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There’s a disturbing habit some reporters have whenever they talk to Donald Trump. They’ll effectively ask him, “Hey, do you plan to break the law or ignore the Constitution?” — as if the rule of law merely depends on his whims.
This happened Monday when Trump was asked about seeking a third term, which the Constitution clearly forbids.
“I would love to do it,” he told reporters on board Air Force One. “I have my best numbers ever.”
This line of questioning only further enables Trump’s ongoing delusions — that he can somehow serve another term and that he’s actually popular. Neither is true.
Many Democrats and pundits have argued that Trump’s talk of a third term is just a “distraction,” and the press usually sanewashes his contempt for democracy with unfounded suggestions that he’s just “joking.”
Meanwhile, the White House gift shop literally sells “Trump 2028” merch, which the president has shown to European and Democratic leaders. That seems like quite an investment for a simple trolling effort. Besides, despite MAGA gaslighting to the contrary, Trump didn’t leave office willingly the first time, and gutting the East Wing to construct a grotesque monument to his vanity doesn’t exactly seem like short-term-stay behavior.
Of course, it suits Trump’s purposes when the debate is framed as whether he could run for a third term instead of whether he’s physically capable of being in office until he’s pushing 90 — not to mention the question of whether an aging and historically unpopular incumbent could even win a free and fair election, provided we still have those.
Trump, who is now 79, is the oldest person ever elected president. His physical and mental decline is undeniable.
Indeed, there was a bizarre irony in Trump teasing an illegal third term during the same gaggle where he boasted about acing his latest dementia test and receiving a “perfect” MRI during the mysterious trip he made to Walter Reed recently for his second “annual physical” of the year.
Trump’s health is far more of an immediate issue than Joe Biden’s was during his first year in office. The White House revealed in July that Trump has chronic venous insufficiency (CVI), a condition that occurs when the leg veins become damaged and struggle to send blood back up to the heart. Trump is often seen with visibly swollen ankles and bruising on his hands, which White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt hilariously suggested was the result of “frequent handshaking and the use of aspirin” (she was serious).
The president went missing for six full days at the end of this summer, sparking rumors that he was seriously ill. During his public appearances, he often struggles to stay engaged or even awake. This has been a persistent pattern, but the most recent instance occurred during the White House roundtable he hosted earlier this month about the imaginary “antifa” threat.
Forgetting about the Constitution — a potential title for any book about this administration — Trump even considering serving until he’s 86 is absurd when voters have stated resoundingly that they don’t want a president that old. The media never stopped pointing this out during Biden’s presidency.
Trump’s Cabinet and advisers might claim their mad king is in the peak of health during their North Korean-style flattery sessions, but the rest of the nation isn’t drinking that Kool-Aid. And while Trump repeatedly insists he’s transformed the country into an anti-woke utopia and reduced prices by mathematically impossible percentages, actual voters aren’t buying it.
Don’t forget: Trump is very unpopular
What’s astonishing about the media’s “third term” coverage is how it doesn’t clearly state the obvious: Voters are openly rejecting Trump, as seen in poll after poll.
The president’s approval rating in The Economist’s tracker has fallen to -18, which is lower than any point in his first term. (He has a dismal 39 percent approval and 57 percent disapproval.) Trump’s overall approval is a net negative, not just in states Kamala Harris won in 2024, but in all seven swing states that he carried plus Texas.
According to CNN’s Harry Enten, Trump’s approval is lower than any president at this point in their presidency or second term on record. He’s even cratered in areas of perceived strength: The new YouGov poll has him underwater by 10 points on immigration and 31 points on inflation and prices. Republicans who want to survive the midterms should actively run and hide from Trump, not join a chorus of “four more (illegal) years!”
It’s been argued that Trump’s coyness about an unconstitutional third term has put the 2028 GOP race in a holding pattern. Likely contenders JD Vance, Marco Rubio, Tom Cotton, Josh Hawley, or even Kristi Noem must suppress their own ambitions at risk of offending Trump and earning his permanent wrath, like Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley.
But this argument treats Trump as if he’s Bill Clinton or Barack Obama, both of whom were actually popular in their second terms. Clinton’s approval rating was more than 60 percent on Election Day 2000. Obama’s approval was in the mid to high 50s in 2016. It’s possible both presidents could have won a third term. That’s hardly true of Trump, whose numbers are in free fall.
During the aforementioned Air Force One gaggle, a reporter asked Trump about the theory he could try to serve a third term by pulling a Putin and running as vice president. This legally dubious scheme sounds more like a pitch for a wacky buddy comedy than a serious strategy because in reality, a vice presidential candidate must meet all the qualifications for president.
Trump claimed he’d be “allowed to do that” but added he’d “rule that out because it’s too cute.”
Although Steve Bannon and Sen. Tommy Tuberville both claim Trump could find a way around the presidential term limit, House Speaker Mike Johnson disclosed Tuesday he’d spoken to Trump and explained to him that the 22nd Amendment exists.
“It’s been a great run,” Johnson said. “But I think the president knows, and he and I have talked about, the constrictions of the Constitution, as much as so many of the American people lament that.”
Johnson is a shameless liar, and here he performs some impressive rhetorical sleight of hand, acting as if fealty to the Constitution is all that’s keeping a 79-year-old president with underwater approval in almost every category from another term in the White House.
“It’s too bad”
Why are people suddenly talking about Trump’s third term again? The Economist recently ran a headline-grabbing interview with Bannon where he threatened that Trump’s “going to get a third term … Trump is going to be president in ‘28. People ought to just get accommodated with that.”
Bannon claimed there is a “plan” to pull this off, which would be unveiled at “the appropriate time.” A costly government shutdown that voters mostly blame on the president and his party is probably not the best time to announce plans for another term, even if they were legal. This might explain why Johnson somewhat surprisingly shot the idea down.
After all, Trump seemed fully on board with running again during the Air Force One press gaggle the day before. Yet he seemingly backed off after his conversation with Johnson. Now, Trump says, “If you read [the Constitution], it’s pretty clear. I’m not allowed to run. It’s too bad.”
Should we believe that Johnson’s impromptu Constitution For Dummies tutorial really inspired such a turnaround? Or is it possible that the speaker convinced Trump to tamp down the third term talk until MAGA’s political situation improves?
An especially gullible media might treat this as a victory, as if Trump finally became president the day he seemed to admit that he can’t stay in office forever. Maybe he has abandoned the idea for now, but that’s not to say he won’t keep “trolling” Americans with his open desire to light the Constitution on fire.
The bottom line is that even if Trump could run for a third term, he’d likely lose as an incumbent for a second time. Considering how that worked out in January 2021, we’ll take any good news we can get.
That’s it for this edition
No special Saturday edition this weekend, but I’ll be back tonight with a new episode of Nir & Rupar (we’ll be going live on the Substack app at 2pm eastern this afternoon). If you appreciate today’s PN, please do your part to keep us free by signing up for a paid subscription.
Thanks for reading, and for your support.
This piece nails the decay, but it’s even worse than it looks.
Reporters keep asking Trump if he plans to break the law, as if the answer matters. As if the rule of law is still a shared norm, not a dare. That kind of questioning isn’t journalism. It’s performance. And it plays right into the hands of populist demagoguery.
Trump doesn’t need to convince anyone. He just needs to keep saying it until the system shrugs.
“I would love to do it,” he says; and the press treats it like a joke, not a warning.
They sanewash his contempt for democracy, then act surprised when the guardrails collapse.
This isn’t distraction. It’s rehearsal.
Norms aren’t bending. They’ve evaporated.
And when 2028 rolls around, the same voices will normalize it…then rationalize it after it happens.
America was built on the idea that institutions could check ambition. But institutions don’t work when behavior is misunderstood.
Populist demagogues don’t break the system in one blow. They wear it down.
And the press, still clinging to old scripts, is helping them do it.
I will not be surprised when the unthinkable happens—again, again and yet again…and neither should you.
Human behavior isn’t just my subject, it’s my oxygen. I write it, live it, breathe it.
Thank you for calling it what it is. This isn’t politics. It’s erosion.
—Johan
For about five years now Jeff Tiedrich has had a standing offer to any reporter who asks Trump "WTF is the matter with you?" (my paraphrase). My question is "WTF has this prize gone unaccepted for so long?" The so-called Fourth Estate might be in worse shape than the other three.