WASHINGTON, D.C. – According to NBC News, President Donald Trump said he’s not joking about serving a third term as president. Experts say that’s not possible.
In a phone interview with NBC News, the outlet reports Trump said there are “methods” for running for a third term.
“This is not possible,” said Dr. Todd Belt, professor and director of political management at George Washington University. He referred to the 22nd Amendment in the Constitution, which limits the number of times a person can be elected to the office of the president to only two terms.
“Donald Trump has said there are ways for him to do it, but the only way is to get an amendment, a superseding amendment in the Constitution which requires two-thirds of the House, two thirds of the Senate and three quarters of the states and he’s just not going to get that,” said Dr. Belt. “He’s throwing this out because of “Signalgate”. He is trying to distract the attention. You see this is something he always does with everything with the press and he tries to get them to focus on every other thing to try to dilute the main story than trying to deal with this real scandal in his administration.”
“Signalgate” refers to the recent reporting of an Atlantic Magazine editor being added into a group chat with top security leaders discussing an attack plan against Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Dr. Belt said it’s extremely difficult to amend the constitution.
“If you can get one third of the House, or one third of the Senate, or one quarter of the states, you can sink it,” said Dr. Belt. “I don’t see it happening. Obviously, Democrats will vote against it in a very closely divided congress that we have. This is just a non-starter.”
Trump was asked about it on board Air Force One
“I have had more people ask me to have a 3rd term, which is in a way a 4th term because the election, the 2020 election, was totally rigged,” said Trump. “I have had more people say ‘please run again’. They said we have a long way to go before we even think about that.”
When asked about one possible method- like Vice President JD Vance running for President and then stepping aside if he won- NBC News reports Trump said that’s one method but there are others too.
