President Trump has periodically floated the idea of serving a third term in office since his first reelection campaign and seemed to double down on it Sunday during an interview with NBC News, suggesting “there are methods” to do it despite term limits set by the 12th and 22nd Amendments in the U.S. Constitution.
To date, Franklin D. Roosevelt is the only president in the history of the United States to serve more than two terms, ultimately sitting in office from 1933 to 1945, when he died shortly after beginning his fourth term. His third term was controversial, said Noah Rosenblum, a legal historian and constitutional law professor at New York University, noting that FDR’s tenure broke from a precedent set by George Washington and drew accusations of dictatorial ambitions as well as a disrespect for democracy.
“There are very few norms as deeply embedded in American democratic culture as the idea that the president serves two terms,” Rosenblum told CBS News. “And clever word games to try to get around that are really nothing but attempts to undermine the clear text, spirit and intention of the Constitution and this historical process that ungirds it.”
Here’s what to know about the amendments that regulate how long any one person can remain president.
What is Trump saying about seeking a third term?
Mr. Trump has mentioned staying in office after his current, second term ends on numerous occasions, stretching back to his first administration. On the campaign trail in 2020, he told attendees at a rally in Minden, Nevada, that he believed he would win that year’s election against Joe Biden and went on to suggest he could take the White House for a third time afterward.
“We’re going to win four more years in the White House. And then after that, we’ll negotiate, right?” Mr. Trump said at the time. “Because we’re probably, based on the way we were treated, we’re probably entitled to another four after that.” It was unclear at the time if Mr. Trump meant what he said, but the comments stoked national discourse about whether he would, or could, truly attempt to flout the two-term limit.
Those questions began to crop up again after the president’s recent remarks to NBC News, in which he said during a phone interview from Mar-a-Lago that he was “not joking” about trying to serve a third term in the White House.
“There are methods which you could do it,” said Mr. Trump, although he added, “It is far too early to think about it.”
When asked by NBC’s Kristen Welker about a hypothetical scenario where Vice President JD Vance won the next election and handed the authority back to him, he said that could be one way to end up in office for a third time.
“But there are others, too. There are others,” Mr. Trump continued, declining to elaborate when asked.
What does the 22nd Amendment say, exactly?
According to the National Constitution Center, the opening line of the 22nd Amendment 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.”
The latter portion of that section means that if the vice president takes over the presidency if an elected president dies, for example, and serves in that role for more than half of the originally elected president’s term, then they could only serve one more presidential term after that. The former restricts an individual to two four-year terms of service as president, applying to consecutive and non-consecutive terms.
Addressing remarks by some, like constitutional law scholar Lawrence Tribe, who has mused that the amendment as written merely prevents a sitting president from being elected, but not serving, more than twice, Rosenblum said the language “reinforces the intention of the amendment, which is not to prevent someone from being elected president twice, it’s to make sure nobody serves more than two terms as president.”
“The language of the 22nd Amendment is framed in terms of the language of ‘election,’ but the purpose of the amendment is clear,” Rosenblum told CBS News. “It’s to ensure that the office of the president transfers and cycles as part of the democratic process.”
Why was the 22nd Amendment ratified?
Congress proposed the 22nd Amendment in 1947 in response to critiques of FDR’s presidency, which ended with Roosevelt’s death in 1945, shortly after he was reelected for a fourth term.
The 22nd Amendment was ratified in 1951.
Harry Truman, who was Roosevelt’s vice president, stepped in as president and was subsequently elected to fulfill another term in office when that one concluded. Truman opted not to run again in 1952.
What about the 12th Amendment?
The 12th Amendment preceded the 22nd by well over a century but even then it included a provision about who is and is not eligible to run for president and vice president. This amendment was introduced by federal legislators in 1803 and ratified about six months later, in 1804, taking effect in time for the year’s presidential election that saw Thomas Jefferson assume office.
It primarily focuses with the processes through which the Electoral College votes to elect a U.S. president and vice president, the National Constitution Center writes. However, the amendment also states that “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.”
That would mean Mr. Trump could not run for vice president on the ticket of another presidential candidate after finishing his second term in office if the 22nd Amendment’s provisions prevent him from running for president.
Is there a way Trump could serve a third term?
Rosenblum said Mr. Trump’s ability to serve a third term could come down to how the courts interpret the 12th and 22nd Amendments. Citing the 2nd Amendment, he pointed out that even those committed to more literal application of the Constitution tend to interpret the language “with an eye toward what the real purpose is.”
In this case, he said, that would be upholding the term limits it has laid out. Still, Rosenblum cautioned, “a president who’s interested in remaining in power, despite limits against it, will come up with clever legal arguments to do so.”
“This is an administration that has repeatedly shown itself contemptuous of the rule of law,” said Rosenblum. “So, will Trump be able to violate the law and remain in office indefinitely? Only if the American people let him.”
Other legal scholars who have weighed in on the subject say they doubt Mr. Trump could manage to usurp the amendments and their long-held rules of law.
“I don’t think there’s any ‘one weird trick’ to getting around presidential term limits,” Derek Muller, a professor of election law at Notre Dame, told the Associated Press.
Muller suggested Mr. Trump has mentioned running for a third term “to show as much strength as possible,” adding that “a lame-duck president like Donald Trump has every incentive in the world to make it seem like he’s not a lame duck,” according to AP.