President Donald Trump said he wouldn’t attempt to run for a third term as someone else’s vice presidential nominee before ascending to the White House, a legally dubious method that he called on Monday “too cute” to attempt. But as President? He wasn’t as quick to shoot that one down.
Trump told reporters as he flew to Tokyo from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, that he would “be allowed” to run as vice president for a third term, but he thought such a method — which would require an elected presidential candidate to step down to cede the presidency to Trump — would be beneath him.
“I wouldn’t do that,” he told reporters. “I think it’s too cute. Yeah, I would rule that out because it’s too cute. I think the people wouldn’t like that … It’s not – it wouldn’t be right.”
Trump has publicly flirted with the prospect of a third term, though he’s tried to keep the proposition at arm’s length. He has repeatedly said there were legal methods of securing one, despite the Constitution’s 22nd Amendment’s prohibition on a person serving more than two terms as president, and he has sold “Trump 2028” hats even as he said a third term was “not something that I’m looking to do.”
On Monday, Trump struck a similar tone. He told reporters he “would love to do it,” citing poll numbers he claimed were his “best numbers ever.” But he also said potential candidates such as Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio were part of “a great group of people” who could run to succeed him.
“I think if they ever formed a group, it’d be unstoppable,” he said. “I really do. I believe that.”
But when a reporter asked Trump if he was not ruling a third term out, he was characteristically vague.
“Am I not ruling it out?” he said. “I mean, you’ll have to tell me.”
Trump’s comments came after former White House chief strategist and convicted fraudster Steve Bannon told The Economist there “is a plan” for Trump to get a third term.
“Trump is going to be president in ’28, and people ought to just get accommodated with that,” he said.
