, and there will likely be plenty of similarly dire things for us to be worrying about as Trump gears up for his fourth run at the White House — whether it be concentration camps, another Great Depression, a mass polio outbreak, or other horrors we can’t yet imagine.
Until then, don’t listen to trolls.
