1 week Ago By Heather Saul
“Four more years” is not an enticing rallying cry when the US stock market lies bleeding. But Donald Trump insists he is on a winning streak and is plotting a third term in office. Believe him when he said, “I’m not joking,” about intending to run again in 2028.
Convinced he is the greatest leader America has ever had, Trump sees no need to curb his ambition out of respect for the US constitution. In his view, the 22nd amendment affirming “no person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice” is for little people, rather like taxes.On a visit to Britain, I got short shrift at a meeting of Westminster parliamentarians when I suggested he would go for a third term.
“That’s impossible!” they exclaimed, forgetting this is not a word in Trump’s vocabulary. According to a YouGov survey, 56 per cent of US adults think he will “probably” or “definitely” seek to run again. if(window.
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inews__post__label__analysis{background-color: #0a0a0a;color: #ffffff;}AnalysisTrump is trying to turn back the clock - but it will cost Americans dearlyRead MoreFor confirmation of Trump’s long-term ambitions, just look at his big reveal about tariffs at the White House. The figures he presented were economic balderdash. But his speech was squarely aimed at the blue-collar voters in the battleground states that delivered for him in 2024.
Car workers were present not just as props, but as genuine believers. “My entire life I have watched plant after plant after plant in Detroit and in the Metro Detroit area close,” retired auto worker Brian Pannebecker said at the Rose Garden. Even the pro-Kamala Harris car union boss Shawn Fain was delighted about the 25 per cent foreign auto manufacturing tariffs.
The day after Trump’s address, General Motors announced they were stepping up production of trucks and adding more than 200 new jobs at their plant in Fort Wayne, Indiana, while Stellantis “paused” some of its assembly lines in Mexico and Canada and laid off 900 US workers “temporarily”.In an interview on CNN, Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary, asserted the stream of alleged revenue from tariffs would help to abolish taxes on overtime and tips. This last promise helped Trump to win the swing state of Nevada, with its scores of Latino hospitality workers in Vegas.
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addToArray({"pos": "mpu_tablet_l1"}); }These non-college-educated workers feel “seen” by Trump, at least for now. If tariffs lead to rampant inflation, shrinking pension pots and supply chain disruption, as predicted, this will severely test their view of the President’s economic competence. But Trump is trying to woo the voters he needs to stay in office.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt served four White House terms until his death towards the end of the Second World War in 1945. Trump wants to make peacetime history. This ambition is not unattainable, at least not with a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court.
Given that Trump was able to enlist constitutional scholars willing to endorse the lunatic notion that he won the 2020 election, he will certainly find legal eagles willing to argue the toss about the 22nd amendment. A Yale law professor has just suggested as a “thought experiment” in the Washington Post that Democrats could work with Republicans to change the constitution for Trump if they could simultaneously agree to scrap the electoral college for the popular vote, but this seems far-fetched. Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief of staff, says he is exploring “what the definition of term limit is”.
He is working with Mike Davis, a pro-Maga lawyer, to find a constitutional workaround. Others insist it can’t be done. But as Trump himself said recently: “People are asking me to run.
.. They do say there’s a way you can do it.
”I doubt Trump will adapt the Russian playbook by getting elected as JD Vance’s vice-president and then switching roles. This faces its own constitutional roadblock in the form of the 12th amendment, which bars those ineligible to run for president from running as vice-president, and relies on the ambitious Vance to work.Chris Cillizza, a former CNN commentator, has argued on Substack that Trump might simply stay in office and demand that the Supreme Court capitulates.
If they don’t, he might ignore the justices anyway. “Under this scenario, Trump basically says, I have the military with me and I am staying,” he suggests. if(window.
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adverts) { window.adverts.addToArray({"pos": "mpu_tablet_l2"}); }Cillizza thinks Trump’s gambit is unlikely to pay off.
“But now it seems super-clear he is going to test those boundaries. Get ready,” he advises.Whatever happens, Trump has good reason to act as though he will be around forever.
The term-limited, 78-year-old president would be a lame duck already were it not for the threat of running again. But I’m haunted by the words of Michael Cohen, his former lawyer, who predicted before the Capitol riot that Trump would “never leave office peacefully”.Sarah Baxter is director of the Marie Colvin Center for International Reporting.
