The twenty second Modification to the U.S. Structure says, “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 the President more than once.”
Appears fairly clear-cut, proper?
However learn rigorously—”no particular person shall be elected” to the workplace. And therein lies the keys to Donald Trump’s fantasies of a 3rd time period, saying to NBC’s Kristen Welker on Sunday, “There are methods which you could do it.”
So how precisely would Trump grow to be president with out being elected president?
A method, Trump stated, could be to swap tickets with Vice President JD Vance. He would run on a ticket with Vance and get elected vice chairman. Then, Vance would hand over the workplace out of the goodness of his coronary heart and resign, or perhaps Trump would simply shiv him, who is aware of. Trump wouldn’t care both means. Regardless, he would then grow to be president.
Besides that received’t work.
The twelfth Modification says, “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.”
Nicely, that appears fairly clear-cut, doesn’t it? Sadly, that’s not the one avenue for Trump to attempt to sneak in.
The present order of presidential succession is:
Vice President
Speaker of the Home
President Professional Tempore of the Senate
Secretary of State
We’ve already famous that the primary is clearly off the desk. Nonetheless, the remainder will not be.
The Structure doesn’t truly set necessities for speaker of the Home, saying solely, “The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.”
Whereas each speaker has been a member of the Home, it’s clear that there’s nothing requiring that to be the case. Therefore, a Republican Home might merely elect Trump as speaker, after which elevate him after each the president and the vice chairman resigned to pave his return to energy.
A plain textual content studying of the Structure makes this totally potential, although the courts must wrestle with the intent of each the twelfth and the twenty second Amendments—which collectively clarify that basically, two presidential phrases is sufficient. However on this case, Trump wouldn’t be elected to the presidency, he could be elevated to the job.
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The extra sensible obstacle to this state of affairs is that two folks would now must give up their possibilities to be president of the USA so fucking Trump might proceed trashing the nation and the world. Folks don’t need that, not even Republicans, and that’s earlier than Trump’s insurance policies actually do a quantity on our economic system.
To not point out, these two folks will each have gone by way of a grueling nationwide marketing campaign, received the votes of tens of hundreds of thousands, and for what? To stop and provides all of it up proper after taking the oath to workplace?
Shifting down the record, president professional tempore of the Senate is meant to preside over the Senate within the absence of the vice chairman (therefore the Latin “for the time being”), which the Structure pretends is the president of the Senate (and in observe, simply means a tie-breaking vote if essential).
Just like the Home speaker, the Structure doesn’t present any {qualifications} for the position, so by custom, the bulk celebration picks its oldest member for the largely ceremonial place. It’s at present Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley.
Presumably a Republican Senate might decide Trump as president professional tempore. However that will require the Home to be in Republican fingers as nicely, in any other case a Democratic speaker would ascend to the highest. At that time, assuming the entire Republican Occasion is singing from the identical choir guide, it might simply be simpler for the Home to make him speaker.
And eventually, there’s that secretary of state job. Think about Trump as secretary of state? Expensive god. In any case, it might be a short-term charade. However now you’re speaking about 4 folks giving up their likelihood to be president—the elected president, the elected vice chairman, the speaker of the Home, and the president professional tempore of the Senate. Trump could also be deluded sufficient to suppose that many individuals would clear the trail for him, however that will fly within the face of human nature. A not-president Trump would have zero leverage over an precise president.
And naturally, that’s nonetheless assuming that the hassle would survive authorized challenges primarily based on the twenty second Modification. In any case, it’s clear what the framers of that modification supposed—to forestall one other Franklin D. Roosevelt from occurring. That’s, to forestall one other president from entrenching themselves within the Oval Workplace.
However it does say quite a bit about Trump that slightly than deal with the job at hand, he’s obsessing over a 3rd time period. He desires energy for the sake of energy itself, jealous of despots like Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. After all, he’s going to bask in these types of fantasies.
