US President Donald Trump ( PHOTO: WIKI COMMONS)
Donald Trump has shut down the idea of a third term, saying the Constitution blocks him from running again after his second term. On his way to Asia, he told reporters, “My poll numbers are the best they’ve ever been, but from what I read, I’m not allowed to run. We’ll see what happens. It’s too bad.”
When someone asked if he’d try to challenge the rule, Trump said he respects the law. “If you read it, it’s pretty clear,” he said. “We have a lot of great people in our party.”
People have been speculating about Trump’s plans ever since his landslide 2024 re-election and his current foreign policy trip to Japan and South Korea.
When questions turned to who might take up the GOP mantle next, Trump rattled off some names. “We have a great group—Marco Rubio, JD Vance, a lot of very capable folks,” he said, pointing to Secretary of State Rubio and Vice President Vance, both already getting attention as early frontrunners for 2028.
Reporters also tried to pin him down on whether he’d try something sneaky, like running as vice president. Technically, the law doesn’t say you can’t, but Trump waved it off. “You’d be allowed to do that, but I wouldn’t. People wouldn’t like it, it wouldn’t be right,” he said, calling the idea “too cute.”
The rule he’s talking about is the 22nd Amendment, passed in 1951. It says, simply, “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.” Lawmakers added it after FDR won four times. Wayne Unger, a constitutional law professor at Quinnipiac, says no court has seriously tested this rule, but “the language leaves little room for reinterpretation.”
Trump’s comments fit his usual style; he’s joked about the two-term limit before, using it to rally supporters who see him as one of a kind.
Right now, though, he sounds like he’s accepted it, if not exactly happy about it. “It’s too bad,” he said again, before switching to his usual upbeat mode: “But we’ve got great people. We’ll be just fine.”
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