Trump 3 Timer

As predicted, Donald Trump has been a busy boy ....

The Donald's Third Term Came With A Price

.... and consequently has kept bloggers and the news media busy as well.

Now, the question of tariffs and trading reciprocity I'll leave until it all settles down and either the USA is better off, as the Donald says will happen, or the USA is in recession, because it increasingly looks like the options will be just one or the other, as a trade war bites.

I'll not even mention the shameful threats to seize Greenland by armed force, if necessary .... I personally don't think that either President Trump or his American pit-bull Vance, would actually send in the marines on a defenceless island of 56,000 souls .... but I might be wrong, we'll see in due course.

No today's missive is on the rumours fuelling the conspirasphere that President Trump will attempt to run for a third term, despite the constitution barring such a bid. This was all prompted by a series of half hints and comments by Mr Trump. For example on the 30th of March 2025, when he was asked about the possibility he said: "A lot of people want me to do it. But, I mean, I basically tell them we have a long way to go, you know, it's very early in the administration. I'm focused on the current." He added that there are "methods which you could do it".

The three most popular theories are that:

1. He'll somehow alter the constitution with his current majorities in both houses, to allow him to run and run.
2. He'll get a stalking horse (JD Vance?) to run as President and himself as VP, and then the stalking horse would resign after being sworn in, and Trump would assume the Presidency without having technically broken the constitution. 
3. He'll somehow engineer an incident that allows him to assume 'emergency' powers, and suspend the constitution/elections.
   

However they all have serious road blocks that prevent them being real threats: 

So what limits a president to two terms? Following the death of Franklin Roosevelt, who had served 4 terms, Congress passed the 22nd amendment that limited future presidents to two four year terms (debate about limiting the number of terms had been swirling around since the first congress, and Roosevelt's unprecedented electoral successes decided the matter). The amendment states that "no person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice" .... however it doesn't stop a third term if not elected to the role, and that's what's driving feverish speculation on the 2nd possibility on the list above.

So, could President Trump amend the constitution? Well it could be done, but its a long (e.g. The 22nd amendment took 4 years to pass), lengthy, and uncertain process, that requires two-thirds of both the House and Senate to propose an amendment, which would then require three-fourths of the states to approve. So not very likely to succeed given the divisive state of US politics. Its impossible to believe that the Democrats in both the House and Senate would even let it get off the ground, and the Republicans don't have the numbers in either, let alone both.

What about the stalking horse President? Well firstly how would you trust the new President to step aside? What politician worth his salt would just 'step aside' for his former boss? Hmm a selfless man perhaps, J.D Vance? So assuming this selfless soul did step down, would that allow the Donald to resume his seat in the White House? Well actually, No!! All those planners and schemers forget the 12th Amendment of 1804 which says "no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of president shall be eligible to that of vice-president of the United States."  Mr Trump will be constitutionally ineligible to be President in 2028, and therefore can't be the VP either .... so now he would have to be 3rd in line of succession (which is the speaker of the House of Representatives), and have two people step down to achieve his aim .... a rather unlikely set of scenarios.

So we are left with the suspension of the constitution .... now as far as I can determine, the US President has no power to suspend the constitution, and would be impeached by Congress (unless they chose not to do so for some reason). The US Constitution does not provide for the dissolution of Congress by a President, a power that is reserved by the constitution as solely for the legislative branch. He does as President have emergency powers, but constitutionally these grant no extra powers, therefore he couldn't act without congress's will .... and they can't extend his stay in office.

So despite the speculation and wishes of the Trumpites in the USA such as podcaster Steve Bannon and House of Representative Andy Ogles, who has introduced a bill to allow a President to serve three terms provided that they are not consecutive (Hmm .... I wonder who that fits then?) .... a bill that has less chance of surviving than a snowflake in hell .... and that's about as much chance as Donald Trump has of getting a third term.