President Trump has long toyed with the idea of staying in power beyond two terms — and he’s back at it. Less than a year into his second term, he’s once again hinting at a possible third run, even while acknowledging that the U.S. Constitution leaves no room for it.
The latest will-he-or-won’t-he talk has renewed the debate over how far Trump is willing to push the limits of American democracy. What might sound like political trolling to some, experts warn, could also be a subtle test of the country’s guardrails, and a sign of how much those norms have already shifted.
We’re diving deeper into what Trump has said, what the Constitution actually allows, and why experts say this kind of talk still matters, even if a third term isn’t legally possible.
What has Trump said recently about a third term?
Speculation picked up again last week when Steve Bannon, Trump’s longtime ally and former White House strategist, hinted in an interview with The Economist that there was a “plan” to keep the president in office beyond his second term, though he didn’t offer more details.
And if such a plan exists, Shannon Gilreath, a law professor at Wake Forest University, says it shouldn’t stay in the shadows. “When something as serious as this is proposed, there ought to be absolute clarity and transparency from the people proposing it as to what exactly it is they think the path forward is,” Gilreath tells us. “People have a right to know that.”
Days later, aboard a flight to Japan, Trump said he’d “love” to run again, even as he ruled out returning as vice president (and then having them step down) — and pointed to two potential successors: Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
By midweek, Trump seemed to walk the idea back, telling reporters aboard Air Force One that “it’s pretty clear” he can’t be elected again under the 22nd Amendment. He brushed it off as “too bad” before adding, “I guess we’ll see what happens.” He also bragged that he has “the best numbers for any president in many years” and “the highest numbers that I’ve ever had” — which, according to most polls, isn’t true.
This isn’t the first time the president has downplayed another run. Back in May, he told NBC’s Kristen Welker, “This is not something I’m looking to do. I’m looking to have four great years and turn it over to somebody.”
Can a president actually run for a third term?
The U.S. Constitution doesn’t leave much room for interpretation here. In 1947, Congress passed the 22nd Amendment to the United States Constitution, which set a hard limit of two presidential terms. Lawmakers acted after Franklin D. Roosevelt broke with precedent and won four consecutive elections, serving nearly 12 years in the White House.
“No president since has even flirted with the idea of contradicting the constitutional language and attempting to stand for office for a third full term,” says Gilreath.
Before that, the two-term limit wasn’t actually law — just a long-standing tradition started by George Washington and followed by every president after him. But when FDR died during his fourth term, Congress decided to make that tradition official. In 1951, the amendment was ratified, stating plainly: “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.”
There’s only one narrow exception: If a vice president takes over for fewer than two years of a president’s term, they can still run for two full additional terms of their own. If they serve more than two years, they can only run once. That doesn’t apply to Trump, who was elected to the presidency twice.
So why is this talk happening, anyway?
If the legal path to a third term is basically nonexistent, why bring it up at all?
For Trump and Bannon, floating the idea may be less about changing the Constitution and more about shaping the conversation, says Rick Hasen, a law professor at UCLA.
Bannon is famously associated with the strategy of “flooding the zone,” or overwhelming the public with provocative claims to keep opponents on the defensive. Talking about a third term, even without a real plan, helps Trump and his allies dominate the narrative and rally their base.
And it’s not just Bannon. The chatter has popped up among Trump’s inner circle, too. House Speaker Mike Johnson said he’d spoken with Trump about the “constrictions of the Constitution” and didn’t “see the path” for a 2028 run. Johnson also joked that Trump “has a good time with that — trolling the Democrats, whose hair is on fire by the very prospect,” which the president later denied.
That kind of back-and-forth may be exactly what Trump and his allies are after — political trolling that keeps his opponents on edge and his base engaged. “This could be nothing more than just a way of making liberals’ heads explode, as opposed to anything serious,” Hasen tells us.
Hasen points out that this talking point could also be a way for Trump “to stay relevant” and push back against the inevitable lame-duck perception that sets in during a second term. Presidents in their final years often lose political leverage as allies and rivals alike start looking beyond them. By dangling the idea of a third term, Trump signals he has no intention of fading quietly into the background.
Would a third-term bid like this actually get anywhere?
If Trump were to make a serious push for a third term, our experts agree that a legal roadblock would be immediate — and that the odds would be steep. “Nothing is outside the realm of possibility but it’s a long shot at this point,” says Gilreath.
Even some of Trump’s allies are signaling the alleged plan isn’t realistic. When asked about Trump floating a third term, Johnson was blunt: “Well, there’s the 22nd Amendment.”
The only way to make a third term happen would be through a constitutional amendment — a process that requires two-thirds support in both chambers of Congress and ratification by three-fourths of the states. That’s a tall order in any political climate, but especially in today’s narrowly divided House and Senate.
By the time another election rolled around, Trump would be 82 — and if the 22nd Amendment were undone, it wouldn’t just clear the way for him to make another bid. Other former presidents, including Barack Obama, could legally run again.
Even short of that, Gilreath notes, any attempt to get Trump on the ballot would trigger state-level challenges and almost certainly end up in court. Election officials in some states could refuse to list his name, citing the 22nd Amendment. Lawsuits would almost certainly follow, and experts say the issue would likely rocket to the Supreme Court within weeks. “The idea that the Supreme Court would not intervene would be unthinkable,” he says.
Most constitutional experts agree: SCOTUS would almost certainly strike down any third-term bid. The amendment’s language is plain — and unlike other legal questions involving Trump, this one leaves very little room for interpretation.
“This is among the clearest parts of the Constitution,” Hasen tells us. “And if he can get around it, it means our Constitution is not being enforced.”
What would it mean if Trump were to run for president a third time?
If Trump somehow managed to mount a third-term bid, the implications would be enormous. Experts say it would amount to a direct collapse of the rule of law, plunging the country into a constitutional crisis. “It would be a sitting president openly defying the literal language of the Constitution,” Gilreath says. “That would make us no longer a republic — we’d be something else.”
Such a move would echo patterns seen abroad, including in Russia, where Russian President Vladimir Putin has used legal loopholes and defiance to extend his rule through five presidential terms.
Fortunately, experts say there are real guardrails in the U.S. that could prevent this from happening before it ever gets that far. State election officials could keep Trump off the ballot, courts could step in fast, and public pushback — from voters and institutions — could help hold the line. Hasen said he believes “the people, the states, and the courts remain bulwarks against what Trump might try to do.”
Still, Hasen says the very fact that the idea is being floated underscores how fragile democratic norms can be, turning what might seem like political posturing into a stress test for the entire system. “Just the talk of this makes people think everything in the Constitution is up for grabs and Trump can do what he wants,” he adds.
Ultimately, how the country responds to this conversation will say as much about its democratic resilience as it does about Trump himself.
