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Steve Bannon, an ally and former adviser to President Donald Trump, told The Economist that a third Trump term isn’t just possible – it’s going to happen.
Trump is constitutionally barred from running for the office again due to the 22nd Amendment: “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.” Trump was elected to the presidency in 2016 and in 2024.
Yet, in an interview with Minton Beddoes, Bannon suggested the amendment could be circumvented, and that Trump will win the presidency for a third time.
“He’s going to get a third term. So, Trump 2028, Trump is going to be president in 2028, and people just ought to get accommodated with that,” Bannon said.
When Beddoes asked him about the 22nd Amendment, Bannon insisted that, “There’s many different alternatives. At the appropriate time, we’ll lay out what the plan is.”
Beddoes pushed back on that notion. “The 22nd Amendment makes it pretty clear that he cannot have another term,” she said.
“Why does it make that clear?” a defiant Bannon replied.
“Because he’s on his second term already,” Beddoes responded.
“At some point in time, we will make sure we go through and define all of those terms,” Bannon said, suggesting a legal loophole could be concocted.
Meanwhile, Trump has resumed posting memes saying he will indeed run for president again.
The media Trump has published online appear to be “trollish” in nature — he posted a video, for example, claiming he’d run for president again in 2028 and 2032, adding years all the way up to the year 90,000 CE. Despite the unconstitutionality of running again, Trump said during an NBC News interview earlier this year that he was “not joking” about the idea.
During that segment, Trump used similar language that Bannon did this week, saying, without delving into details, that “there are methods” around the 22nd Amendment’s restrictions.
It is possible that Trump is considering having a MAGA ally run for office, with Trump as their vice presidential running mate. If his ally won the election, that person could then resign after inauguration, allowing Trump to ascend to the presidency again.
However, the 12th Amendment forbids that from happening, as it states that anyone who is “constitutionally ineligible to the office of President” is also ineligible for the vice presidency.
One other hurdle Trump will have to face, beyond the unconstitutionality of running for a third term, is that voters don’t want him to run again.
Trump barely eked out a second-term win last year, failing to win majority support in the popular vote and having a comparatively smaller Electoral College victory compared to most other presidents in U.S. history. His current approval rating is incredibly low, making him a deeply unpopular president less than one year into his current term.
An Economist/YouGov poll from earlier this year asked respondents if they wanted Trump to mount another run for president. A whopping 70 percent said he should not, with fewer than 1 in 5 voters (17 percent) saying they want him to run again.
The poll also indicated that, even as voters don’t want another Trump run, they expect it to happen — 52 percent said that Trump will try for a third term, with only 25 percent saying he won’t attempt it.
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