Third term for Trump?: ‘You’d be looking at the dissipation of American democracy’

Read time: 4 mins

In brief…

• Bannon has said he, and others, are looking at “alternatives” to rules of the Constitution, to keep Trump in The White House after his second term ends in 2028.
• The News Agents say this would be deeply “unconstitutional”, but that’s something that doesn’t seem to worry the Trump administration – and outline how Bannon’s plan could be achieved.
• It’s not a foolproof scheme, however, with the growing popularity of JD Vance and how unlikely it would be to secure approval for an amendment to the Constitution to legally permit a third Trump term.

What’s the story?

Worried about four years of Donald Trump? How does eight sound.

Despite the US Constitution clearly stating that no one can be sworn in as a president more than twice, that's the plan for Trump, according to one of his top MAGA allies.

Steve Bannon, who previously worked for Trump as a strategist, has said he – and other loyalists – are "working" on a plan to keep Trump in The White House after 2028, when he will be 82.

"I'm a firm believer that President Trump will run and win again in 2028," he said in an interview with right-wing US channel NewsNation.

"We're working on it," Bannon added. "I think we'll have a couple of alternatives."

"We'll see what the definition of term limit is.”

The term limit, specified in the 22nd Amendment, was ratified in 1951 after Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to serve a fourth term. Previously it was custom, but not mandatory, for presidents to step down after two.

Jon Sopel describes Bannon as a “hugely important voice in the Maga world,” but says what he’s currently plotting is ““totally unconstitutional”.

“Those lads are fine with unconstitutional stuff,” says Lewis Goodall.

Lewis says one possible option for Bannon and his MAGA crew would be to argue that the Constitution only applies to presidents who have served consecutive terms.

Another could be to have him run as Vice President, then instigate a situation where the president steps down, propelling Trump back to the top spot.

What about JD Vance?

But while Bannon is pulling strings to secure a third Trump presidency, a new star may be rising in the Republican Party – the vice president.

The News Agents say his popularity has increased since he stepped into Trump’s ugly clash with Volodymyr Zelensky in The White House during his recent visit, with his confrontational actions securing him support among Trump voters.

“The MAGA movement is already buying shares in JD Vance, and in some circles are calling him ‘48’ – they're already anointing him to be the 48th president,” says Jon Sopel.

Lewis says Vance has “cemented himself as the heir” to the MAGA legacy since then, countering initial suspicions that he would be playing second fiddle (or third, in this case) to Elon Musk, who seemed inseparable from the president in the early days of his second term.

But he doesn’t expect Vance to offer any relief from Trump’s sweeping and extreme approach to leadership.

“Vance is going to take the absolute MAGA maximalist position, in every single area he's going to out-Trump Trump,” Lewis says.

But whether he has the same appeal as Trump remains to be seen.

“I have a lot of skepticism as to whether anybody can replicate Trump's magnetism and particular type of electoral appeal,” he adds.

“Certainly within the MAGA movement, it seems to me that Vance is cementing himself well, and therefore there will be an obvious successor.”

What’s The News Agents take?

A third term for Trump? In a word, unlikely.

Or, as Jon Sopel puts it: “Pigs will be flying over the Capitol building before it happens.”

This, he says, is due to the political processes it takes to amend the Constitution, and how unlikely Trump would be to succeed.

It would require approval from two thirds of the House of Representatives and the Senate, then three quarters of the 50 state legislatures to pass.

“If they were serious about this, the only place that it ends up is the courts and the Supreme Court,” says Lewis.

“What Trump is doing, and has been doing in all manner of policy and politics, is to push the limits and authority of presidential power to pretty much as far, and in some cases, beyond, where they can go.”

But he adds that if Trump was serious about a third term, he’d face no opposition from the Republican Party.

“The only place that would stop him would therefore be the courts,” he says.

“But I can't imagine the Supreme Court, even his supreme court – the judges that he has appointed – would allow that to pass.”

“If he actually tried to do it, you would genuinely be looking at the dissipation of American democracy.”

Listen to the latest episode of The News Agents.