By Bill Cotterell
Political predictions are always risky, especially when talking about a mercurial figure like Donald John Trump, but today I’ll go way out on a sturdy limb, peer ponderously into the ol’ crystal ball, put a moistened finger in the wind and boldly proclaim that we can safely disregard all the buzz about the president running for a third term.
It’s fun to talk about, and it keeps the media busy. This president certainly seems capable of such audacity, and it’s hard to envision Trump fading into history as a respected — but politically defunct — elder statesman like Eisenhower, Nixon or Carter in their post-presidency years.
Trump himself has teased the topic. MAGA maestro Steve Bannon frankly says it will happen. All the wisest Washington journalists are jostling for air time and a microphone to tell us why he should or shouldn’t.
But there are three good reasons the 47th president will hang up his red hat in three years. He probably won’t announce it for a while, because there’s also one good reason for Trump and his Republican allies to keep everybody talking about the idea.
First reason, the Constitution. Trump sometimes treats laws like suggestions and background noise, but the 22nd Amendment is more of a ukase than just the mere law of the land. It unambiguously says that nobody, not even a man for whom the word “unprecedented” seems created, can be elected to the White House more than two times.
Second, no matter how happily they start, presidents usually see their public support erode by their sixth or seventh years in office. Trump claims, incorrectly, that his poll numbers are better than ever, but there’s no reason to believe he’ll gain popularity in the shank half of his tenure.
Third, Trump is a prideful man who spits the word “loser” with utter contempt. Even when he lost in 2020, pride made him claim that he’d really won, and there was never any doubt he’d mount a comeback in 2024. He has the best campaign strategists money can buy and, if they can convince him he won’t succeed in 2028, he’ll announce that he could win if he wanted to but must bow out because of that picky little Constitution.
And there’s age. He’ll be 82 and, even if he has not yet reached a Bidenesque level of infirmity, Trump is not a model of senior health and vigor. By then, his public image will probably be better suited for the rocking chair than the Situation Room.
As for the one good reason Trump and his supporters want to keep the discussion going, it’s just for political viability. The perception of presidential power fades with time, and relevancy is oxygen for Trump. Frequent discussion of a third term helps him stave off lame-duckery as long as possible, and nothing keeps ambitious successors at bay better than the notion that the current boss is not done yet.
Bannon recently told an interviewer another Trump campaign is in the works.
“Trump is going to be president in ’28, and people ought to just get accommodated with that,” Bannon told The Economist. “At the appropriate time, we’ll lay out what the plan is.”
Well, of course he’ll be president in 2028. The next inauguration isn’t until Jan. 20, 2029. But even an immodest politician like Trump can’t tip his hand this early.
“I would love to do it. I have the best numbers ever,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One last month. “Am I not ruling it out? You’ll have to tell me.”
But a few days later, on another flight, Trump told them “it’s pretty clear I’m not allowed to run…. It’s too bad.”
Trump makes historic policy decisions the way other men pick out neckties so we can expect third-term speculation to be reopened, maybe a few times, in the next few years.
But there’s no chance of Congress amending the Constitution and getting such a change ratified by 38 states in time for the next presidential campaign. Democrats in the House would block it, and there are surely some Republicans in the Senate who see themselves as the nominee when Trump is sidelined.
If Bannon has some secret strategy up a sleeve of his rumpled field jacket — even if it’s an ironclad master plan no one ever imagined — it’s doubtful the Supreme Court will accept some novel new interpretation of the 22nd amendment’s first sentence, “No person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice.”
Finally, aside from all of the above, it’s quite possible Trump will be an exhausted octogenarian who no longer wants the daily challenge of governing a nation that will have grown increasingly weary of the chaos with which he surrounds himself.
Bill Cotterell began his career as a copy clerk for the Miami Herald, then covered state government for United Press International in several states, returning to Florida as a state capitol reporter for the Tallahassee Democrat for 27 years. He has been a columnist since 2013, most recently for the News Service of Florida, his current syndicate. He can be reached at [email protected].
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