Donald Trump third term proposal
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Donald Trump was the 45th and is the 47th President of the United States. He was first elected president in 2016, and later elected to a second nonconsecutive term in 2024. Trump has repeatedly raised the possibility of remaining in office for more than two terms, despite the Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibiting any person being elected President more than twice. Trump's statements on this have been consistent, sometimes claiming to be joking about the possibility or using it to antagonize his opponents.
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History
First term
In March 2018, Trump praised Chinese leader Xi Jinping for repealing term limits and even floated the idea of serving as "president for life".[a][2] In November that year, he later confirmed that he wouldn't push for a third term. In April 2019, he joked about remaining in office for 10 more years.[3] In June 2019, he stated that he would only joke about violating the 22nd amendment.[4]
Second term
Before and after his election victory in 2024, the thought of him serving beyond a second term was brought up once again, with support from his Republican allies, and concerns from Democratic politicians. Democrat Gavin Newsom, the Governor of California, has said that Trump may try to rig the 2028 elections so he can illegally run for a third term.[5] Trump has also floated the idea of suspending or canceling all elections during the midterm elections of 2026. New York Democratic representative Dan Goldman planned to introduce a resolution affirming the Twenty-second Amendment,[6] while Democratic California State Senator Tom Umberg introduced a bill as a preemptive measure to prevent Trump from potentially carrying out his plan to run for President again in 2028.[7]
In March, Trump floated the possibility of serving a third term in an interview with NBC News, saying "A lot of people want me to do it. 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." He added that "there are methods" to run for a third term and that he was "not joking".[8] On April 24, 2025, multiple news outlets reported that the Trump store was selling "Trump 2028" hats.[9][10] In a May interview with NBC News, Trump said he would make it his goal to only serve two terms and named his Vice President JD Vance and secretary of state Marco Rubio as potential successors.[11] Trump said in an August 2025 interview on CNBC's Squawk Box that he would "probably not" run for a third term, though he would like to.[12] Later that month, Trump quipped that he could cancel the 2028 elections if the United States was at war, after Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy used a similar justification for not holding elections amid the Russo-Ukrainian war.[13]
During a meeting before the 2025 government shutdown with Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, Trump had red hats with Trump 2028 emblazoned on the front. Jeffries later spoke after Trump posted an AI-generated video to Truth Social of him throwing the hats at Jeffries, indicating the hats had appeared on the desk during the meeting and when he asked JD Vance if Vance had a problem with it, Vance responded "No comment".[14]
Health
At 78 years and 220 days old at the time of his second inauguration, Trump was the oldest man ever inaugurated to the Presidency. Polling in December 2025 suggested that many Americans believed Trump was too old to be President at the time, a little under three years ahead of a putative bit for a third term.[15]
Proposals from allies of Donald Trump
In January 2025, Tennessee representative Andy Ogles proposed a resolution to amend the Twenty-second Amendment to allow presidents who serve two nonconsecutive terms to seek a third term. The amendment would not permit living presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, or Barack Obama to run for a third term, due to the allowed third term being contingent on the first two being nonconsecutive. Trump is the only living president to have served two nonconsecutive terms.[16] At CPAC 2025, conservative groups, such as the Third Term Project, supported Ogles' resolution and promoted the idea of Trump running for a currently unconstitutional third term.[17][18]
Steve Bannon, a former White House strategist during Trump's first administration, has also been openly vocal of a third term for Donald Trump, confirming that he is "going to be President in 2028, and people just ought to get accommodated with that".[19] He further iterated in February 2026 that Trump should deploy ICE agents and military troops at polling stations ahead of the 2026 midterm elections to ensure no further elections are stolen, a proposal which is prohibited by federal law.[20]
Notes
- Xi explained the decision in terms of needing to align two more powerful posts—General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC)—which have no term limits. However, Xi did not say whether he intended to serve as party general secretary, CMC chairman and state president, for three or more terms.[1]