Trump refuses to say whether he is planning to leave office at end of term
On Air Force One after leaving Florida, following his interview with NBC where he said he was not joking about the possibility of seeking a third term, Donald Trump claimed he was being asked about it a lot.
And the US president later refused to answer when asked point blank on board whether he was planning to leave office in 2029, Good Morning America reported on Monday morning.
He refused to comment further on specifics, the network’s segment added.
The talk of a third term has blared out at the start of a week where there are special elections tomorrow, new tariffs are expected on Wednesday and budget votes in the Senate on Thursday, so more busy days in US politics news ahead.
Key events
Trump admin sued more than 130 times over executive orders
The Trump administration faces more than 130 lawsuits over his executive orders.
Many of the lawsuits have been filed in liberal-leaning parts of the country as the court system becomes ground zero for pushback to his policies, the Associated Press reports.
Federal judges have ruled against the administration more than 40 times, issuing temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions, the Justice Department said Friday in a Supreme Court filing.
The issues include birthright citizenship changes, federal spending, transgender rights and deportations under a rarely used 18th-century law.
The media commentator Brian Stelter praised NBC for releasing the transcript of Kristen Welker’s call with Donald Trump on Sunday where he said he wasn’t joking about the possibility of trying to seek a third term in office, which is forbidden by the 22nd amendment to the constitution.
Stelter also pointed out on X that Trump’s “stated premise about seeking an unconstitutional third term is predicated on his popularity, which he wildly exaggerates”.
He then posted a series of polls showing that the president’s approval ratings are underwater.
“We’re very popular,” Trump said, based on his imaginary “high 70s” approval rating. “And you know, a lot of people would like me to do that,” remain in power for a third term. “I basically tell them, we have a long way to go, you know, it’s very early in the administration.” pic.twitter.com/SDbZyk2FkH
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) March 30, 2025
New York congressman Dan Goldman, a Democrat, pointed out that he had said last year that Donald Trump “was never joking about trying to serve an unconstitutional third term”.
“This is yet another escalation in his clear effort to take over the government and dismantle our democracy,” Goldman posted on X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday evening.
He threw down a challenge.
“If congressional Republicans believe in the Constitution they will go on the record opposing Trump’s ambitions for a third term,” he added.
Ken Martin, chair of the Democratic National Committee, said of Trump’s view of a possible third term: “This is what dictators do.”
Trump refuses to say whether he is planning to leave office at end of term
On Air Force One after leaving Florida, following his interview with NBC where he said he was not joking about the possibility of seeking a third term, Donald Trump claimed he was being asked about it a lot.
And the US president later refused to answer when asked point blank on board whether he was planning to leave office in 2029, Good Morning America reported on Monday morning.
He refused to comment further on specifics, the network’s segment added.
The talk of a third term has blared out at the start of a week where there are special elections tomorrow, new tariffs are expected on Wednesday and budget votes in the Senate on Thursday, so more busy days in US politics news ahead.
To John Dean’s point about Barack Obama deciding not to try to challenge the constitution and seek a third term in office, the Democratic influencer Harry Sisson and others on social media brought up an intriguing prospect.
Sisson posted on X: “Trump should really stop talking about running for a third term unless he wants to get absolutely humiliated by President Obama in a presidential race.”
Obama served two terms, winning the election for the Democrats, with his vice-presidential pick, Joe Biden, in 2008 when he beat the Republican ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin to become the first Black US president.
He then won re-election in the 2012 election, handily beating Mitt Romney.
John Dean said that the debate around whether a US president can run for a third term is not new.
“It actually goes back to a Law Journal article in 1999 where a bunch of scholars got together and looked at the 22nd amendment and said: ‘You know, maybe a president cannot be re-elected twice but maybe he can serve [again] twice.’”
Dean said the scholars discussed the possibility of a president becoming a vice-presidential candidate after serving two terms and then when the nominee at the top of the ticket is elected president he could step aside and let his No 2 and former president take over to serve as president for a third time, using the succession statute.
“This is really obtuse, it’s pretty good scholarship, it’s been debated for a number of years. Hillary Clinton looked at it when she was nominated [in 2016 for the Democrats], thinking maybe her husband, the former president [Bill] should be her vice-president.
“Then she realized, ‘well, he’s not really eligible to become president in my reading and and most readings of the 22nd amendment’, so she precluded that. A lot of people thought [Barack] Obama should go for another term, he didn’t. He read the constitution and said: ‘I’m not for end runs.’”
Republican John Dean, former White House counsel to Richard Nixon as president, who was jailed for his involvement in the cover-up of Watergate and later testified to Congress as a witness for the investigation into the scandal, criticized Trump’s apparent aspiration for a third term, in an interview with CNN.
“He likes constitutional end-runs … and that’s what seems to be on his mind is how he can get around the very clear language of the 22nd amendment [to the US constitution], which precludes getting elected to more than two terms,” Dean said.
CNN asked, if there are ways to get around the law, constitutionally what could those be?
Dean said: “They would have to be written by the supreme court, that would redefine the constitution. I just describe it as a constitutional end run.”
An end run is an American football term for the ball-carrier running around the end of the defensive line in their attempt to reach the line to score a touchdown.
The key line from the 22nd amendment, forbidding anyone who has been elected president twice from being elected again. reads:
“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.”
The US Congress approved the amendment in 1947, and submitted it to the state legislatures, where it was then ratified in 1951.
Previous presidents had not had term limits. The first and third US presidents, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, established the tradition, however, of opting not to run for re-election after serving two terms.
Franklin Roosevelt was elected for a third and fourth term, in 1940 and 1944, and his decisions heightened concerns about the presidency not being subject to term limits.
Critics attack Trump notion of serving third term
Donald Trump’s repeated musings that there is scope for breaking with the US constitution’s explicit ban on running for a third term in office is attracting criticism from some in both parties.
Changing the constitution so that it no longer forbids a third term is a very high hurdle to leap over. You need a two-thirds majority vote in the US Congress or two-thirds of US states agreeing to convene a constitutional convention at which an amendment would be proposed, NBC reports. Then agreement from such a vote would need to be ratified by three-quarters of the states.
Trump talked about a possible third term before he was inaugurated and has brought it up at least twice more since he became the 47th president of the United States, in a return to the White House that has shaken the US government to its core.
Texas congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, a Democrat, posted on X about the possibility of Trump service again: “So, that’s actually not allowed…The Constitution isn’t optional, sir. This isn’t a reality show — it’s reality. Two terms, that’s it.”
Republican John Dean, from the Nixon era, talked of Trump trying an “end run”.
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