Donald Trump could circumvent the constitutional ban on running for a third term and become president again if he ran in the elections alongside JD Vance, who would resign from office after winning – Americanist professor, told PAP. Zbigniew Lewicki.
The American media are once again considering the possibility of Donald Trump running for president again, despite the constitutional ban on holding this office for a third time.
In an interview for the Wall Street Journal, Alan Dershowitz – an American lawyer and constitutionalist, Trump's defender during his first impeachment and author of the upcoming book entitled “Could President Trump constitutionally serve a third term?” — stated that “it is not clear whether (Trump – PAP) can become president for a third time and it is not clear whether it is allowed.” He added that he presented this opinion to Donald Trump himself on Tuesday. Asked by the daily whether Trump could then run for a fourth time, Dershowitz replied that he “don't think so.”
In the book he plans to publish next year, Dershowitz considers possible options for circumventing the ban on exceeding the two-term limit, which has been in force in the US since 1951.
According to prof. Zbigniew Lewicki, an Americanist from the University of Warsaw, interviewed by PAP, Trump “is definitely considering this possibility.”
– I would not rule out that if he decides that he needs more time to complete the reform of the American state, he will decide for a third term – said Lewicki and added that from the point of view of public opinion's reaction, running again “is possible”, although it would cause “very serious” social tensions, “and maybe even riots”, and the presidency itself – a constitutional crisis.
However, the expert was critical of the scenario presented in an interview with “WSJ” by Dershowitz, in which, if Trump were declared the winner of the next elections, members of the Electoral College (the constitutional state body that elects the American president and vice president every four years) could abstain from voting, and the election results would be decided by Congress.
– You can't manipulate the Electoral College. These are illusions. In many states, there is a formal legal prohibition on electors changing their decisions. Such a scenario is also unfeasible because it would require incredible coordination of activities in many states, Lewicki said.
As reported by “WSJ”, only twice in the history of the United States did electors abstain from voting for their living presidential candidate, which did not lead to the presidential election being resolved by Congress. They also rarely vote not for their candidate. In the 2016 election, for the first time in over a hundred years, as many as ten members of the Electoral College voted or attempted to vote for a candidate other than the one they were obligated to vote for.
In the opinion of PAP's interlocutor, the “only possible variant” that would pave the way for Trump to the White House in 2028 would be for him to run for vice president with a plan not to hold this position. A similar opinion was presented in WSJ by James Sample, a law professor at Hofstra University.
Lewicki explained that in order to sit in the White House again, Donald Trump would have to run for vice president in 2028 alongside, for example, JD Vance, who is running for president. According to the scenario presented by Lewicki, if the Vance-Trump tandem won the November elections, in January 2029, the day after the oath of office, President Vance would have to resign from office. In such a situation, in accordance with the 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution, the vice president, i.e. Donald Trump, would become president. Lewicki emphasized that in this variant, Trump would not be the “elected” president, and therefore there would be no violation of constitutional provisions.
– Such a scenario obviously raises various doubts regarding abuse of law, but it is within the provisions in force and does not assume the need to manipulate electors – emphasized Lewicki.
Until World War II, no constitutional provision limited the number of presidential terms in the United States. It was not until the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution in 1951 that it was clearly stated that “no person shall be elected to the office of president more than twice,” which means that a person who has served two terms as president cannot be “elected” to that office again.
As Lewicki recalled, the reason for introducing the ban was the Republicans' “impatience” with the too long presidency of Democrat FD Roosevelt, who served in the White House for four terms.
– Republicans wanted to protect themselves against a repeat of such a situation. It was a mistake on their part, because, for example, Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican who was the 34th and 35th president of the USA, after Harry Truman, would have been easily elected to a third term if not for the ban, the expert said.
Before 1951, he was thinking about a third term, among others. President Ulysses Grant, but did not receive his party's nomination. Theodore Roosevelt, the 25th and 26th president of the USA, also had similar plans, but he lost to Woodrow Wilson.
As Axios noted, President Trump's public comments about running again “are full of contradictions.”
In May this year the president said in an interview with NBC that another term is “not something he's thinking about” and that he is looking forward to four “great years” of the current presidency and then passing the baton to someone else, “preferably some excellent Republican.” However, in August this year Trump showed President Zelenskiy a campaign hat with the slogan “four more years.”
The signals coming from the administration on this matter are also not clear. As reported by WSJ, current administration spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said yesterday that the country would be “lucky” if Trump stayed in office “even longer.” And White House chief of staff Susie Wiles admitted this week in an interview with Vanity Fair that Trump “knows he can't run again.”
However, Axios pointed out that in the online store trumpstore.com you can still buy a hat with the slogan “Trump 2028”, which may suggest that the concept of a third term for the current US president “is still doing well in conservative circles”.
Anna Gwozdowska (PAP)
ag/ dec/ bst/ mow/
