Maggie Haberman for the NYT:
Just eight days after he won a second term, Mr. Trump — whose supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an effort to prevent Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory from being certified — mused about whether he could have a third presidential term, which is barred by the Constitution.
Since then, he has floated the idea frequently. In public, he couches the notion of staying in office beyond two terms as a humorous aside. In private, Mr. Trump has told advisers that it is just one of his myriad diversions to grab attention and aggravate Democrats, according to people familiar with his comments. And he has made clear that he is happy to be past a grueling campaign in which he faced two assassination attempts and followed an aggressive schedule in the final weeks.
The third-term gambit could also serve another purpose, political observers noted: keeping congressional Republicans in line as Mr. Trump pushes a maximalist version of executive authority with the clock ticking on his time in office.
“It serves Donald Trump’s public relations to start the bantam rooster crowing that he may serve a third term because it makes him not a lame duck,” said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian.
“It insinuates that he’s one of the greats like Franklin Delano Roosevelt, that the people are demanding another term and, ‘I guess I’ll do it because I’m a patriot,’” Brinkley added, referring to the 32nd president, whose four terms in office spurred the constitutional amendment setting presidential term limits.
A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Trump’s advisers mock those who take his comments about a third term seriously, saying he has been trolling his critics with the idea of a permanent presidency since he launched his campaign to return to the White House.
But his suggestion that he could stay in office beyond January 2029 now comes against a very different backdrop. In the first three weeks since his inauguration, Mr. Trump has sought to sweepingly expand executive power and granted the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, seemingly unfettered reach to dismantle federal agencies and to push roughly two million federal workers to consider leaving their posts.
Even when Mr. Trump presents something as a joke, the idea he suggests often becomes socialized by his supporters, both those in office and in the right-wing media. The concept then often takes on more weight, including for Mr. Trump.
Recently, some Republicans have started pushing the idea of changing the Constitution for him.
“People are already talking about changing the 22nd Amendment so he can serve a third term,” Dan Patrick, the lieutenant governor of Texas, posted on X on Jan. 25, a message that Mr. Trump elevated on his own platform, Truth Social. “If this pace and success keep up for 4 years, and there is no reason it won’t, most Americans really won’t want him to leave.”….