Former President Donald Trump once again raised the possibility of serving not just a second, but a third term, in the White House while speaking at the National Rifle Association's annual meeting. Saturday.
"You know, FDR 16 years — almost 16 years — he was four terms. I don't know, are we going to be considered three-term? Or two-term?" Trump told the audience of gun rights supporters gathered Saturday in Dallas, Texas.
This is not the first time Trump has suggested flouting the 22nd Amendment and taking office for eight more years. In 2020, he told supporters at a Wisconsin rally that he planned to remain president for nearly a decade after his first term.
"We are going to win four more years," he said. "And then after that, we'll go for another four years because they spied on my campaign. We should get a redo of four years."
The 22nd Amendment was ratified in 1951, nine years after Franklin D. Roosevelt died just months into his fourth term. Presidents from both parties have suggested modifying or eliminating the amendment, but there has never been a serious attempt to repeal it.
Trump has also contradicted himself, saying recently that he has no real plans to challenge the amendment or serve two more terms. If he served two more terms, he would be 86 at the end of a third term.
"I wouldn't be in favor of it at all. I intend to serve four years and do a great job," Trump told Time magazine in an interview published last month.
It's possible Trump was referring in his NRA speech to the current time as his "second term," which he baselessly claims he won — though Joe Biden is serving it — which would technically, by Trump's account, make a victory in 2024 a "third term."
In any case, it's Biden's years in office that NRA members should be worried about, Trump warned the audience Saturday, because he and his supporters are "coming for your guns."
