Trump’s Third Term Power Play

By Greg Collier

President Donald Trump says he’s “not joking” about serving a third term. But if that’s true, then the joke is on the Constitution, and on anyone expecting a peaceful transfer of power in 2029.

In recent interviews with NBC News, both from his Mar-a-Lago estate and later aboard Air Force One, Trump made his most direct comments yet about seeking a third term in the White House. “There are methods which you could do it,” he said ominously, before floating the idea that Vice President JD Vance could run in 2028, win, and then hand him the presidency.

“Well, that’s one,” Trump told NBC’s Kristen Welker. “But there are others too.” When pressed, he refused to elaborate.

Let’s be clear. There are no legal “methods” to a third term. The 22nd Amendment, ratified in 1951 after Franklin D. Roosevelt’s unprecedented four elections, is unambiguous. “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.” Any attempt to remain in power beyond that is not clever strategy, it’s a constitutional crisis in the making.

Even the supposed workaround of having Vance run and transfer power to Trump crumbles under scrutiny. Legal scholars point to the 12th Amendment, which makes any person ineligible for the presidency also ineligible to serve as vice president. In short, if Trump can’t run again, he also can’t be elected as VP or sneak back in through a political backdoor.

Yet, Trump’s refusal to accept constitutional reality raises deeper concerns. It suggests this is not just about power, it’s about dismantling democratic norms. His repeated assertion that the 2020 election was “stolen,” his floating of unconstitutional ideas, and his insistence that Americans “want” him to stay in office all point to a dangerous strategy. Sow chaos, break systems, and manufacture a crisis to justify remaining in power.

This isn’t speculative fiction. It’s a page ripped from the authoritarian playbook, destabilize institutions, vilify dissent, and frame yourself as the only solution to a mess of your own making. Trump’s second-term approval ratings hover around 43%, historically low and a far cry from his baseless claim of “the highest poll numbers of any Republican for the last 100 years.” But approval doesn’t matter when your goal is power, not popularity.

The danger isn’t in Trump’s rhetoric alone. It’s also in the silence from those who should be the first to speak out. Congressional leaders from both parties have yet to firmly rebuke Trump’s third-term talk. Former strategist Steve Bannon openly called for “Trump in ’28” at CPAC. And at a campaign event in Wisconsin, a voter told the AP she would “absolutely” support a third term, declaring, “America needs him.”

This kind of normalization, treating autocratic ambition as just another campaign slogan, is exactly what makes it viable. Trump doesn’t need a constitutional amendment to stay in power. He just needs enough people to stop caring that he can’t.

It’s not just about Trump running again. It’s about whether this country still honors the principle that no one is above the law, even a former president obsessed with his own permanence.

Trump claims he’s not a lame duck. The truth is, he’s something far more dangerous, a would-be autocrat testing the limits of a system he’s already tried to break once.

The Constitution is clear. The threat is clearer.