Critics attack Trump notion of serving third term
Donald Trump’s repeated musings that there is scope for breaking with the US constitution’s explicit ban on running for a third term in office is attracting criticism from some in both parties.
Changing the constitution so that it no longer forbids a third term is a very high hurdle to leap over. You need a two-thirds majority vote in the US Congress or two-thirds of US states agreeing to convene a constitutional convention at which an amendment would be proposed, NBC reports. Then agreement from such a vote would need to be ratified by three-quarters of the states.
Trump talked about a possible third term before he was inaugurated and has brought it up at least twice more since he became the 47th president of the United States, in a return to the White House that has shaken the US government to its core.
Texas congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, a Democrat, posted on X about the possibility of Trump service again: “So, that’s actually not allowed…The Constitution isn’t optional, sir. This isn’t a reality show — it’s reality. Two terms, that’s it.”
Republican John Dean, from the Nixon era, talked of Trump trying an “end run”.
Key events
John Dean said that the debate around whether a US president can run for a third term is not new.
“It actually goes back to a Law Journal article in 1999 where a bunch of scholars got together and looked at the 22nd Amendment and said ‘you know, maybe a president cannot be re-elected twice but maybe he can serve [again] twice’.”
Dean said the scholars discussed that maybe a president becomes a vice presidential candidate next time and then when the nominee at the top of the ticket is elected president he steps aside and lets his No. 2 and former president take over to serve as president for a third time, using the succession statute.
“This is really obtuse, it’s pretty good scholarship, it’s been debated for a number of years. Hillary Clinton looked at it when she was nominated [in 2016 for the Democrats], thinking maybe her husband, the former president [Bill] should be her vice president.”
“Then she realized ‘well, he’s not really eligible to become president in my reading and and most readings of the 22nd amendment’, so she precluded that. A lot of people thought [Barack] Obama should go for another term, he didn’t. He read the constitution and said ‘I’m not for end runs’.”
