President Donald Trump on Friday again suggested he should be permitted to illegally serve a third term as president based on his baseless claim that the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden, was “stolen” from him.
Trump was just a few minutes into remarks at a campaign-style rally in Corpus Christi, Texas when he began rattling off a list of purported accomplishments from the first year of his second term in the White House.
“I’ve been here one year. Think of it, one year, little bit more than one year. Now, time flies. Time flies,” he said.
He continued: “Maybe we should — maybe we do one more term. Should we do one more? One more term?”
As the crowd of supporters who’d gathered to hear him speak cheered, he claimed he was “entitled” to an unconstitutional third term “because [Democrats] cheated like hell” during his first re-election campaign in 2020.
“We would actually be entitled to it,” he added.
Trump has previously floated the idea of running for another four years in the White House despite a clear prohibition on doing so laid out in the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which was passed by the House and Senate in 1947 and ratified by 36 of the then-48 states in 1951 in the wake of Franklin Roosevelt’s unprecedented four terms in the White House starting in 1933 and ending with his death in 1945, just months into his fourth term.
But Trump has also acknowledged the impossibility of serving a third four years in the White House. During a Christmas reception in December, he told attendees he had “a little more than three years left” before he will have to give up power. He also told reporters aboard Air Force One that he would not want to entertain a hypothetical run for vice president in 2028 (which would also be prohibited because the Constitution prohibits anyone from serving as vice president if they cannot be president) because it would be “too cute.”
The president, who spoke outdoors at the Port of Corpus Christi — a rarity since he survived a July 2024 assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania — also took time out of what was supposed to be a speech about his energy policy to rant about a back-bench Democratic congresswoman from Minnesota, Ilhan Omar, for having heckled him at his State of the Union speech this past week.
He complained that Democrats had “just sat there” during his speech — the typical reaction of the opposition party — rather than stand for partisan applause lines before singling out Omar for ridicule.
“How about Omar? Screaming, screaming, screaming, like a lunatic. You looked at her bulging eyes, she’s crazy,” he said.
The Minneapolis congresswoman spent more than 30 seconds shouting to interrupt the president on Tuesday after he began boasting of his immigration crackdown in her home state.
The uproar began after Trump urged those who believe “the first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens” to stand up.
“Isn’t that a shame? You should be ashamed of yourself, not standing up,” the president said looking towards Democratic lawmakers.
Omar and Michigan congresswoman Rashida Tlaib — members of the “Squad,” an informal group of progressive House Democrats — then started yelling at the president from their seats.
“You have killed Americans!” Omar could be heard shouting repeatedly, apparently referencing the two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, who were killed by federal immigration agents in Minnesota.
“You should be ashamed,” Omar, who has frequently been the target of Trump’s ire, added.
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Source: independent.co.uk