Donald Trump seems to think he can skirt the constitutional prohibition on being able to run for a third term as president by running instead for vice president.
One problem there:
“(N)o person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.”
That’s text from the 12th Amendment.
If you’re a fan of the musical Hamilton, you know that this is the amendment that sprang from the contested presidential election of 1800, when Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, running on the Democratic-Republican ticket, each got 73 electoral votes for president, because the Founders obviously hadn’t thought some things through.
The Founders hadn’t envisioned political parties, so their thought was, the White guy who gets the most votes is president, the guy in second, he’s vice president.
The thrust of the 12th Amendment is setting out the process for separate votes for president and vice president.
The 22nd Amendment, adopted in 1951, was a response to FDR running for and winning four terms as president.
“No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of President more than once.”
MAGA-phone Steve Bannon keeps bringing up a possible third term for Trump, which might get him some cheap hits on his podcasts and YouTube videos, but isn’t reality.
Says a lot about the state of our news media that we have credentialed reporters on Air Force One asking Trump dumb questions about this “possibility.”
One asked Trump on Sunday if he’d be “willing to challenge at the court” to be able to run for a third term.
“I would be allowed to do that. I wouldn’t do that. I think it’s too cute.”
Fact check: no, he would not “be allowed to do that.”
And if you’re reading this and thinking to yourself, what’s stopping him from breaking other societal norms, well, what would stop him in 2028 would be states with Democratic governors and state legislatures simply not putting his name on their state ballots.
If the response from Republicans were to involve not putting the name of the Democratic nominee on the ballots of states that they control, that would simply initiate the second coming of the Civil War.
Before you lose too much sleep over that happening, keep in mind, Trump is out there bragging about his “perfect MRI,” like everybody just gets an MRI as part of their second “annual” physical.
There is no such thing as a “perfect MRI,” just like there’s no “acing” the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, which Trump seems to think is an IQ test.
They don’t ask people taking an IQ test what day today is and if they can draw a clock.
That’s not an IQ test; it’s a test to see if grandpa has dementia.
Maybe our guy bragging about being able to draw a clock and remembering what day it is could be a sign that, you know.
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Chris Graham
