Donald Trump is once again entertaining the prospect of serving an unconstitutional third term as president as he asked a crowd of supporters whether he should run again.
The president basked in chants of “four more years” just one month into his second term while at a White House reception celebrating Black History Month on Thursday.
Trump’s suggestion came just days after referring to himself as a “king” and quoting Napolean Bonaparte, unsubtly stating that he was above the law.
Those chants were echoed later Thursday by Trump’s former White House strategist Steve Bannon while on stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference, who said leaders like him come along once or twice in history.
“We want Trump in ‘28… We want Trump! We Want Trump!,” Bannon said before later gesturing, what critics say, a salute that resembled a Sieg Heil.
Since early in his 2024 campaigning, Trump repeatedly mused about a third term. He has raised the idea over and over again since his first term in office.
The 22nd Amendment of the Constitution says that presidents can only serve up to two full terms (eight years). Trump has said he may feel “entitled” to more while also suggesting he doesn’t want to run again after his next term ends in January 2029.
Congressional Democrats have proposed a measure to clarify that the 22nd Amendment expressly forbids a third term in office, and 78-year-old Trump, the oldest U.S. president in history, has at times admitted defeat to the constitutional guardrails he’s up against, despite his rhetoric.
Just days after winning the 2024 election, Trump told House Republicans: “I suspect I won’t be running again unless you say ‘He’s so good, we got to figure something else out.’”
Last month, at the House Republicans’ annual retreat in Florida, he joked about whether he was allowed to run again. Days later at a Las Vegas rally, he pondered serving “not once, but twice… or three or four times.”
And at a prayer breakfast at the Washington Hilton on February 6, Trump mulled another four years, “despite the fact that they say I can’t run again.”
“You know, FDR 16 years — almost 16 years — he was four terms. I don’t know, are we going to be considered three-term? Or two-term?” he told a National Rifle Association convention in May last year, referencing Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Elsewhere on the 2024 campaign trail, Trump suggested he would be a “dictator” and abuse power only on “day one” of his new administration, and told an audience of Christians if he got elected “you’re not going to have to vote” in the future.
It wasn’t just the most recent election cycle where Trump seemingly eyed a third term in office.
