Could Trump Serve a Third Term by Running as a Vice President?

Donald Trump has repeatedly made comments indicating he doesn’t think a two-term limit for a president is absolute. This legal argument is the latest long-shot idea for how to keep him in office.

Donald Trump

Alex Brandon/AP

There’s a new long-shot proposal that is getting floated as a possibility for how President Donald Trump could serve a third term.

The idea is that Trump would run on the Republican ticket as vice president in 2028, and if it won, the elected president would immediately resign so Trump could carry on into a third term. It’s a plan that has gotten more attention after a group called the Third Term Project, whose goal is to get Trump elected to a third term, popped up at the Conservative Political Action Conference last week.

Republicans and legal experts are largely scoffing at the idea and saying it’s blatantly unconstitutional because of the 22nd Amendment, which says that a president cannot be elected to office more than twice. But some of them said they can imagine a scenario in which Trump’s most ardent supporters try to make the case anyway because technically, he wouldn’t be “elected” as president.