Latest news with #12thamendment
Yahoo
06-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
US attorney general says Trump likely ‘going to be finished' after second term
Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, has expressed skepticism about the idea of Donald Trump serving a third term in the White House, saying that when her boss's current presidency ends on 20 January 2029, he is probably 'going to be finished'. Bondi's comments come just a week after Trump gave his most blunt indication yet that he was seriously considering trying for a third term to follow up ones that began in 2017 and this past January – despite the clear prohibition against doing so enshrined in the US constitution. In an interview broadcast on 30 March, Trump told NBC News that 'I'm not joking' about the idea of a third term, adding: 'I like working'. Asked how he could get around what appears to be a watertight two-term cap for any individual president, he said: 'There are methods which you could do it.' Related: Trump's third term trial balloon: how extremist ideas become mainstream Bondi's take on the controversy carries weight because she is the top law enforcement official in the US – and also a Trump loyalist whose devotion to the president is unquestioned. She told Fox News Sunday that in her opinion Trump was a 'very smart man, and we, I wish we could have him for 20 years as our president'. She then added: 'But I think he's going to be finished, probably, after this term. We'd have to look at the constitution, and it would be a heavy lift.' The two-term limit was set into stone in 1951 with the ratification by the states of the 22nd amendment. It says that 'no person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice'. The restriction was introduced in the wake of Franklin Roosevelt's unprecedented record of serving three full presidential terms during the second world war. He won a fourth term but died in 1945 just one year into it. Bondi's comment that it would be a 'heavy lift' for Trump to overcome the two-term rule was a reference to what it would take to change the US constitution and revoke the 22nd amendment. Any reform to the text of the constitution requires a two-thirds vote from both chambers of Congress, combined with ratification by three-quarters of the 50 states. In today's highly polarized political world, such a scenario is beyond imagination. Constitutional change aside, Trump's cryptic remarks about other 'methods' have prompted speculation about his intentions. One tactic that has attracted some attention would be for the vice-president, JD Vance, to run as Republican presidential candidate in 2028, with Trump as his running mate. Related: Contempt as Trump claims he can run for third term: 'This is what dictators do' Then, the theory goes, should the Vance-Trump ticket win the presidential election, Vance could step down on day one of the new term and Trump would then automatically become president for the third time. The strategy has an appealing simplicity. There is a major snag, however. The 12th amendment, which lays out procedures for electing both the president and vice-president, states that 'no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States'. The clear implication is that Trump, debarred from running for a third term as president, would equally be debarred from running for vice-president – rendering the ruse null and void.
The Guardian
06-04-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
US attorney general says Trump likely ‘going to be finished' after second term
Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, has expressed skepticism about the idea of Donald Trump serving a third term in the White House, saying that when her boss's current presidency ends on 20 January 2029, he is probably 'going to be finished'. Bondi's comments come just a week after Trump gave his most blunt indication yet that he was seriously considering trying for a third term to follow up ones that began in 2017 and this past January – despite the clear prohibition against doing so enshrined in the US constitution. In an interview broadcast on 30 March, Trump told NBC News that 'I'm not joking' about the idea of a third term, adding: 'I like working'. Asked how he could get around what appears to be a watertight two-term cap for any individual president, he said: 'There are methods which you could do it.' Bondi's take on the controversy carries weight because she is the top law enforcement official in the US – and also a Trump loyalist whose devotion to the president is unquestioned. She told Fox News Sunday that in her opinion Trump was a 'very smart man, and we, I wish we could have him for 20 years as our president'. She then added: 'But I think he's going to be finished, probably, after this term. We'd have to look at the constitution, and it would be a heavy lift.' The two-term limit was set into stone in 1951 with the ratification by the states of the 22nd amendment. It says that 'no person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice'. The restriction was introduced in the wake of Franklin Roosevelt's unprecedented record of serving three full presidential terms during the second world war. He won a fourth term but died in 1945 just one year into it. Bondi's comment that it would be a 'heavy lift' for Trump to overcome the two-term rule was a reference to what it would take to change the US constitution and revoke the 22nd amendment. Any reform to the text of the constitution requires a two-thirds vote from both chambers of Congress, combined with ratification by three-quarters of the 50 states. In today's highly polarized political world, such a scenario is beyond imagination. Constitutional change aside, Trump's cryptic remarks about other 'methods' have prompted speculation about his intentions. One tactic that has attracted some attention would be for the vice-president, JD Vance, to run as Republican presidential candidate in 2028, with Trump as his running mate. Sign up to This Week in Trumpland A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration after newsletter promotion Then, the theory goes, should the Vance-Trump ticket win the presidential election, Vance could step down on day one of the new term and Trump would then automatically become president for the third time. The strategy has an appealing simplicity. There is a major snag, however. The 12th amendment, which lays out procedures for electing both the president and vice-president, states that 'no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States'. The clear implication is that Trump, debarred from running for a third term as president, would equally be debarred from running for vice-president – rendering the ruse null and void.
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Local political science expert weighs in on a third Trump term
PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY) — President Donald Trump keeps teasing the possibility of running for a third term as president. The 22nd amendment states, 'no person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.' Trump says he's considering ways to serve a third term as president President Donald Trump told reporters over the weekend that he is 'not joking' about seeking a third term. He implied that there are other methods to getting him into the oval office for a third time. Trump says he's 'not joking' about a third term. Republicans insist he is It is a long shot, but ODU political science professor Jesse Richman said it is technically possible 'There are three possibilities, I think,' Richman. 'One is that he's thinking about a constitutional amendment.' The President would need support from two thirds of both the Senate and House, along with three quarters of the U.S. states to abolish the 22nd amendment. It is theoretically possible, but not practical. Another method would be to run as vice president. 'Potentially, a president could run as vice president and hope that the new president would be willing to step aside to allow the V.P. to resume significant power in the office, but ultimately be completely at the will of the president,' Richman said. There would likely be a national debate over how the text is interpreted — if 'elected' also means serve. Adding to this, the 12th amendment states, 'no person constitutionally ineligible' to be president can be vice president. Another way to get in would be to simply run for president anyway and test the enforcement of our constitution. 'I think it's unlikely with the current composition of the court, that there would be sufficient votes to allow a third election by the president,' Richman said. 'The best hope for the president would be… the court in some way passing responsibility to other institutions to enforce the 22nd Amendment, and then perhaps… pressure sufficient being brought to bear on those institutions to get them to go along with Trump.' Richman said teasing a third term could be a political strategy to avoid lame duck status during his final term as president. Republican Senate Majority leader John Thune said earlier this week, he thinks the president is 'messing with' his opponents by saying he is not joking about a third term. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Guardian
02-04-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
First Trump joked he wanted a third term. Then he got serious
Jokes have a specific relation to Trumpian politics: they are the tip of the spear for introducing illegal or once-unacceptable ideas to the public, under a thick gloss of irony or plausible deniability, to advance a far-right agenda. In 2016, Donald Trump's support from the young, online 'alt-right' was underestimated in part because so much of the profession of love for Trump, and for his racist and authoritarian ambitions, came in the form of supposed jokes. Trump himself, meanwhile, uses humor to charm and titillate, making jokes to demean adversaries, get audiences on his side, and hint, with winking coyness, about his next move. This has been his strategy for years. So when analysts have asked, over the years he has been floating the possibility, whether Trump is joking or serious when he has said that he will seek a third term in office, in defiance of the constitution, the answer was never an either-or. The answer was 'yes': he was both joking, of course, and he was also entirely serious. For those who still had not caught on to this game, Trump made himself helpfully explicit this week, in an interview with NBC News. 'I'm not joking,' he said, when asked to clarify his ambitions to continue in office in violation of the 22nd amendment. 'There are methods which you could do it [sic].' He acknowledged that he could possibly run as a vice-presidential candidate – in potential violation of the 12th amendment – and assume office once the presidential candidate on his ticket stepped aside, as one possible way to hold onto power. 'But there are others, too,' he said. He refused to elaborate on what those other methods might be. Constitutional lawyers – a group of people who seemingly cannot help but indulge in clever games of wordplay even when the republic is at stake – seemed to take up Trump's anti-constitutional authoritarian ambitions as something like a fun intellectual challenge. 'Anyone discounting a 3d Trump term per the 22d am + the 12th am is thinking magically,' wrote Larry Tribe, of Harvard Law, on Bluesky. 'The 22nd dsn't bar *serving* a 3d term, only being *elected* 3 times. The 12th dsn't bar running for VP unless 'ineligible to serve as Pres, but Trump isn't ineligible. QED! [sic.]'' This is more or less what the Trump supporters seem to be saying: that somehow, the plain meaning of the 22nd amendment – to prevent a dictator from seizing permanent control of the presidency – is not in effect – at least, not if Trump performs a sufficiently clever formal trick, something like the legal equivalent of a drunken dancer bending over backwards while proceeding underneath a limbo stick. In the event that that doesn't work, Andy Ogles, a Republican representative from Tennessee, has introduced a bill that would nullify the 22nd amendment for Trump's purposes – just in case. But the wordplay and logical twisting that is taking place should be understood as pretextual, and completely irrelevant to what Trump is actually doing by declaring his intention to stay in office. Trump does not care about meeting the requirements – technical or substantive – of the 22nd amendment. That is because he does not care very much about the constitutional limits on his authority and will at all. Trump already considers himself a dictator. What he is saying, when he declares his intention to illegally run again, is not that he could find a way to do it that is plausibly legal. He is saying, instead, that the law does not apply to him. Trump is declaring that wherever the constitution contradicts his desires, the constitution is moot. The Trump era has already been one of dramatic constitutional disintegration – one that his own accumulation of power and disregard for the law has accelerated but did not incite. The principle of popular sovereignty has been eroded by the US supreme court's systematic gutting of the 1965 Voting Rights Act – which has made voting more onerous, particularly for racial minorities and groups that tend to vote Democratic – and by their 2010 decision in Citizens United v FEC, which opened a floodgate of money into politics and allowed billionaires and other monied interests to manipulate the political process to their benefit. Congress's scleroticism and stagnation have made the legislative body into little more than a media platform: Senators and representatives can use their notoriety and sometimes their subpoena power to make a point, but they are rarely in a position of making policy. Instead, much of the work that would have once been called legislating is now done by the federal courts, and by the executive. And that executive's power and prerogatives have expanded far beyond what is imagined by the drafters of article II – now carrying sweeping powers to pursue military acts of aggression abroad and a novel new impunity from prosecution for illegal deeds committed at home. The president – at least with Donald Trump – now looks like something much closer to a king, with the supreme court serving as something like a counsel of scheming viziers or gossiping court eunuchs. Under such conditions of constitutional rot, it seems almost inevitable, in retrospect, that a failure to grasp the failures of the American political system would lead to the emergence of a strongman dictator. But one need not take such a long view of history to see the obvious truth that Donald Trump does not think that he should have to leave office just because the law says so. One can look, instead, to recent history. After all, we already know what happens when Trump is supposed to leave the presidency: he holds onto it, refusing to go and encourages violence to try to get his way. Just because the attempted putsch did not work on January 6 does not mean that it did not signal a core feature of his theory of his own power: that any attempt to take it from him, be it by law or by custom or by the ballot box, is illegitimate. The 22nd amendment is hardly the first law that Trump has ignored in pursuit of this principle. He has never been a law-abiding man before. Why should we expect him to start now? Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
