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- [00:01]
Brad
Hi, this is Brad from Elba, New York. I'm currently boiling 350 gallons of maple SAP to make about 7 gallons of pure New York State maple syrup. We had a late start to this season, but hopefully this boil puts us over 30 gallons for the year. This podcast was recorded at 1:05pm on.
- [00:19]
Deepa Shivaram
Tuesday, April 1, 2025.
- [00:21]
Brad
Things may have changed by the time you hear it, but I'll probably be catching up on lost sleep from the season. Enjoy the.
- [00:32]
Deepa Shivaram
That'S pretty cool.
- [00:33]
Domenico Montanaro
That is cool. I'll have to do an NPR Politics plus segment on the time. I thought I was almost going to get killed trying to get Vermont maple syrup in Vermont. So that's another story.
- [00:44]
Deepa Shivaram
That was so many words that I yeah, I was signing up for that plus episode. I have a lot of follow up questions. Interesting. Hey there. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Deepa Shivaram. I cover the White House.
- [00:56]
Hansi Le Wang
I'm Hansi Le Wang. I cover voting.
- [00:58]
Domenico Montanaro
And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.
- [01:01]
Deepa Shivaram
And today on the show, we're looking at comments made recently by President Trump about the possibility of getting a third term in office. This came up in an interview with NBC News over the weekend where Trump told Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker over the phone that, quote, a lot of people want me to do it and that he wasn't joking about it. He said, quote, there are methods which you could do it. Yesterday in the Oval Office, though, he seemed to walk that idea back a little bit.
- [01:27]
Donald Trump
People are asking me to run and there's a whole story about running for a third term. I don't know. I never looked into it. They do say there's a way you can do it, but I don't know about that. But I have not looked into it. I want to do a fantastic job. We have four years, just about almost close to four years. It's time is flying, but it's still close to four years. And we're getting a lot of credit for having done a great job in the first almost 100 days.
- [01:53]
Deepa Shivaram
Obviously a lot to get into here. But Hansi, let's start with the basics. Very, very zoom out here. What does the US Constitution say about presidential term limits?
- [02:03]
Hansi Le Wang
So the first sentence of Section 1 of the 22nd Amendment says, quote, no person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice. And this comes after a two term norm that was set by former President George Washington, the very first U.S. president. But this amendment's language was ratified in 1951. Because former President Franklin Roosevelt served third and fourth terms during World War II. And those were controversial.
- [02:36]
Deepa Shivaram
Right, and those were controversial. Exactly. And so, you know, things had changed and there was a two term limit. But then what is Trump talking about when he's saying that there are methods to change that?
- [02:47]
Hansi Le Wang
Well, he confirmed to NBC News he was talking about at least one method that was based on the fact that winning an election is not the only way a person can become President of the United States. For example, a former two term president serving as speaker of the House of Representatives could become president through the Presidential Secession act of 1947. And a twice elected president could become Vice president and then return as the next president. If, if. Follow me here. The current president were to be removed from office, resign or die. And, you know, there's this last sentence of the 12th Amendment. We should also keep in mind some of the lectures I talked to say, you know, this could be a roadblock for any twice elected president attempting to get back into the White House through the Vice president position. And that sentence says that, quote, no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice President of the United States. But in court, there could be an argument that the only eligibility requirements in the Constitution are spelled out in the original text, not the amendments. And that original text says you just have to be a natural born Citizen, at least 35 years old, and a resident within the United States for at least 14 years. So you could argue Trump is not ineligible based on that, even after winning two presidential elections.
- [04:10]
Domenico Montanaro
Yeah, there are a lot of contortions that, you know, Trump and the people supporting him have to go through to be able to get him to, you know, potentially be at some kind of third term. You know, in addition to this idea of potentially either running on the vice presidential line, which, you know, he may or may not be qualified to actually do. There's also this theory that's been floated by some Republicans that he could be elected speaker of the House because, remember, you don't have to be a member of Congress to be speaker of the House. Then the president and Vice president could resign, and then he, since he'd be second in line, he could ascend to the presidency. But that's a lot going on there, frankly, and it's not something that, you know, is seen as very much a likelihood at all. But, you know, we have to take Trump, you know, literally and seriously, given that he's, he's putting a lot of this out there the more straightforward way, as Hansi is sort of alluding to is going through the courts and saying the 22nd Amendment is just not constitutional, and then they strip it and he can serve as long as he wants.
- [05:09]
Deepa Shivaram
So when he says methods, there are actually a lot of paths here that could potentially heavy emphasis on the potentially work. But I want to get into, like, one element of this conversation, or even the fact that this came up because it's done in a very Trump way, which is that he didn't exactly say this, you know, pretty crazy thing. To be clear, we haven't had a president serve more than two terms since Roosevelt, like Hanzi mentioned. But to say it in a way that's just like, oh, I, you know, people are saying I should, but he doesn't get into the details, but he says there are methods. This is something he does pretty often with a lot of his ideas.
- [05:40]
Domenico Montanaro
Yeah, definitely. And I think there's a lot of politics, obviously, at play with some of this. I mean, if you think about what happened last week with the Signal chat group controversy, you know, this is one way to distract from bad news. You know, we have the tariffs, trade war sort of going into full effect tomorrow, supposedly. So that's something that could raise car prices, for example, and grocery prices. So Trump would much rather not have that conversation, have people in the media sort of scrambling to think and talk about some other big distraction that maybe he will or won't follow through on. And I think at the end of the day, also, if Trump acknowledges that he's unable to run in 2028 and doesn't play with this idea, then, you know, after the midterms next year, he's essentially a lame duck. And I don't think Donald Trump wants to be seen as somebody who's irrelevant as president.
- [06:31]
Deepa Shivaram
No, this is a person who is very good at captivating the limelight and turning attention to himself and staying relevant, especially when there are, to your point, Domenico, so many other things going on to kind of flood the zone and make this the topic of conversation on this fine Tuesday on April 1st is, you know, very in Trump's wheelhouse.
- [06:51]
Domenico Montanaro
And we should say this podcast is not a April Fool's joke.
- [06:56]
Deepa Shivaram
Absolutely. All right, we're going to take a quick break, and we'll be back in a moment. And we're back. Domenico. I want to talk about this whole topic from a political standpoint. We kind of got into it a little bit, but, I mean, Trump has widespread support among Republicans, but he's never had an approval rating above 50%. And the idea that he's flirting with a potential third term here, even just in terms of his political agenda. What is to be gained from floating this idea?
- [07:24]
Domenico Montanaro
Well, you know, we mentioned the idea that, you know, he could not be seen as a lame duck. Well, if, you know, after the 2026 midterms, depending on what happens, you know, if Democrats take back the House or even if Republicans stay with a narrow majority, Trump's gonna wanna be able to get other stuff done, right? So they don't want to have to have people looking toward 2028 and whoever the person might be who leads the Republican Party or who the person in the Democratic Party is gonna be, you know, criticizing Trump. And, you know, maybe we start to that presidential election because we know that, you know, sometime late 2026, 2027, we're going to hear about who's going to be running in that presidential election. I mean, remember, Donald Trump announced that he was running for 2024's presidential election just a week after the 2022 midterms.
- [08:16]
Deepa Shivaram
I wonder if there's an argument to be made here also that, you know, by Trump trying to, you know, sort of float this idea of like, you think I'm, you know, going to be done in 2028. Well, you know, I'm just going, um. It really kind of puts Democrats further on edge, right? Because this is already a party that is struggling to sort of like find their footing in this second Trump term. And then to like have this opportunity in 2028 to run in a non Trump race is really different than running in a race where Trump is saying, well, I could be back again.
- [08:45]
Domenico Montanaro
In a land of nightmares for Democrats these last couple of months, this is like the biggest nightmare that they could possibly have. Right? I mean, the idea that Trump could potentially come back and not go away and not have the sor of light at the end of the tunnel of 2028, you know, is another one of these sort of own the libs moment for the right. So whether Trump does it or not, they've created a degree of anxiety among Democrats among the left that's, you know, going to set their hair on fire and already is. And that's something they kind of smirk at and think is kind of hilarious. On the right, we've seen Trump and Republicans do this plenty of times before, including when Trump was out of office. And, you know, we saw these kind of gifs online showing Trump president in the year 90,000. Trump forever was one of the phrases within it, because they knew that that would get to people on the left and would really set them off and.
- [09:44]
Deepa Shivaram
At the same time, like, really drums up the Republican base. Hansi, I want to come back to you because I know you've talked to a lot of experts here and people you've talked to about this, you know, possibility that Trump is floating. They have suggested that there's maybe a window here for the country to respond on whether they even want Trump to run again. Right. By either, you know, being explicit in saying that this is something that is a good thing or disavowing it. What. What have people been telling you?
- [10:08]
Hansi Le Wang
You know, one of the people I talked to is Bruce Peabody. He's a professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University, and he wrote about this potential scenario of a former twice elected president trying to become president again through the vice presidency in a law review article back in 1999. So he's been thinking about this for a while, and he pointed out, you know, the timing of Trump's latest comments here. You know, we are more than three years away from the 2028 election, and if there's enough support for one, there's still technically time to try to pass a new constitutional amendment that definitively blocks a potential third Trump term. You know, Peabody told me, right now, essentially, the nation is on notice, and it has the power to act through a new constitutional amendment. And of course, to be clear, that requires support from 3/4 of the state, 38 of the 50 states, and so far, there has been no joint resolution introduced in this Congress to propose such an amendment. There is a proposal by Republican Representative Andy Ogles of Tennessee. He wants to change the Constitution so that a person could be elected president three times if they had not been previously elected to two consecutive terms. So that would allow Trump, but not former President Barack Obama, for example, to run again.
- [11:19]
Deepa Shivaram
That's very interesting. And I'm curious, Hansi, also, like, you know, I know we don't have a crystal ball here, but, like, how. How are the regular folk kind of responding to this? Have we seen any indication of, like, what voters really think about literally changing the Constitution and changing the rules here in order for this to be a potential option?
- [11:35]
Hansi Le Wang
The common understanding of the 22nd Amendment is that a person cannot serve more than two times as president. But, you know, look at the actual language here. It's elected, it's not served. And so that raises a lot of questions, and there's also a lot of skepticism from folks, you know, feeling that this is another way for Trump to talk about this, as a way to distract from more substantial issues. But, you know, the legal experts I talked to say, you know, you also can't rule out the possibility here that Trump tries to run for a third term regardless of what the 22nd Amendment says. We've already seen this administration challenge constitutional provisions, and we're at a moment where the ability of the federal courts and Congress to serve as checks and balances to the White House is under question. And, you know, legal scholars I talk to say courts may be reluctant to weigh in on this if this becomes, you know, from a potential scenario to a, a real life scenario of Trump trying to run for a third term in some way.
- [12:30]
Domenico Montanaro
And we should say, you know, this is not exactly a plan that's operational when it comes to Trump and his team. It just seems like something at this point that they're using to distract and get people talking, and it's certainly having that effect. By the way, Trump is not the only president to have ever talked about this. Plenty of past presidents have talked about and flirted with the idea of getting rid of the 22nd Amendment or wishing that they could. You know, Barack Obama said he'd be confident that he could win again. Ronald Reagan even toyed with the idea of, of trying to push to get rid of it. And Bill Clinton thought about non consecutive terms. But at this point, it is the 22nd amendment. We have no evidence that there's any kind of operational plan that Trump is going to actually try to do this.
- [13:10]
Deepa Shivaram
All right. We're going to leave it there for today. I'm Deepa Shivaram. I cover the White House.
- [13:14]
Hansi Le Wang
I'm Hansi Lawang. I cover voting.
- [13:15]
Domenico Montanaro
And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.
- [13:18]
Deepa Shivaram
And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics podcast.