President Donald Trump was sitting in the dining room off the Oval Office earlier this spring when he noticed a CNN headline scrolling along the bottom of the television about his desire to seek a third term. He was so amused by the increasing coverage of the topic that heerupted in laughter, according to a person with knowledge of the moment.
Trump has long claimed that he’s only joking when he talks about running again, which the Constitution’s 22nd Amendment expressly prohibits. But talk about it he does — at times because he is asked about it, and at other times unprompted. The idea is also getting a boost from his private company, which has begun selling red “Trump 2028” hats, and the reaction among his supporters has been anything but unserious.
As the president arrived for a rally in Michigan on Tuesday to mark the first 100 days of his second term, red hats were on sale just like the one his son Eric wore recently, which the Trump Organization has begun selling. When Trump mentioned serving two terms, the crowd burst into chants of “Three! Three! Three!” as supporters held three fingers aloft and Trump paused to smile.
The Constitution’s 22nd Amendment is clear on the question. “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice,” reads the 22nd Amendment, which was ratified in 1951 following the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt, who died shortly after he was elected to a fourth term in office. “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.”
Early in his second term, Trump was more playful about the subject — a seeming recognition of the legal barriers. “It will be the greatest honor of my life to serve not once, but twice. Or three times. Or four times,” he joked to supporters in Las Vegas.
At a House Republican retreat in Washington around the same time, he said: “I suspect I won’t be running again — unless you say, ‘He’s so good we’ve got to figure something else out.’”
Those mixed message make it hard to know how much Trump is seriously toying with the idea. In typical Trumpian fashion, the president’s rhetorical head fakes have left the public guessing whether he’s simply having a laugh or seeding the ground for an actual third term….
And that includes his supporters….