Presently, Donald Trump is prohibited by the Constitution to run for a third term as president but he keeps talking about a third term after the second one he just won doesn’t start until jan. 20, 2025.
“We’re going to win four more years in the White House,” Trump said while campaigning for the secnd term he lost in 2020. “And then after that, we’ll negotiate, right? Because we’re probably — based on the way we were treated — we are probably entitled to another four after that.”
After winning a second, nonconsecutive term, he said: “I suspect I won’t be running again unless you say, ‘He’s so good we’ve got to figure something else out.’”
The 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, which was ratified in 1951, says that “no person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.” The amendment was needed, many in Congress at the time, after Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to four terms, aided by World War II.
“Four terms, or sixteen years, is the most dangerous threat to our freedom ever proposed, said Thomas E. Dewey, the former New York Governor who lost to Roosevelt in 1944 and then to Harry S. Truman in 1948,
Writes Neal Vigdor in The New York Times:
Mr. Trump has occasionally sent mixed and cryptic messages about how long he could stay in office.
While talking to House Republicans recently about clinching the White House and both chambers of Congress, Mr. Trump jokingly hinted that they could help prolong his presidency.
In July, at a gathering of religious conservatives, he told Christians that if they voted him into office in November, they would never need to vote again. “Christians, get out and vote. Just this time,” he said. “You won’t have to do it anymore, you know what? Four more years, it’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians.”
Speaking to members of the National Rifle Association in May, he said: “I don’t know, are we going to be considered three-term or two-term? Are we three-term or two-term if we win?”
Kimberly Wehle, who teaches constitutional law at the University of Baltimore and wrote a book titled “How to Read the Constitution — and Why,” said the 22nd Amendment left no ambiguity and was intended to place a check on the president.
“There was a concern about entrenching power in a kinglike manner,” she said.
Still, she added, Mr. Trump has effectively demonstrated an ability to bend the Constitution, especially having appointed three of the justices who belong to the Supreme Court’s conservative majority. She pointed to the court’s ruling in July that Mr. Trump was entitled to substantial immunity from prosecution on charges of trying to overturn the last election.
“Trump managed to move the Constitution by doing things no one thought was possible, and then there’s no consequences for what he did,” she said.
Representative Dan Goldman, Democrat of New York, isn’t treating Mr. Trump’s recent quip as a laughing matter.
Soon after Mr. Trump remarked that House Republicans could help pave his way to a third term, Mr. Goldman said he would introduce a resolution to reaffirm that the 22nd Amendment applies for presidents who serve nonconsecutive terms. The measure has little chance of advancing to the House floor for a vote with the chamber under Republican control.
“How he operates is by floating trial balloons that he often claims are jokes, but he’s very serious about it,” Mr. Goldman, who was lead counsel during Mr. Trump’s first impeachment in the House, said on Bloomberg TV. “And he’s been talking about staying on past this next term for years.”
Trump has often referred to he U.S. Constitution as “an outdated document and “should be terminated.”
Mary Trump, neice of the president tleect, is a psychologist who has warned he nation time and again about her uncl;ss fascism and deisire to be America’s dictator.
“This was a tragic blow to the American experimen,” she says of his win. We also have to remember that we do have allies across the world who are aligned with us and will be there for us if we need them, and we will. There are a lot of people out there who understand what we are going through who understand the dangers we are facing and understand the fight ahead of us. We have to remember that fascism takes hold when we are silent. Fascism grows stronger when we obey and advance. There is so much to be done.”
“There’s no false hope; no silver lining, I think it’s fair to say it will be much worse for those of us who fought as hard as we could to make sure we never had to wake up to this nightmare,” she adda.
“The fascism is here, and we have to confront it head-on,”
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