Trump tells US troops in Qatar that he will ‘have to think' about running in 2028

Independent

15-05-2025

President Donald Trump has told U.S. service members stationed in Qatar that he will 'have to think' about running in a fourth election, despite the possibility being prohibited by the terms of the Constitution.
Trump, 78, issued his latest hint about seeking the Republican presidential nomination once again in 2028 while delivering remarks to troops stationed at the Al Udeid Air Base in Doha.
'Some people want us to do a fourth, I don't know,' he said of the prospect of his running another campaign, following wins in 2016 and 2024 and defeat in 2020. 'Have to think about that.'
Trump is currently on his first major overseas trip of his second administration, spending the week in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. Just prior to the trip, Trump invited controversy by accepting a $400 Boeing jet as a gift from the Qatari royal family.
The 22nd Amendment to the Constitution limits American presidents to two terms. This restriction, intended to guard against despotism, states that commanders-in-chief can serve only two stints or eight years in total.
'No person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice, 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,' the Amendment states.
'But this article shall not apply to any person holding the office of president when this article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of president, or acting as president, during the term within which this article becomes operative from holding the office of president or acting as president during the remainder of such term.'
Congressional Democrats have proposed a measure to clarify that the Amendment explicitly forbids a third term in office. Trump has at times admitted that the current guardrails block his path to a third term.
Notably, during his recent interview with Kristen Welker on NBC's Meet the Press, the president has hinted that he could find a means of running again anyway, telling the journalist he was 'not joking' about the idea.
'A lot of people want me to do it,' Trump said, referring to his allies. 'But, I mean, I basically tell them we have a long way to go, you know, it's very early in the administration. I'm focused on the current [one].'
Asked how he might go about seeking an unprecedented third mandate to govern and whether he has been presented with plans to allow him to do so, the president replied: 'There are methods [by] which you could do it.'
His preoccupation with the possibility, often dismissed as mere trolling by pundits, can be traced back to the days after his election triumph last November, when he told House Republicans: 'I suspect I won't be running again unless you say 'He's so good, we got to figure something else out.''
Trump went on to mention it again at a prayer breakfast at the Washington Hilton on February 6, before basking in cries of 'Four more years!' at a White House event to commemorate Black History Month later that month.
Also in February, his former chief strategist Steve Bannon led the Conservative Political Action Conference in chanting: 'We want Trump in '28... We want Trump! We Want Trump!'
Then, speaking to reporters on board Air Force One as he flew back to Washington on March 30 after a weekend in Florida, the president said of a hypothetical future third term: 'I'm not looking at that but, I'll tell you, I have had more people ask me to have a third term, which in a way is a fourth term because the other election, the 2020 election was totally rigged, so it's actually sort of a fourth term.'
Asked about the constitutional limits in his way, he said: 'I don't even want to talk about it. I'm just telling you I have had more people saying, 'Please run again.' We have a long way to go before we even think about that.'