Since his second inauguration in January, U.S. President Donald Trump has tested the limits of presidential power, weakening the independence of key government agencies. In an interview earlier this year, he even suggested that he could subvert the U.S. Constitution and seek a third term as president.
And it appears he’s not backing down from that suggestion following the Trump Organization’s recent release of a new “Trump 2028” hat.
On Thursday, Trump’s son Eric posted a video of him wearing the new 2028 hat on Instagram, as well as screenshots of interview requests from reporters asking about his father’s desire for a third presidential term despite it being prohibited under the U.S. Constitution.
The hat is currently selling for $50 (U.S.) on the online Trump Store. “The future looks bright! Rewrite the rules with the Trump 2028 high crown hat,” the page reads.
In an interview with NBC News on Mar. 30, Trump suggested that there “are methods” for him seeking a third term, despite the constitutional bar on presidents being elected more than twice.
When asked to clarify his remarks, Trump said that he is “not joking” and that “a lot of people want” him to seek a third term.
While several Republicans in Congress insisted that Trump was joking (or “trolling”) the press and that there are no plans to change the constitution to accommodate his desires, he insisted that “there are methods which you could do it.”
Where are presidential term limits spelled out?
Presidential term limits are detailed in the Twenty-Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, which says that “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.”
In the NBC interview, Trump seemed to suggest that, in order to circumvent the constitutional restrictions on three-term presidents, Vice President JD Vance could run for president in 2028 with Trump as his vice presidential nominee and then “pass the role to Trump” by way of resignation. (Vance, for his part, has long been seen as a potential successor to Trump, though the president himself has thrown cold water on the possibility, telling Fox News that “it’s too early” to decide on a successor.)
Presidential ascensions are not unheard of. Lyndon B. Johnson became president following the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, while then-VPs Gerald Ford, Harry Truman and Calvin Coolidge were all elevated to the top job following the death or resignation of their predecessors.
Still, constitutional scholars doubt the viability (and legality) of the Vance-for-Trump switch theory. Northeastern University law professor Jeremy Paul said that it’s a “ludicrous argument” because the text of the amendment is clear, while New York University School of Law professor emeritus Stephen Gillers suggested to NPR earlier last week that the idea is “far-fetched.”
In addition, the Twelfth Amendment would likely prevent Trump from even becoming vice-president, since it reads, in part, that “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.”
Critics of the Vance-to-Trump theory have also pointed out that it eerily mirrors Russian President Vladimir Putin’s successful attempt to cling to power by serving as somewhat of a shadow president during Dmitry Medvedev’s tenure as president.
Beyond Trump himself, former senior counselor and chief strategist Steve Bannon said in March that he’s “a firm believer that President Trump will run and win again in 2028,” claiming that they have “a couple of alternatives” to the two-term limit.
Republican Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee proposed amending the constitution to allow Trump to serve a third term earlier this year, but Congress has not since taken any action on the resolution. (The process of amending the constitution is difficult and, given current political polarization, unlikely to come to fruition.)
Have any presidents served more than two terms?
President Franklin D. Roosevelt served in four terms between 1933 and 1945, but that was before the ratification of the Twenty-Second Amendment in 1951. Roosevelt was popular in his final days, winning re-election in 1944 by a wide Electoral College margin.
Since then, no president has served for more than two terms (or eight years) in office and, Trump aside, no U.S. president has tried to run for two non-consecutive terms in modern political history. (Ford, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush — the only one-term presidents in modern history — largely retreated from political life following their electoral defeats and did not run anew for president.)
Why do presidential term limits exist?
Proponents of the Twenty-Second Amendment argued that it limited presidential power in the post-war era, thus preventing pseudo-dictatorship.
Abstract, philosophical rationale aside, the legislative historian Stephen W. Stathis wrote in 1990 that party politics — and a Republican desire to limit the influence and power of a future FDR-like Democratic president — also played a “key role” in the adoption of the Twenty-Second Amendment.
In Canada, there is no such limitation on how long a prime minister can serve. William Lyon Mackenzie King, for example, served in six governments and held power for a cumulative 21 years, almost three times the length of a two-term presidency in the United States.
