Summary
Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon revealed that MAGA operatives are “working on” securing Donald Trump a third presidential term in 2028, despite constitutional term limits.
In an interview with Chris Cuomo, Bannon said, “We’ll see what the definition of term limit is,” suggesting they’re exploring ways to circumvent the 22nd Amendment.
Recently released from prison after serving four months for contempt of Congress, Bannon placed second in a CPAC straw poll for 2028 GOP nominees behind JD Vance, while maintaining tensions with Trump adviser Elon Musk.
It’s right there in the amendment:
Donald Trump was elected twice. He is ineligible to be elected again.
Yeah. The constitution also says anyone who starts a fucking insurrection is also ineligible and yet here we are.
Can’t wait for the Supreme Court to agree that since the 22nd Amendment doesn’t specify who enforces that the president can’t be elected, that it means Congress has to actively pass a law saying he can’t run.
That’s what ultimately happened with the Colorado case.
If I had to put money on it, I’d guess they contest the legitimacy of the next election, and he just refuses to step down - can only be elected twice, but he’s just there as a care taker until a proper election can happen
Actually, reading the language again, I can absolutely see some shenanigans where he runs as VP for someone else who runs on a platform of “vote for me and I’ll immediately resign and put Trump in charge again”. It’d need the supreme court to decide if that “and” is exclusive or not, and given that half the court seems pretty happy to give up their principles of it suits their politics, I wouldn’t be surprised if that worked
This seems like the most straightforward scenario. Nothing prevents trump running, or being elected, as Vice President, on the understanding that the duely elected President will step down on day 1. When they wrote the constitution, they didn’t bank on a populist fascist, so the language assumes everyone plays fair.
Whether trump is in any state to do anything by then is a different question. If they find someone more useful they may simply shuffle him out of the game by declaring him mentally incompetant.
The absolute best case scenario is that they’re just saying this because they know it outrages non-magas, and they love doing that. I’ve not seen much to support that as the probable outcome though.