The least we can say is that the 47e President of the United States did not wait to make his second term a national and international disaster. Between the disintegration of old alliances of several decades, a mafia attitude and a fascist turn, Donald Trump is indeed launched in his project to upset the world order. To the point that we already count the days before the end of his mandate, scheduled for 2028.
Barely installed in the White House, Trump has already hinted several times that he could extend his stay. In his own way, by launching poles to see what bites. “I think I will not represent myself. Unless you said to yourself: “It is good, we must consider something else”»»did he, for example, launched during a speech in front of the Republicans in Washington.
Two weeks after his inauguration, again against the Republicans in Florida, he reiterates: “I think I don’t have the right to represent myself. I’m not sure. Do I have the right to represent me? ”. The answer is simple, Donald: No, you do not have the right to represent yourself and run for a third term. The constitution simply does not allow it.
Impossible according to the Constitution
In the United States, the president is elected for a four-year term, and Trump should therefore leave the White House after the future presidential election of 2028. And for good, according to the constitution of the country. The twenty-second amendment, ratified in 1951, stipulates that “No one can be elected to the function of president more than twice”. After his first mandate in 2017 and his second started in 2025, Trump will therefore have to fold up, without possible return.
The President of the United States will surely regret the time when this amendment did not exist. Roosevelt, for example, was elected four times, from 1933 to 1945, during the Great Depression and the Second World War, before dying during the mandate. It was also its longevity in power that prompted to establish a limit of mandates for the American presidents.
Why does Trump allow doubt about a possible re-election when the Constitution is not clear? Perhaps he has in mind a way to get around it … or even modify it.
Can Trump get around the twenty-second amendment?
Theoretically, the American constitution can be amended: it has even been twenty-seven times since its adoption. However, modifying it to bypass the limit of the two mandates would be extremely difficult. Two complex methods still exist.
On the one hand, the Congress can offer an amendment with a majority of two thirds in the Chamber and the Senate – a threshold much higher than the meager Republican majority. On the other, a constitutional agreement can be summoned to the request of two thirds of the fifty states that make up the country.
This impossible mission does not seem to scare the entourage of Trump, who already sows that and there the idea of a third term.
The amendment must then be ratified by three-quarters of the states (thirty-eight out of fifty). Not an easy task, knowing that there are precedents of proposed amendments which have never been ratified later. Trump will therefore have to face many obstacles, including the fragmentation of the political landscape, if he wants to succeed in changing the Constitution on this point. A case that seems impossible, says the New York Times.
Possible flaws?
This impossible mission does not seem to scare the entourage of Trump, who already sows that and there the idea of a third term. Andy Ogles, a republican from Tennessee,, for example, has already proposed a resolution aimed at modifying the law shortly after the return of Trump in power. Steve Bannon did the same, going so far as to say that a flaw in the Constitution could allow Trump to imagine.
According to him, the twenty-second amendment does not specify whether the ban is worth for two consecutive terms. An absurdity for the American media, which ensures that the amendment specifies that no one can be elected to the presidency of the United States more than twice, whether the mandates are consecutive or not.
Another idea, always more wacky, was put forward by supporters of the current president, who would like to see him ravage the world longer. It would imply that vice-president JD Vance won the election in 2028 with Trump as a running mate, before resigning, allowing Trump to obtain a third term.
An absurd maneuver, which surely draws his inspiration from his new friend: Vladimir Putin. Without being able to run for a third consecutive term in 2008, Putin had elected Dmitri Medvedev to the presidency, who appointed him Prime Minister. In 2012, Medvedev had finally gave way to Putin, who, again president, had changed the Constitution to extend his power … until today.
