President Donald Trump could not run for a third term, but he could be president a third time, according to Cornell law professor Bill Jacobson.
The 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is clear that no one can be elected to the office of the president “more than twice.”
“But there’s nothing in the Constitution that prohibits someone from serving a third term,” said Jacobson, founder and publisher of Legal Insurrection. If another candidate won the presidential election, and Trump was his or her vice presidential running mate, that candidate could step aside after winning the race and allow Trump to take over, according to Jacobson, who was quick to add he doesn’t endorse such an action.
While a deal made with a running mate for Trump to serve a third term “does not violate the Constitution,” Jacobson says, it “might violate the spirit of the Constitution.”
The intent of the 22nd Amendment is “that we not have a permanent president,” Jacobson said, adding that because of that, serving a third term “might be subject to challenge,” adding: “It might be subject to what was the original meaning of these terms. But on its face, there’s no barrier.”
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The conversation of Trump serving a third term recently landed in headlines when a number of reporters started asking the president if he wanted a third term.
“I’m not looking at that, but I’ll tell you, I have had more people asking me to have a third term,” Trump said while speaking with reporters on Air Force One at the end of March.
This isn’t the first time the idea of a former two-term president serving another term has been floated. In October 2023, Howard J. Klein of Lakewood Ranch, Florida, wrote in a letter to the editor of The Wall Street Journal that former President Barack Obama could run as the vice presidential candidate with then-President Joe Biden.
“Mr. Obama would constitutionally succeed to the presidency—without election—if Mr. Biden were to vacate the office,” Klein wrote.
The 22nd Amendment was added to the Constitution in 1951 in the wake of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s election to four terms in 1932, 1936, 1940, and 1944. Congress approved the 22nd Amendment on March 21, 1947, then submitted it to the state legislatures for required ratification. The ratification process was completed on Feb. 27, 1951, when the required 36 of the then-48 states (before Hawaii and Alaska joined the union) had ratified the amendment.
Jacobson sits down with The Daily Signal to provide his legal opinion on Trump serving a third term and to discuss the work of the Equal Protection Project, a project of the Legal Insurrection Foundation aimed at holding universities accountable for violating the Constitution’s equal-protection guarantees.
Watch the conversation:
Syndicated with permission from The Daily Signal.
