‘One did not count’: Trump fans rally behind myriad justifications for unconstitutional third term
After President Donald Trump floated the idea of running for a third term in 2028, some conservatives are parroting falsehoods about election fraud in 2020 or claiming his first term didn’t count to argue why he should get another, illegal, shot at the Oval Office.
The discussion stems from an interview with NBC News on Sunday morning, during which Trump said he was “not joking” about seeking a third term.
“A lot of people want me to do it,” Trump said of running for re-election. “There are methods which you could do it.”
The 22nd Amendment explicitly prohibits anyone from being elected president three times, even if the candidate serves non-consecutive terms. But some right-wingers think Trump should get an exception.
“He was impeached, so one did not count,” wrote one Truth Social user in response to Trump’s interview. “He won another but was not allowed to serve,” they added, presumably alluding to misinformation about election fraud in 2020.
“His first term was criminally sabotaged so severely that it shouldn't even count!” said another Truth Social user. “He was literally a deep state crime victim the whole time.”
MAGA social media influencer Benny Johnson made a similar argument on his Monday morning livestream, claiming Trump was unable to govern during his first term due to the investigations into Russian collusion, before having “the election rigged against him” in 2020.
“If there’s ever a man, I would argue, who deserves to have another term, it would be Donald Trump,” Johnson concluded.
However, other parts of the online right were less enthused about Trump’s disregard for the 22nd Amendment.
“No thank you, the 22nd Amendment exists for a reason,” said one commenter on the r/Conservative Reddit channel, to the tune of more than 5,000 upvotes. “You're done after two, no matter what you accomplish or who you are.”
“Jokes or not, this is stuff is how you lose midterms,” another Redditor wrote, responding to the popular conservative argument that Trump is merely trolling liberals.
Beyond his own words, there are some indications Trump and his supporters aren’t just joking.
In January, three days after Trump’s inauguration, Rep. Andrew Ogles (R-Tenn.) proposed a constitutional amendment that would allow presidents to run for three non-consecutive terms.
And one-time Trump advisor Steve Bannon has been pushing the third-term idea for weeks.
Meanwhile, a self-styled “think-tank” called the Third Term Project is making its case for altering the 22nd Amendment at mainstream conservative events like the Conservative Political Action Conference and the New Jersey GOP Convention.
The project’s leader, Shane Trejo, formerly hosted a far-right podcast called “Blood, Soil, and Liberty,” which the Anti-Defamation League described as pro-Nazi.
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