JONATHAN TURLEY: Can President Trump serve a third term?

[mystery-ak]

JONATHAN TURLEY: Can Trump serve a third term?
Claiming President Trump can serve a third term will only undermine his legacy
By Jonathan Turley Fox News
Published April 1, 2025 2:14pm EDT

 The late Justice Antonin Scalia famously said that Congress does not "hide elephants in mouseholes." His point was that courts are skeptical of using minor provisions in a statute to achieve sweeping new legal changes.

The challenge of stuffing an elephant into a mousehole came to mind this week after President Donald Trump said that he is "not joking" about considering a third term and that experts told him it is possible under the Constitution.

One often has to take such moments with a heavy dose of skepticism from a president who clearly relished handing snake-in-a-can soundbites to the media just to watch the resulting screams. If so, he was not disappointed. The media went into renewed vapors as commentators pronounced, yet again, the death of democracy.

However, given the president's statement, it is important to be clear about the basis for this theory, which has long been something of a parlor game for law professors on how a president might be able to circumvent the two-term limitation imposed by the 22nd Amendment.

Let's start with the language. Ratified in 1951, the amendment was passed ironically by Republicans who were reacting to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's decision to break from the tradition of two-term presidencies by seeking a third term. The intent was clear. They believed that serving more than two terms exposed the country to the danger of a politician occupying the office for life or prolonged periods.

To prevent that, the amendment 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."

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https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/jonathan-turley-can-trump-serve-third-term

[Smokin Joe]

Even try it and the Left will chimp out like never before.

Train the next up and run them, but clean up the voter rolls up first and find ways to stop fraud before it happens (restore faith in fair and honest elections).

If the sources of taxpayer dollars being funneled into DNC coffers are shut off, that will make a difference too.

[cato potatoe]

Okay do we want Barack Obama to serve a 4th term? 

This is Trump in self destruct mode, as it just reminds everyone of January 6.

[mountaineer]

I'm convinced Trump says outlandish things like this just to see how hysterically people will react. They never disappoint.

[berdie]

I'm convinced Trump says outlandish things like this just to see how hysterically people will react. They never disappoint.

Could be. But I'm inclined to think things rattle around in his brain constantly. Then they come out of his mouth. I'm not sure he has a stop sign in there, lol.

I will say this. He could accomplish a third term the same way Barry did. Run a puppet and rule from the shadows. That seems far more likely.

[mountaineer]

Then they come out of his mouth. I'm not sure he has a stop sign in there, lol.

I agree.

[DefiantMassRINO]

The fact that the question is being asked means there is a possibility Trump could serve a 3rd term, legal or not.

Could 2+2 = 5? Nope.  It never could because it is an absolute.

Could Trump + Feckless Congressional Republicans = 3rd term?  Possibly.  It depends which lawyer or judge you ask.  Law is not an absolute because it's interpreted.

Like Warren Zevon said, 'lawyers, guns, and money'.  They make anything possible.

[jmyrlefuller]

I'm convinced Trump says outlandish things like this just to see how hysterically people will react. They never disappoint.

You would think after that bullet grazed him last summer, he'd be a little more careful with the kind of talk that would justify someone trying to whack him. But instead, it seems to have instilled (or awakened) this God complex in him, that "if they can't even shoot me, no one can stop me" sort of thinking, which is... well, horrifying.