President Donald Trump has teased running for a third term, which is currently prohibited by the Constitution, but most of his actions suggest he knows his time is limited.
Trump has moved quickly on almost every front since returning to the White House, doing as much as possible through executive orders and requesting rapid congressional action wherever possible.
These are the actions of a president who knows he can’t spread his executive actions out over a longer period of time, especially given the inevitable legal challenges, and is unsure whether his congressional majorities will survive this term, much less a hypothetical extra one.
When challenged on high federal spending in his first term, some Republicans say Trump told them he would pursue cuts once he was reelected. That spending and the size of the federal government have been a bigger part of Trump’s focus this time around suggests he no longer has his eyes on the next election.
It is debatable how much of a fiscal impact the Department of Government Efficiency will actually have, but Trump has let Elon Musk and his green-eyeshade sidekicks take an outsize role in his current term. Trump has mostly defended Musk and DOGE, though he did urge them to use a “scalpel” rather than a “hatchet” and said Cabinet officers would make the final personnel decisions for their own departments.
Trump has also shown a willingness to tolerate a level of economic risk that he avoided for most of his first term, when he was planning on running for reelection. He is proceeding with a major tariffs announcement on Wednesday, even though the stock market has reacted negatively to his past pronouncements on the subject.
During his first term, Trump bragged about the stock market’s performance. He also presided over low unemployment and much lower inflation. While inflation peaked in 2022 under then-President Joe Biden, the average and annual inflation rates during Trump’s final year in office were significantly lower than last year’s.
The one exception to Trump’s insistence on hyping rosy economic data came in 2020, when during the pandemic he initially heeded advisers who supported lockdowns to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Even then, within weeks, Trump began to chafe at the end to his economic boom, though not to the same extent as some Republican governors. The economic contraction that resulted primarily from the business closures cost Trump a second term and helped make lockdown skeptic Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) a plausible presidential primary challenger four years later.
“There is a period of transition because what we’re doing is very big,” Trump has said of his trade agenda, acknowledging that his tariffs might cause “temporary” pain. Every lesson from his first term has to tell him temporary economic pain can produce more enduring political setbacks.
Yes, Trump undoubtedly believes there will be an economic recovery as tariffed countries buckle under pressure, possibly coming soon enough to save Republican congressional majorities, much less before 2028. But is he banking on it?
“No. 1, the president is not running for reelection — so where this may have been a political concern in his first term, it’s not a political concern now. … And No. 2, we’re probably gonna lose the House in the midterms,” Politico quoted someone close to Trump as saying.
Former Trump adviser Paul Manafort, who has remained close to the president, has also described this as Trump’s “legacy term.”
Another factor is that Vice President JD Vance is being showcased and allowed to speak freely in a way that former Vice President Mike Pence never was, even if Trump was reluctant to anoint him as a successor immediately after the election.
There was also an air of finality to Trump’s closing campaign rallies last year. “This has been an incredible journey. It’s very sad in a way. This is the last one,” he said in Grand Rapids, Michigan, just hours before the polls opened for the 2024 presidential election.
Trump has nevertheless been willing never to say never. Many senior Republicans believe it is primarily an act of trolling the media and his political opponents, even if Trump says he is not joking. He is also likely trying to delay lame-duck status for as long as possible while offering encouragement to supporters who do want him to run again.
It is difficult to see how a constitutional amendment repealing the 22nd Amendment, which limits presidents to two terms, or revising the 12th Amendment, which states vice presidential candidates must be eligible for the presidency, could be ratified in time for the 2028 election.
A proposal by Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) would have difficulty attracting the necessary bipartisan support because changing it to a two-consecutive-term limit would apply only to Trump and not make former President Barack Obama eligible to run again. That would seem to be a prerequisite for getting Democrats on board.
TRUMP ‘WOULD LOVE’ FACING OBAMA IN THIRD-TERM SHOWDOWN
Trump’s third-term talk nevertheless plays to his opponents’ characterization of him as someone who flouts constitutional strictures and political norms. It also brings back memories of the worst moments of his first term, when he sought loopholes to get around clearly settled constitutional questions.
For now, however, it is just talk.