Steve Bannon, a former senior advisor to President Donald Trump, has suggested that there are ‘five or six alternatives’ for ensuring Trump secures a third term in the White House.
Shortly after assuming the role of the 47th president of the United States, Donald Trump made light of the idea of a third term, despite such a move being prohibited by the US Constitution.
US Representative Andy Ogles proposed an amendment to the 22nd Amendment, permitting Trump to run for a third term. He argued this would enable the country to maintain the ‘bold leadership’ it ‘so desperately needs’.
However, Steve Bannon, who served as a White House strategist and senior advisor to Trump in 2017, indicated that altering the Constitution might not be necessary for Trump to achieve a third term. This statement came after Bannon faced accusations of performing a ‘Nazi salute,’ following similar accusations directed at Elon Musk.
Bannon, the founder of War Room on Real America’s Voice News, shared with MSNBC: “I haven’t said we’re going to amend the constitution, we’re working on five or six alternatives that President Trump could run again and be president and quite frankly, I feel that four or five of them are going to work.”
“And I continue to say, as I told Bill Maher on the afternoon of January 20th, 2029, Donald Trump is going to be president for a third term,” Bannon added.
He mentioned that the Republican party, also known as the GOP, intends to disclose its strategies closer to the 2026 midterm elections.
This raises the question: are there any real loopholes in the Constitution?
The National Constitution Center provides information on the 22nd Amendment, highlighting under Section 1 that ‘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’.
The document clarifies: “But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of president when this Article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of president, or acting as president, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of president or acting as president during the remainder of such term.”
Section two of the amendment specifies that the article will be ‘inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress’.
It is noted that while Trump could ‘potentially’ serve ‘in a temporary role under some unusual scenarios’, the amendment ultimately ‘directly restricts’ his ability to run again.
Last month, Trump hinted at a ‘loophole’ that might allow him to circumvent the constitutional restrictions. We will have to wait and see what the GOP plans to propose in 2026…