California Gov. Gavin Newsom\u00a0warned that President\u00a0Donald Trump\u00a0will try to stay in office\u00a0beyond the two-term limit.<\/p>\n
The 22nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution limits presidents to two terms in office, but Trump has\u00a0repeatedly toyed with the idea. Newsom has ramped up his attacks on Trump in recent weeks,\u00a0trolling him on X\u00a0as his state enters a\u00a0redistricting battle\u00a0that may impact who gains control of the U.S. House after the 2026 midterms.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think\u00a0Donald Trump\u00a0wants another election,\u201d\u00a0Newsom said on Aug. 27 at POLITICO\u2019s \u201cThe California Agenda: Sacramento Summit,” where he repeatedly told the audience to “wake up.”<\/p>\n
\u201cYou think he’s\u00a0joking about 2028?” Newsom said. “You think when he brings\u00a0foreign leaders to the Oval Office and he goes to the White House store \u2026 and he shows them the 2028 hats that he\u2019s not being serious?”<\/p>\n
Newsom said Trump’s people have also sent him more than 20 “Trump 2028” hats. Even as Trump has said he will “probably not” run for office again, the Trump Organization still sells “Trump 2028” hats for $50 on its online store.<\/p>\n
Under the Constitution as it stands, Trump cannot serve a third term in office. It is explicitly barred by the\u00a022nd Amendment.<\/p>\n
Changes to the Constitution are extremely difficult and rare, as they require a two-thirds majority vote in both the House and Senate. States can also spur an amendment, but it requires two-thirds of the state legislatures to call a constitutional convention and three-fourths to ratify it.<\/p>\n
Trump won the 2016 presidential election against Hillary Clinton, becoming the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. He then lost the 2020 election against former President\u00a0Joe Biden.<\/p>\n
Trump won the 2024 election. At first, Trump was up for a rematch before Biden dropped his re-election bid and was replaced on the Democratic ticket by former Vice President\u00a0Kamala Harris. Trump’s second term as the 47th U.S. president is slated for 2025 to 2029.<\/p>\n
Trump has repeatedly\u00a0floated the idea\u00a0of a third term throughout his second presidency. In a March NBC interview, he said there are methods to make it happen, including if Vice President\u00a0JD Vance\u00a0runs for office and then hands the role to Trump.<\/p>\n
In a later interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” that aired on May 4, Trump backed off the idea, saying he was\u00a0not looking at running again.<\/p>\n
“I will say this. So many people want me to do it. I have never had requests so strong as that,” Trump said in the interview with NBC. “But it’s something that, to the best of my knowledge, you’re not allowed to do. I don’t know if that’s constitutional that they’re not allowing you to do it or anything else.”<\/p>\n
Then on Aug. 5, Trump was asked whether he would run for a third term in a\u00a0CNBC interview.<\/p>\n
“No,\u00a0probably not\u00a0… Probably not, I’d like to,” he said.<\/p>\n
The Trump Organization did not previously respond to a request for comment on the 2028 hats.<\/p>\n
Newsom has acknowledged he may run for president in 2028, part of what could be a crowded and competitive Democratic primary. Other potential contenders are\u00a0Illinois Gov.\u00a0JB Pritzker, Kentucky Gov.\u00a0Andy Beshear, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and former U.S. Transportation Secretary\u00a0Pete Buttigieg.<\/p>\n
Vance is\u00a0brushing off committing to running in 2028, though he is expected to. In an exclusive sit-down interview with USA TODAY, he said he is focused on his current job. “And if that door opens later on, we’ll figure it out then.”<\/p>\n
Trump has also mentioned former Florida senator, now the Secretary of State\u00a0Marco Rubio\u00a0as a\u00a0potential leader in the future of MAGA.<\/p>\n
America’s founding father and first president, President George Washington, voluntarily stepped down after two terms, creating an unofficial tradition for future presidents to follow suit.<\/p>\n
President Franklin D. Roosevelt\u00a0was the first and only president to break that tradition. The country was still recovering from the Great Depression, and at the dawn of World War II, he was re-elected to his third term. After leading the country through the global war, he was elected again in 1944 but died the following year.<\/p>\n
A movement in the House of Representatives to officially limit the presidency terms, now ratified as the 22nd Amendment, began two years after Roosevelt’s death.<\/p>\n
Contributing:\u00a0Josh Meyer, Francesca Chambers, Riley Beggin, Deborah Barfield Berry, Phillip M. Bailey, USA TODAY<\/em><\/p>\n Kinsey Crowley is the Trump Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach her at kcrowley@gannett.com. Follow her on X and TikTok @kinseycrowley or Bluesky at @kinseycrowley.bsky.social.<\/em><\/p>\n This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:\u00a0Can Trump run for a third term? ‘Trump 2028’ hats sent to Gavin Newsom<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" California Gov. Gavin Newsom\u00a0warned that President\u00a0Donald Trump\u00a0will try to stay in office\u00a0beyond the two-term limit. The 22nd Amendment<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1649,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-politics","category-us"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1648"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1650,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1648\/revisions\/1650"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}