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President Donald Trump dismissed a question Tuesday night from a reporter about the possibility of him running for a third term in 2028, saying “the law is very strong.”
“Everybody asks me that question, and you know that the law is very strong on that,” Trump said while speaking to reporters at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. “I’d love to run, but the law is very strong.”
“I get asked by everyone, well, even tonight they’re screaming at the event, ‘2028,’” he said, referring to the Patriot Games, which he had attended earlier that day. “No, everybody wants me to do it, but the law is very strong.”
Section 1 of the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states that no one can be elected president more than twice.
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President Donald Trump salutes at the 2026 Patriot Games at SPIRE Academy on August 11, 2026, in Geneva, Ohio. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
The amendment was ratified by the states in February 1951, roughly six years after the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had served an unprecedented four terms as president.
Before Roosevelt, it was a longstanding political norm for presidents to serve no more than two terms, following the precedent set by George Washington.
Throughout his second term, Trump has walked a fine line between joking about seeking a third term and signaling that he may be serious about the idea.
At the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on July 24, Trump opened his speech with a wisecrack about running again.
President Donald Trump wears a “Trump 2028” hat while he speaks during the 2026 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner at the Waldorf Astoria in Washington, D.C. on July 24, 2026. (Mandel NGAN / AFP via Getty Images)
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“Just like my presidency, the second time is always better. It’s always better. And the third time will be better yet. I’m only kidding,” Trump said.
In an interview on March 30, 2025, with NBC’s Kristen Welker, Trump struck a different chord, explicitly saying he was not “joking” about seeking a third term.
“There are methods which you could do it,” he also told Welker, acknowledging one possible route in which Vice President JD Vance could run for president with Trump as his running mate, win, and then resign — allowing Trump, as vice president, to succeed him and potentially sidestep the 22nd Amendment’s prohibition on being elected president more than twice.
Vice President JD Vance speaks during a congressional roundtable on anti-fraud initiatives in the Indian Treaty Room of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C. on Aug. 5, 2026. (Mandel NGAN / AFP via Getty Images)
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Most constitutional scholars say this would not work. Deborah Pearlstein, a Princeton University law professor, told The Washington Post that the 12th Amendment “closes the door” on Trump securing a third term through the vice presidency.
The amendment’s final sentence states that “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.”