Third term for Trump? How the US president could sidestep the constitutional bar to remain in power

President Donald Trump told an NBC interviewer on March 30, 2025, that he was “not joking” about a third term as president, despite such a term being barred by the Constitution.

“There are methods which you could do it,” he said in the interview.

For months, Trump has been hinting – in joking tones – that he’s interested in finding a way to continue in the White House past the legal limit of two terms. But the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution is clear that Trump can’t be elected again. The text of the amendment states: “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.”

That amendment was passed in response to Franklin Roosevelt’s four elections to the presidency. Since George Washington had stepped down at the end of his second term, no president had sought a third term, much less a fourth. The amendment was clearly meant to prevent presidents from serving more than two terms in office.

Because Trump has been elected president twice already, the plain...

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