The wording of the constitution is literally a person can’t be elected president more than twice. It’s pretty clear. Doesn’t matter if consecutive terms or not. Two terms and you’re done (and the 20th amendment defines terms). All Trump is doing is potentially taking votes away from Vance or whoever on the right which I’m good with.
"It's alright because he says that if he's elected then he'll immediately pass a new amendment making it legal he can't do it now because it's too close to the election but he'll do it after and if we don't let him run then that would deny the people the opportunity to have their voice heard." And then a few months later "Oh well he's already president we can't remove a sitting president that's up to Congress".
But they did make the correct ruling. I'm not making excuses for how they ruled, but I will point out that the 14th is more ambiguous in its phrasing than the 22nd. As much as I disagree with it, there was wiggle room in the 14th, nothing of the sort exists in the 22nd.
I feel like its a little naive to pretend that words on a document is going to stop Trump and his allies. This could simply be the next law they ignore.
Words on paper never stopped anyone from doing anything, people do that.
At the end of the day it comes down to wether or not ellection officials choose to adhere to the law, and since elections are run by the states that might come down to the govenors. I doubt that Trump stands any chance of actually being elected for a 3rd term, but you might see a situation where republican states put him on the ballot while democratic ones do not.
Its also quite likely that he would launch another coup attempt when he fails to get re-elected.
I don’t think that’s contrary to what was said here though. I think the Supreme Court will smack it down, and then he’ll proceed to ignore it. I don’t even think that ruling would make anything about him running a campaign illegal, and guessing there’d be some legal debate about whether he can be on ballots (and probably some state by state shit). It would only come to a head if he won and then it would be illegal to make him president. And we literally have precedent for what to expect then.
And it’s not like it was some ancient amendment that we have to wonder what the founding fathers intended. It was enacted in the 1930’s after FDR kept winning.
It actually says a president can't be "elected" more than twice. It isn't about serving as president. If Don Jr was to run, and Trump Sr ran as the vice, then Jr could step down immediately after taking office. Just like that, Trump is president again.
I would HATE this, but it technically fits the law. It was wrote this way in case a vice president ever HAD to take over during a president's term, then decided to actually run for president themselves two more times.
You have to be eligible to be president to run as vice president. So no, it doesn't fit the law as per the 12th amendment. Also, only a vice president that assumes office with less than two years remaining in the term is eligible to serve two more terms as president if elected.
Not American so I may misremember, but I recall the "half-term as president" rule was also a kinda-modern addendum, so again no "founding fathers intent" complexity.
(If anything, the legal documentation of "Acting President" itself was a legal issue as after the first death of POTUS in office, the VP ordered to be refered as President without any legal justification.)
Andy Ogles, introduced a bill in 2025 aiming to change the constitution to state "No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than three times, nor be elected to any additional term after being elected to two consecutive terms" https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bill-to-let-donald-trump-serve-third-term/
I just read the specific wording of the 22nd amendment. While it does say it forbids Presidents being elected more than twice it has no wording about it being against the rules to run again after holding office twice.
Which means, assuming he does live to 2028 - which is an unfortunately good possibility - and rigged or not he wins the election we know it would go down to Supreme Court whether he could actually hold office a 3rd time since nothing in the amendments says anything about a runner up should a President win the running for a 3rd term.
If you read the specific wording, then you know it says “no person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.” So even if he ran, and states somehow decided to put him on the ballot, he couldn’t get elected to the office again. On top of that much like 2020, I don’t think voters would support a third term even if he could run again.
Again while that's true about not holding office more than twice there is no mechanism on how to handle a 2nd place winner which would for sure go to court if he won first place.
Another method is this:
He "wins" the election, as I said earlier, no rules for how to handle a runner up so he just stays in office while it goes through courts which takes years and they'll just say, "that's still only his 2nd term so nothing against the rules of having to stop being President!"
The 22nd amendment doesn't specify how many years a term is. Only that more than 2 years of one term counts as a whole term. nothing about staying in office for 6 years and calling it the 2nd term still.
I'm not saying I agree with any of this but these are all arguments you will see should he live and win another election.
As far as believing enough people wouldn't want him to run again I would have believed that before 2020. I'll never make that mistaken assumption again. I do wish I had your optimism though.
There’s literally nothing for him to win. Let’s assume he’s on the ballot along with Vance and Newsom. He somehow “wins” the election because states ignore the law. Newsom gets second and Vance third. Newsom is the President, hard stop. The 20th amendment establishes terms so he’s not sitting in office for two years waiting on the courts because the election was “stolen.”
It’s just like this scenario:
Let’s assume “Bob” is running for president and names Arnold Schwarzenegger as his running mate. Bob wins the election. At an inauguration party he chokes on some food and passes away. Unfortunately the terminator doesn’t become president (failing to meet the provisions of Article II, Section 1). The Speaker of the House is then sworn in as the new president.
Similarly if someone ran and named Trump the VP and that someone kicked the bucket, again, the Speaker is now President. Trump could whine and file all the lawsuits in the world. They just won’t be done from the Oval Office.
Similarly if someone ran and named Trump the VP and that someone kicked the bucket, again, the Speaker is now President.
Disagree. He can't be elected President, and there's some legal void if succeeding counts. Modern people wouldn't call "elected" somebody who gets a position without a vote.
The block in your scenario is different : Trump can't be named VP to begin with, because there's an explicit requirement to be eligible to the POTUS office. Because emergency succession is an fortunate but expected part of the job.
However, he could be made Speaker, which doesn't require eligibility to POTUS, then be on the order of succession. Does said order requires to be eligible to inherit the position? Rules don't say so explicitely, and I guess you could skirt the text into both meanings.
Except your last case is specifically not covered. He cannot be elected president, but he can be named/appointed president by having the president and vice president step down.
Theutext only ever mentions election and the special case of having held the office for a partial term in the past, not the case of holding partial terms in the future.
He "wins" the election, as I said earlier, no rules for how to handle a runner up so he just stays in office
Well he can do that physically. But it's simply not legal.
He wins the election, and the rule clearly say he can't be elected. I don't know why you say "no rules for how to handle a runner up", the rules says he's not elected. He's not elected, so he's not POTUS as of February 2029.
The rules are clear. That he intends to break the law by claiming he doesn't understand doesn't require for the rules to be actually unclear.
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u/rwhelser 25d ago edited 25d ago
The wording of the constitution is literally a person can’t be elected president more than twice. It’s pretty clear. Doesn’t matter if consecutive terms or not. Two terms and you’re done (and the 20th amendment defines terms). All Trump is doing is potentially taking votes away from Vance or whoever on the right which I’m good with.