MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
President Trump keeps flirting with the idea of serving a third term in office. Here he is last night on Air Force One.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Based on what I read, I guess I'm not allowed to run. So we'll see what happens.
MARTIN: The 22nd Amendment to the Constitution clearly states, no person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice. So why is Trump talking about it again? NPR senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith digs in.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: This week's outbreak of Trump 2028 mania began when Trump ally and MAGA mastermind Steve Bannon sat down for an interview with The Economist.
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STEVE BANNON: Well, he's going to get a third term. So Trump '28. Trump is going to be president in '28, and people just ought to get accommodated with that.
KEITH: Asked about the 22nd Amendment, he said there are many different alternatives, but he didn't detail them. Bannon said nearly the same thing back in April in an interview with MORNING EDITION host Steve Inskeep.
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BANNON: We're working on some things that are well withinside the Constitution, and it'll be very - I think people will agree that'll be...
STEVE INSKEEP: Give me an example.
BANNON: ...Very smart workarounds.
INSKEEP: Give me an example of one thing.
BANNON: I don't want to whet your appetite. Let's get through...
INSKEEP: (Laughter).
BANNON: ...Let's get through the hundred days.
INSKEEP: You've already whetted my appetite.
BANNON: Let's get through - no, because it's exploding liberals' heads, progressive heads that Trump's going to be with them forever.
KEITH: Now, it would be easy to chalk this up as Bannon stirring the pot, but President Trump himself has kept it going. Here he was on Air Force One, Monday morning.
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TRUMP: I would love to do it. I have my best numbers ever. It's very terrible. I have my best numbers. If you read it...
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: You're not ruling out a third term?
TRUMP: ...If you read it - am I not ruling it out? You'll have to tell me. All I can tell you is...
KEITH: He did bat down the idea of running for vice president and then assuming the presidency. But just like Bannon, Trump leaves the possibility of a third term dangling out there. Here he was back in March, again, on Air Force One.
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TRUMP: I'm just telling you, I've had more people say, please run again. I said, we have a long way to go before we even think about that.
KEITH: I followed up, asking, are you planning to leave office on January 20, 2029, or are you saying you might not? He looked directly at me and then looked over my head.
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TRUMP: Go ahead. Any other questions?
KEITH: The president stocks red Trump 2028 hats on a bookcase of merch just outside the Oval Office. Last month, when Democratic leaders visited to talk about averting the government shutdown, the hats showed up on the president's desk, as House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told CNN.
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HAKEEM JEFFRIES: It was the strangest thing ever. And I just looked at the hat, looked at JD Vance, who was seated to my left, and said, don't you got a problem with this? And he said, no comment.
KEITH: Yesterday, House Speaker Mike Johnson said he didn't see a path to a third Trump term.
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MIKE JOHNSON: 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 - the Trump 2028 cap is one of the most popular that's ever been produced, and he has a good time with that.
KEITH: So is it all just a troll? Brendan Nyhan is a professor of government at Dartmouth College.
BRENDAN NYHAN: We're probably going to hear about this for the next three years because he enjoys it. It gets the kind of reaction he wants, and it serves his political purpose.
KEITH: Trump is both making liberals' heads explode, as Bannon put it, and trying to delay becoming a lame duck president - less relevant than those competing to replace him. Again, Nyhan.
NYHAN: It's profoundly destabilizing to call into question something as blatant as the 22nd Amendment, which explicitly rules out what Trump is, quote, "joking" about. And we've seen again and again him joking about things that he means to encourage or at least, you know, seem to give tacit approval to.
KEITH: In his second term, Trump has massively expanded his executive power as Republicans in Congress either cheer or shrug. But Rick Hasen, an election law expert at UCLA, says, there's no nuance in the 22nd Amendment.
RICK HASEN: Is it possible that he could try to suspend elections, suspend the Constitution, run for a third term? All of these things are possible, but that means we're no longer the American democracy that we've had, and then the country's in real trouble. But if you're asking about a legal path to a third term, it's just not there.
KEITH: Plus, he asks, would President Trump really want to run against former President Barack Obama?
Tamara Keith, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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