“I suspect I won’t be running again unless you say, ‘He’s good, we got to figure something else’,” said President-elect Donald Trump at a hotel in Washington DC before meeting with President Joe Biden.
We all know Trump is known to make controversial statements, but this really got everyone questioning- whether he can run for a third term as president in 2028.
Legally, no. The 22nd Amendment of the US Constitution would not let him.
Unless… he’d have to repeal that amendment, which would be difficult.
The 22nd Amendment of the United States Constitution prevents any President from running for a third term. And if Donald Trump wants to seek a third term, he will first have to scrap that amendment.
And it’s not easy to do so. He would need to garner overwhelming support from Congress and state legislatures, which Trump is unlikely to achieve.
According to an article on the US-based news website Vox, which interviewed a law professor from Stanford University specialising in constitutional interpretation, a question about the possibility of such a constitutional amendment was asked. His reply was clear—”No, there are none. This will be his last run for President,” the law professor said.
What Is The 22nd Amendment?
According to this, the President can have only two terms in office. It applies to Presidents, both in consecutive and non-consecutive terms.
According to Section 1 of the 22nd Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this Article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.”
Section 2 states, “This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress.”
Back To 1951
Former US President Franklin D Roosevelt was elected to the highest office an unprecedented four times. In 1945, he died in office during his fourth term.
Though Roosevelt was the only President to be elected more than two times, American lawmakers from both parties decided that presidential terms must have a ceiling limit. Hence, the 22nd Amendment came into force, restricting all Presidents from then on to a maximum of two terms.
Since the US’s first President and founding father, George Washington, had served a maximum of two terms, both parties agreed that this was the legacy to be followed. And it came into force in 1951.
Why Is It So Hard To Amend The Constitution?
Amending the Constitution is difficult but not impossible.
A bill for such an order would have to be agreed to by a two-thirds majority (67 per cent) of both the House and the Senate. The House of Representatives has 435 members, of which 290 must vote for such a revocation.
Similarly, in the Senate, which has 100 members, 67 must agree with it.
That’s not the only huddle. There is a third and the final stage.
If a bill is passed by the House and Senate, it then goes to each of the states, which need to pass it with a three-fourths majority. Since the United States of America has 50 states, 38 of them would have to agree to it.
Only once all three stages are cleared can Trump run for a third term.
