Can Trump actually run for a third term?
Donald Trump has said he is “not joking” about plans to run for a third term in the White House, despite the move being prohibited under the US constitution.
The president told NBC that he was sincere about his ambitions to run again, adding “there are methods” by which he could do it.
Under the terms of the constitution, presidents are limited to serving a maximum of two terms in office.
However, calls have grown in recent months among Mr Trump’s Maga base for the constitution to be amended, with a Republican lawmaker introducing a resolution in January to increase the limit to three terms.
Steve Bannon, the former Trump adviser and host of the War Room podcast, told News Nation earlier this month that he believes the president will “run and win again in 2028”.
Here’s how Mr Trump could try to run for a third term.
Can Donald Trump run for president for a third term?
Presidents are limited to serving two terms in office under the US constitution.
“No person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice,” begins the 22nd Amendment, which was introduced in 1951.
The only president to remain in office for more than two terms was Franklin D Roosevelt, who served for four terms amid the chaos of the Great Depression and the Second World War.
It has been suggested that Mr Trump could serve a third term within the confines of the constitution if he were to run as vice-president and assume the presidency after the sitting president stepped aside.
Asked if JD Vance would run for office and then pass the role to Mr Trump, the president told NBC “that’s one” method. “But there are others,” he added.
Another possible avenue could be for one of Mr Trump’s family members to run in his place, and then serve as a figurehead president while Mr Trump makes the key decisions.
Andy Ogles, the Republican congressman for Tennessee, has introduced a resolution to amend the constitution to allow Mr Trump to seek another term.
However, it has little chance of passing as a two-thirds majority vote is needed in both the House and the Senate to propose a revision to the constitution. Three-quarters of all state legislatures must approve it for the amendment to pass.
The decision for George Washington – the first president of the United States – to voluntarily step down from office after two four-year terms established a tradition for future presidents to respect the same term limit.
This tradition was challenged at various times, notably by Theodore Roosevelt, who stunned the country in 1912 by breaking from the GOP to mount a third-party challenge against the Republican incumbent Willliam Howard Taft.
His challenge split the Republican vote, paving the way for Woodrow Wilson to win the presidency for the Democrats.
Wilson later planned to run for a third term himself but suffered a stroke in 1919 that left him incapacitated until the end of his presidency in 1921.
What has Donald Trump said about a third term?
Mr Trump has sent out mixed messages on his plans to run again, stating this term will be his last in office white taunting his opponents by floating the idea of going for a third term.
“Am I allowed to run again?” Mr Trump joked at a House Republican retreat in Florida in his second week back in office.
Then on Feb 6, the president again mused on the idea that his presidency could be extended beyond two four-year terms at a Washington hotel breakfast.
“They say I can’t run again; that’s the expression,” he told reporters. “Then somebody said, ‘I don’t think you can.’ Oh.”
Whether he is teasing or taunting, Mr Trump’s comments form a pattern, with the president suggesting shortly after winning re-election that he might stick around beyond his term limit.
“I suspect I won’t be running again unless you say, ‘He’s so good we got to figure something else out,’” Mr Trump said to laughs from the lawmakers in November.
Going back to his first term in office, the president raised the prospect of extending term limits at a September 2020 rally in Nevada.
“We’re going to win four more years in the White House,” he said. “And then after that, we’ll negotiate, right? Because we’re probably — based on the way we were treated — we are probably entitled to another four after that.”
Despite Mr Trump’s taunts, asked on election day whether the 2024 campaign was his last, the president said: “I would think so.”