Steve Bannon Falsely Suggests Trump Could Run For President Again In 2028

On Dec 16, 2024

Steve Bannon suggested falsely that President-elect Donald Trump could run for president again in 2028, despite the Constitution’s two-term limit on the office.

The podcaster and former White House chief strategist made the claim at the New York Young Republican Club’s annual gala on Sunday evening.

In a speech, Bannon mentioned the pro-Trump lawyer Mike Davis, saying Davis noted that the Constitution doesn’t explicitly say the two-term limit applies to presidents who serve non-consecutive terms.

“Since it doesn’t actually say ‘consecutive,’ that ― I don’t know, maybe we do it again in ’28?” Bannon told the New York crowd. “Are you guys down for that? Trump ’28! Come on, man!”

Trump is the second U.S. president in history to be elected to two non-consecutive terms, following Grover Cleveland in 1884 and 1892.

The 22nd Amendment to the Constitution ― ratified in 1951, less than a decade after Franklin Roosevelt was elected president for the fourth time in a row ― states that “no person shall be elected to the office of President more than twice.”

Last month, Trump raised the scenario of a fourth presidential bid during a meeting with House Republicans.

“I suspect I won’t be running again unless you say, ‘He’s so good we’ve got to figure something else out,’” he told them, reportedly prompting laughter.

Soon after, Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) introduced a resolution in the House to clarify that the 22nd Amendment “applies to two terms in the aggregate” to remove any possible ambiguity.

Goldman told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes that Trump’s comment should not be dismissed as a joke.

“They are trial balloons,” he added. “They are very intentionally designed to soften the response and then to normalize his unconstitutional and anti-democratic goals.”

Constitutional law specialists reject the idea that any legal loopholes exist that would allow a president to nullify the 22nd Amendment and seek more than two terms.

“There are none,” Stanford University law Professor Michael McConnell, a constitutional law expert, told Vox last month, adding that Trump’s 2024 bid for the White House will be his last.