When Donald Trump took the oath of office once again, it was the last time he’d be able to do so under the country’s constitution. But that hasn’t stopped his team from flirting with the idea of running again, writes Alex Hannaford – and the Democrats are nowhere to be seen...
If you are looking for a loophole, I think there is an argument to be made that if he is elected to the office of the vice president and the president steps down, that would allow a “3rd term”.
I would love to be wrong, but I wouldn’t be shocked if that is the play.
Edit: dhork points out the 12th amendment should block this.
The 12th amendment states
That seems pretty definitive. The only attack to it I can see (and it’s total bullshit) is that the Originalists on this court may insist on interpreting this amendment based on the state of the Constitution when it was ratified in 1804, and the term limits weren’t passed until 1952.
The way around that is making him speaker of the house and having both the president and vice president resign. Speaker doesn’t have any real requirements on it.
The Constitution leaves what happens if the Presidency and VP are both vacant at the same time up to Congress, and Congress has passed various Presidential Succession Acts, the most recent being 1947. The language in that Act specifically exempts anyone who would otherwise be ineligible from becoming President.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_Succession_Act
And this has been enforced in the past; Cabinet Secretaries who were not natural-born citizens have not been included in the succession list. I remember specifically that when Madeline Albright was Clinton’s Secretary of State, she was not on the list because she was born in Prague.
I vaguely remember Trump briefly trying to be speaker of the house at some point, or at least talking about it.
From what I remember MTG nominated him during the McCarthy drama but it was just to add to the drama.
It’s been floated around for a bunch of politicians. They were talking about making Hillary speaker while impeaching Trump and Pence too.
TIL! Thanks!
The loop hole would be that suddenly declare that he wasn’t officially elected because he cheated his way there /s