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Topics: US News, Politics, Donald Trump
Poppy Bilderbeck
Topics: US News, Politics, Donald Trump
Former senior advisor to President Donald Trump Steve Bannon has claimed the Republicans have 'five or six alternatives' to ensure Trump serves a third term in the Oval Office.
Not long after being sworn in as the 47th president of the US, Donald Trump joked about a third term, despite it actually being banned by the US constitution.
US Representative Andy Ogles later suggested making a change to the 22nd Amendment that would allow Trump to run for a third term, arguing that way the country could 'sustain the bold leadership' it 'so desperately needs'.
However, former White House strategist and senior advisor to Trump in 2017, Steve Bannon - who was accused of doing a 'Nazi salute' just weeks after Elon Musk was accused of the same thing - said they might not even necessarily need to 'amend the constitution' so Trump can make it a hat trick at the White House.
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Bannon - the founder of War Room on Real America’s Voice News - told MSNBC: "I haven't said we're going to amend the constitution, we're working on five or six alternatives that President Trump could run again and be president and quite frankly, I feel that four or five of them are going to work.
"And I continue to say, as I told Bill Maher on the afternoon of January 20th, 2029, Donald Trump is going to be president for a third term."
Bannon added the Republican party (a.k.a. GOP) would reveal its plans nearer the time to the midterm elections in 2026.
But are there really any loopholes in the Constitution?
Well, the National Constitution Center details the 22nd Amendment on the two-term limit, noting under Section 1 'no person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice' and 'no person who has held the office of president, or acted as president, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected president shall be elected to the office of the president more than once'.
It continues: "But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of president when this Article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of president, or acting as president, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of president or acting as president during the remainder of such term."
Section two of the amendment notes the article shall be 'inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress'.
It notes while Trump could 'possibly' serve 'in a temporary role under some unusual scenarios', ultimately the amendment 'directly restricts' him being able to run again.
Last month Trump suggested a 'loophole' could see him get around the constitution, so I guess we'll have to wait and see what the GOP suggests in 2026...