By WASHINGTON — A coterie of Donald Trump loyalists is in the early phase of a campaign to rewrite the Constitution so he can serve another term — an idea Trump has done nothing to discourage.
First as a candidate last year and since he took office, Trump has teased, stoked, nurtured, fed and, if nothing else, kept alive the improbable notion that he might run and serve one more time.
“Am I allowed to run again?” Trump said last month at a meeting with House Republicans in South Florida.
The Constitution is clear on that point: He’s not. Under the 22nd Amendment, no one may be elected president more than twice. That rules out Trump.
“There is no argument whatsoever that President Trump can be elected to the office of president again,” J. Michael Luttig, a retired federal appeals court judge who was appointed to the bench by Republican President George H.W. Bush, said in an interview.
Diehard supporters are undeterred, hoping to overcome that not-so-small obstacle.
A poster displayed at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington, D.C., over the weekend was captioned “Third Term Project” and showed Trump in imperial Julius Caesar garb.
“For Trump 2028 …And Beyond!” it read.
At CPAC, a poster promoted a third term for Trump.Peter Nicholas / NBC News
One of the organizers, Shane Trejo of Michigan, 37, said a goal is to persuade conservative Republicans to support the proposed constitutional amendment filed last month by a congressional ally of Trump, Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn.
Ogles’ resolution calls for extending presidential term limits from eight years to 12, meaning that if Trump wins again, he could stay in office until January 2033, when he’d be 86 years old.
Steve Bannon, an avatar of the MAGA movement and a senior White House adviser in Trump’s first term, fired up the conservative activists at CPAC when he said in a speech: “We want Trump in ’28. That’s what they can’t stand. A man like Trump comes along only once or twice in a country’s history. We want Trump!”
And what does Trump want? When he met with House Republicans after he won the election in November, he told them: “I suspect I won’t be running again unless you say, ‘He’s so good we’ve got to figure something else out.’”
That could be read as a joke or as an invitation to act. But it wasn’t a hard no.
“We believe that if the public demands it, he will step forward and serve his third term,” Trejo said. “This could be a real chance to not just change some rules via executive order. Executive orders can be undone very quickly. This could be a substantial way for Trump to change the future of the country for generations to come.”
The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment on whether Trump wants to see Ogles’ resolution pass.
Opinions differ about the seriousness of the prospect among GOP lawmakers and former advisers who’ve worked with Trump before. There’s a strong view that he’s simply trolling his critics — tormenting them by suggesting he’s not going away.
This is, after all, America’s self-appointed monarch. When his administration scrapped New York City’s congestion pricing program, Trump declared on his social media platform: “Long live the king!” in capital letters.
Taking the cue, the White House’s various social media accounts depicted him on a fake magazine cover wearing a bejeweled crown.
“President Trump joking about a third term is like a chef joking about putting a Michelin star on his own restaurant — obviously not happening, but fun to watch the critics lose their minds over it,” Brad Parscale, Trump’s campaign manager in 2020, told NBC News.
Yet others believe that if the Constitution is somehow amended to permit a third term, Trump would take the leap.
“If there’s a procedural way to accomplish it, he’s likely very much considering it,” said Jenna Ellis, a 2020 Trump campaign attorney who is now a senior policy adviser for the American Family Association.
“That does take a constitutional amendment, but let’s not forget that the Constitution was amended to impose term limits, and that can be undone,” Ellis added in an interview.
Two paths exist to amend the Constitution, both tortuous.
The more common one would require a two-thirds vote of Congress, followed by ratification from three-quarters of the states (38 out of 50).
Given the Republicans’ slim majority in the House and the Senate and the polarized state of the electorate, clearing that threshold would seem out of the question.
“It would take this body to act, and I don’t see this body acting,” Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, said in an interview.
The other route hasn’t been used to ratify any of the 27 constitutional amendments that have been approved since 1791, but it’s one that Trump allies are mulling.
Consider it a way to bypass a deadlocked Congress. If two-thirds of the states (34 out of 50) agree, they may call a constitutional convention to propose amendments. But even then, three-quarters of the states would need to ratify any changes.
“The reason we have the fewest amendments of any comparable constitution is that it’s almost impossible to amend the Constitution, because we can’t get 34 to 38 states to agree. It’s a very, very steep hurdle,” said Victoria Nourse, a professor at Georgetown Law.
Of the two paths, a constitutional convention might be the only realistic vehicle to potentially extend Trump’s presidency. That’s because of the states’ partisan makeup. Figures tallied by the National Conference of State Legislatures show that 57% of those bodies are controlled by Republicans, only 37% by Democrats.
“This is not outside the scope of possibility,” Ellis said, “which is why the conversation is so fascinating.”
Trump’s motives in invoking a third term may be varied. At a minimum, talk of a third term may keep his political capital from dwindling.
No president wants to be thought of as a lame duck. If Trump can plant the idea that he might be in the White House into the next decade, he can retain the clout needed for Congress to enact his agenda.
“He rules Congress with fear, so if there’s even a remote chance he could stay in power, they will stay in line,” said Michael DuHaime, a former Republican National Committee official.
When Fox News asked Trump this month whether Vice President JD Vance would be his heir apparent in 2028, he said no, added that it’s “too early” to say and then quickly changed the subject. He didn’t linger on the fact that he’s serving a finite term with a beginning, a middle and an end.
Vance and those close to him rejected any suggestion that there was any sort of rift with the boss.
“I think he said exactly what he should have said, which is: ‘It’s too early,’” Vance said when he was asked about Trump’s answer in an interview this week with the Daily Mail.
