“No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice” is the first line of the 22nd Amendment to the United States Constitution, officially ratified Feb. 27, 1951. The law of the land for over 75 years, and yet many people are struggling with understanding how this amendment applies to our current president. I can help: Donald Trump is constitutionally ineligible for a third term. It does not take an executive order, a court order, or a Supreme Court review to come to this conclusion.
On a phone call with NBC News on March 30, 2025, in reference to attempting to circumvent current constitutional restraints and gain four more years in the White House, Trump stated, “A lot of people want me to do it,” and when further pushed on the question, said, “There are methods which you could do it.” One method that would allow Trump to serve three terms would be with the passing and subsequent ratification of an amendment repealing the 22nd. With only slight Republican majorities in Congress, this is impossible. Others have argued that if Trump were to be elected as a Republican’s vice president in 2028, and the president resigned, then Trump could get a third term through succession. However, many constitutional scholars have pointed to the line in the 12th Amendment, which states, “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice President,” seemingly disqualifying this route.
In October of this year, Trump admitted to a reporter that he is “not allowed to run.” However, his recognition of this information that has always been known is not the point. Now, Trump tells the public that he can’t run for a third term, but it should not be him that the public looks to for this decision. Continually, it seems that despite Trump’s acknowledgement of term limits in October, on Nov. 28, 2025, on Truth Social, Trump posted a photo made with AI that showed him holding a sign reading “Trump 2028, YES!” This flip-flopping between accepting what the Constitution states and still teasing at a third term is a vile display of Trump’s refusal to adhere to the document.
To even entertain the thought that there is any legitimacy to Trump’s claim to a third term is outrageous; it is not up to the president to be the person we look to for constitutional interpretation. The descent into authoritarianism begins when we hold our breath each time the president wants to violate the Constitution to see what he does.
Let us remember who this man is. He is the same Trump who, for months, and to this day, spews the lie that the 2020 presidential election was rigged. The same man who allowed people to invade the Capitol and refused to call in the National Guard when first asked to. He is a fraudster. Every person in the U.S., from Republican to Democrat, cannot and should not act like this is normal.
The question of whether Trump can constitutionally have a third term has been answered: no. The question of whether he will actually have a third term still remains unknown. It seems only now are some members of the Republican Party struggling to understand the Constitution, when for years many have used it to justify their most gruesome policy positions.
Americans have been forced to watch children be slaughtered every year in their classrooms because of what the Second Amendment states. After Sandy Hook, Stoneman Douglas, and Uvalde, when the question of gun control was brought up, immediately the Second Amendment would be spat back into the faces of those who couldn’t stand to see any more deaths. Written into our constitution is a provision that is preventing us from meaningfully regulating the weapons that are killing America’s children, and yet very few politicians are searching for the same workarounds that they once hoped to find with regard to the 22nd amendment. What does it say about America when our representatives are more worried about finding a way to make the president a dictator for life than finding a way to prevent the killing of children in classrooms?
If the Democratic candidate for president wins in 2028 and Trump allows for a peaceful transfer of power, there will be those who say that all this discussion about Trump wanting a third term was fearmongering. That is incorrect. It is not fearmongering to assume that a man who has spent his presidency fighting democracy at every turn will do it again. Each time Trump discusses another way in which he wishes to violate the Constitution, he is conditioning the American public to accept that that is what a president is supposed to do. It is not. Trump is dangerous, deranged, and a dire threat to this country. American democracy invited Donald Trump into the White House in 2024, and American values must ensure that he is evicted in 2029.
