Trump could serve a third term. Here's how

Could Donald Trump really become president again after his second term ends? The answer is, quite possibly, yes. The president raised the idea on Sunday during an interview with NBC. Despite a constitutional amendment limiting the election of presidents to two terms, Trump said, “There are methods which would permit it.”

The argument lies in the language of the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, passed after Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to an unprecedented fourth term. Before then, presidents had followed the tradition set by George Washington to step away after two terms. The habit reflected the founders’ disdain for kings who inherited their positions and remained in power for life. The tradition ended when voters clung to Roosevelt during the Great Depression and World War II, perhaps finding comfort in the continuity during tumultuous times. But his death prompted the passage of the constitutional provision, preventing it from happening again.

One of the methods that Trump may be referring to is repealing the 22nd Amendment. Without term limits, he would be free to run for president as many times as he wanted. But, of course, amending the Constitution is difficult by design. As a result, it has been amended only 27 times since its ratification in 1791, and not at all in the past 33 years. Amending the Constitution requires two-thirds approval by both houses of Congress and three-fourths of the states. In our deeply polarized times, that is difficult to imagine. The Constitution also may be amended at a convention called by the legislatures of two-thirds of the states. With 31 states voting for Trump in the 2024 election, he is only two states away from the 33 required to call a convention. But the amendment would still need to be ratified by three-quarters of the states, or 38.


But an amendment may not even be necessary. Scholars have suggested that a president could serve more than one term because of the text of the 22nd Amendment, which provides that “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.” It does not say that a person may not serve in the office more than twice. As political science professor Bruce G. Peabody and attorney Scott E. Gant have noted, nothing in this language bars a president from reassuming office by means other than election.

As a result, Trump could return to the Oval Office in 2029 through the vice presidency. Imagine a scenario in which JD Vance were to run for president with Trump as his running mate. After being elected and sworn in, Vance could resign, allowing Trump to ascend to the presidency. The 22nd Amendment would not bar Trump from taking over because he would not have been elected to the presidency more than twice.

No doubt, such a maneuver would invite legal challenges, and courts would be asked to interpret the meaning of the 22nd Amendment. With a Supreme Court dominated by textualists, the language barring someone only from being “elected” president more than twice could very well carry the day. It is also unclear at what point the question would become ripe for review — would it be enough that Trump appear on the ticket as a VP candidate in the general election or would he have to actually take office before a court would find the required “case or controversy,” as required for judicial review?

Even if some were to argue that a third Trump term would violate the intent of the amendment regardless of its language, the legislative history refutes that view. According to Peabody, the drafters of the 22nd Amendment considered and rejected language stating: “Any person who has served as President of the United States during all, or portions, of any two terms, shall thereafter be ineligible to hold the office of President.” Instead, they settled on language barring a candidate from being “elected” twice, indicating that they meant what they said.

Some critics have argued that the 12th Amendment would preclude this scenario because it provides that “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of the President shall be eligible to that of the Vice-President of the United States.” But, as Peabody and Gant have argued, Trump is not ineligible from holding the office of the president again, only from being “elected” president a third time. They argue that the 12th Amendment would bar someone from seeking office only for failing to meet the criteria set out in Article II that the president have attained age 35, be a natural born citizen and have resided in the United States for 14 years, and nothing more. Trump meets all of the Article II requirements.

If, for some reason, the risk posed by the 12th Amendment were to give Trump pause, he could enter the White House through another path. After the vice president, the next in line of succession to the presidency is the speaker of the House. The speaker is elected by members of the House, and need not himself be a member of Congress . In that scenario, if Republicans controlled the House, they could elect Trump speaker, and then, if the president and vice president agreed to step aside, Trump could become president. Once again, he would be in compliance with the 22nd Amendment’s ban on being elected to the office more than twice.

Of course, even if the law permits Trump to return to office through various paths, by 2028, the anti-incumbency trend may cause voters to reject him as a candidate for vice president. Or the public may balk at an effort by members of Congress to return him to the White House via the speaker’s gavel, forcing them to back down. And, at age 82, Trump may decide against a third term.

But, as he told NBC, there appear to be “methods” that permit it.