Trump says supporters could ‘demand’ he not leave office after two terms
In tweets on Sunday morning, President Donald Trump suggested supporters might not want him to leave office after two terms.
“The good news is that at the end of 6 years, after America has been made GREAT again and I leave the beautiful White House (do you think the people would demand that I stay longer? KEEP AMERICA GREAT),” Trump wrote.
The president had also been criticizing the Washington Post and the New York Times, calling them “both a disgrace.”
Trump has talked about the issue before. In March last year, according to a recording obtained by CNN, he told a closed-door fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago that “maybe we’ll have to give that a shot some day,” in reference to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s abolishment of term limits. It was unclear if the comments were made in jest.
The 22nd Amendment to the Constitution explicitly states that “no person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.”
The only American president to serve more than two terms was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who died during his fourth term in office.
Some progressive commentators have speculated about the possibility of Trump not leaving office if he loses the election narrowly. Last week, Bill Maher said on CNN that if Trump loses, “he won’t go.”
To which conservative commentator Jonah Goldberg responded, “Refusing to leave would make him the crazy guy the Marines escort out of the building.”