Republican President Donald Trump said on Sunday he was not joking about seeking a third presidential term, which is barred by the U.S. Constitution, but that it was too early to think about doing so.
Trump, who took office on January 20 for his second, non-consecutive White House term, has made vague allusions to seeking a third one but addressed it directly on Sunday in a telephone interview with NBC News.
“No, I’m not joking. I’m not joking,” Trump said, but “it is far too early to think about it.”
“There are, there are methods which you could do it, as you know,” he said. He declined to elaborate on any specific methods.
“There are, there are methods which you could do it, as you know,”
Those methods are:
Serving as VP, followed by ascension - The 12th Amendment says no one ineligible to be president can be VP, but the 22nd Amendment only bars election to a third term, not holding office. Trump could potentially be Vance’s (or someone else’s) VP, then that President resigns, making Trump president for a third term without being elected. This is legally untested and would be widely challenged. It doesn’t seem like a route Trump would take.
Repealing the 22nd Amendment - This requires the proposal and ratification of a new amendment. This new amendment must be passed by a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress, or by a constitutional convention called by two-thirds of state legislatures, followed by ratification from three-fourths of the states. This is an unlikely path for Trump to take. Even with massive cheating, he would never get the numbers in his favor.
Ignoring the 22nd Amendment - AKA the “what the fuck you gonna do” method, which the Trump regime has employed with great success in lots of other areas. This is almost certainly what he means.
Any other method to remain president, such as declaring martial law, declaring a national emergency, using the Insurrection Act, etc, would basically be a military coup that would spark a civil war and Balkanize the US.
Tl:dr; those methods are lying and cheating
He’s the oldest president the States has ever had, hopefully he’ll die before his term is over.
until it’s actually time for the next election, all of the third term bullshit is functionally serving only to distract from signalgate and dismantling the courts/gov etc. do not lose focus. (edit: typo fix)
Removed by mod
He doesn’t lie about what he wants to do.
He lies about his accomplishments.
It’s been like this since his first term. He’s not lying about invading Greenland or punishing Canada into being the 51st state. He absolutely wants to. Assuming (hopefully) that both these endeavors never materialize, he will claim that these threats accomplished some other goal that was made up on the spot. Which will be a lie.
Trump running for a third term is basically the plot of Civil War (2024).
If you wanna read how prescient that movie really was, here’s Matt Zoller Seitz’s 4 star review of it.
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/civil-war-movie-review-2024
The only thing keeping most people quiet is the idea that Trump is temporary. This will not bode well for stability.
Trump may be temporary , but his puppetmasters aren’t.
No one votes for someone to be a president for 4 years thinking it’s just temporary.
By temporary and quiet, I think the previous poster means: The reason why there has not been more resistance or assassination attempts is that everone expects Trump to die from uninflicted causes soon enough. It’s not worth sacrificing your own life to see it happen sooner than later.
The entire world is a powder keg where everyone is hoping that the fuse goes out before it explodes. That is why nobody is stopping Trump. This includes the people in GOP who know fully well that they’re on the wrong path. You can tell because they’ve stopped blowing air on the fuse. Except for Vance and Elon. Those idiots want the world to explode.
Waiting it out is still a bad solution, because it will enable more to follow his example.
The reason why there has not been more resistance or assassination attempts is that everone expects Trump to die from uninflicted causes soon enough
There’s still a pretty good chance that eventually someone who Trump/DOGE causes to lose their job will have a “going postal” response.
Especially if that person has other stressors in their life that have already put them on “I have nothing to live for anymore” edge. (Remember the guy in the movie “Falling Down”?)
We’ve all become complacent (incl Canadians). Few are willing to die, get injured, be fired or end up in jail in El Salvador because they were in the fight ‘too early’.
By the time America wakes up to the need for battle Project 2025 will be (almost?) completed and it will be too late to change course.
Trump says shit all day like a fire hose just to spread terror and keep everyone muddied. But he’s old and will die sooner than later. The question is if MAGA manages to continue his style.
The Paranoid Style in American Politics was published in 1964. They’ve been using it to great success for the past century, why stop now?
Sooner hopefully
If Trump runs for a third term, Obama should too.
Nah, that just legitimizes it for no real benefit.
They don’t care about legitimacy, they brew their own at home. Though I’m not too keen on Drone Strikes McGee coming back.
I’m okay trading legitimacy for a tangible gain, but there is none.
I mean, literally nobody on either side thought he was.
He’s proven that he does not care about court orders or rules of law, so I doubt he’d be against ripping up the constitution. Not an American so forgive me if I seem ignorant on this, but I hope that there’s failsafes against him getting a third term no matter what he does.
There are not. Fascism has only ever been defeated in two ways: Ballot or Bullet. And wouldn’t you know it, we’re fresh out of Ballots.
He doesn’t care about court orders or rule of law. It is possible for him to try it. It is amazing he can say stuff like openly, no pushback from his base. He is pushing people to their limits something will have to give.
Hopefully it involves a gun and an orange man’s head
no pushback from his base
They wouldn’t be his base if they were going to push back. The Republicans who don’t like Trump have already fled to the Democrat Party (which is now thoroughly infested with Neocons) while the Dems that decided they are cool with Fascism are increasingly defecting to the Republican Party.
We’re self-sorting into Fascist Extra Strength and Can’t Believe It’s Not Fascist: Imitation Patriotism.
We know, he said so before the election. You’d have to be a fucking gigantic moron of an idiot to not understand that. And still Americans voted for him.
Well they actually want him to be king / dictator lmao
It reminds me of the George Washington story. After they defeated the brits a bunch of people wanted to make him king… after they just got done sailing 3000 miles and almost a decade of war just to GET RID OF HAVING A KING. (and other stuff) The baboons that wanted that are this same voter base.
Well, Americans think it’s going to make their life easier, if you don’t need to vote anymore.
Why vote again when you already have the best anyway. Just a waste of time and taxpayers money if you ask me. /S
And this is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause.
Liberty in the USA, which hasn’t been all that libertyish for a while. It’s doing fine elsewhere.
We know he is not joking.
He has zero sense of humour: an inherent inability to recognize or invoke it.
He has zero sense of humour: an inherent inability to recognize or invoke it.
There is a humor-like mocking of watching human beings suffer at the hands of government and business systems, “human tears”, “liberal tears”, “Ukraine tears”, values of winning and defeating humanism with systems of power. Donald Trump is very motivated and works many hours to socially arrange this domination and damage over human persons that don’t please his ego.
That’s called sadism
Most psychopaths don’t have a sense of humor. They can imitate what they think is considered having one but they don’t actually have one.
He really is a psychopath, he shows the warning signs. He can’t have a proper sense of humour when he doesn’t have normal emotions
And it hasn’t even been 6 months yet
I hate to break it to you but it’s been less than 10 weeks.
But he knows his followers defend him by always claiming he’s joking and he’s wanting everyone to know for sure he means it
Yeah. The method involves suspending the constitution.
He needs to be driven out of office, like now.
it’s already done for, the us government that is. I don’t believe we can come back from this, it’s calvinball from here on. rules don’t apply anymore, it’s just vibes and whims of a ketamine fueled nazi and his geriatric anger sycophant.
I don’t believe we can come back from this
It can, but that would require a huge number if Americans putting in a lot more effort than they seem to care to do.
Maybe after it’s all done we can make some new rules that make more sense
They’ve already installed a guy that hasn’t been vetted and cleared that is tearing out the guts of our government at his whimsy and without oversight. They’re breaking the law in egregious ways and getting away with it in real time. There is only one way left to hold these people accountable.
