President Donald Trump said he would ‘love’ to run against former President Barack Obama in a hypothetical third-term run for the presidency that he has floated in recent days.
‘I know it’s hypothetical right now, but if you were allowed for some reason to run for a third term, is there a thought that the Democrats could try to run Barack Obama against you?’ Fox News’ Peter Doocy asked Trump on Monday evening from the Oval Office.
‘I’d love that,’ Trump responded. ‘I’d love that …. That would be a good one. I’d like that. And no, people are asking me to run, and there’s a whole story about running for a third term. I don’t know, I never looked into it. They do say there’s a way you can do it, but I don’t know about that.’
Trump said that he has not looked into the potential legal avenues of running for a third presidency, saying he has nearly four years left of his term and is focused on doing a ‘fantastic job.’
The 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, which was ratified in 1951, prevents presidents from serving more than two terms. The amendment was ratified after President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected as president for four terms.
Roosevelt died during his fourth term and Vice President Harry Truman assumed the presidency. FDR is the only president in the nation’s history who has been elected and served more than two terms, which was largely due to the political and economic climate at home and abroad, with his presidency unfolding amid the Great Depression and the beginning of World War II.
Trump teased he might run for a third term in an interview with NBC News on Sunday, saying he is ‘not joking’ about making another run for the Oval Office and enjoys working.
‘There are methods which you could do it,’ Trump said when asked about how he could go about running for a third term. NBC News floated a possible method during the interview where Vice President JD Vance could run for the presidency, win and pass the torch to Trump. The president said such a scenario is one of the methods he could use to serve a third term.
‘It is far too early to think about it,’ he added of another potential run.