Donald Trump dangles idea of third term as president at NRA convention
Former President Donald Trump stirred up his detractors Saturday by openly musing about a third term as president during remarks at the National Rifle Association annual meeting.
“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 asked.
Several attendees were heard chanting back, “Three.”
Under the 22nd Amendment, which was enacted in the 1950s, no one can be elected to the presidency more than twice.
Former President Franklin D. Roosevelt won election for the presidency four times before the constitution was amended. He died in office in 1945.
Trump previously doused cold water on the prospect of trying to scrap the 22nd Amendment.
“I wouldn’t be in favor of it at all. I intend to serve four years and do a great job. And I want to bring our country back. I want to put it back on the right track. Our country is going down. We’re a failing nation right now. We’re a nation in turmoil,” he told Time Magazine last month.
He also ruled out the pursuit of a third term during an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” last September.
Should he win and serve out a second term, he will be 82 at its conclusion, and will take President Biden’s title as the oldest president in US history.
From time to time on the campaign trail, Trump has floated the idea of serving out a third term.
“We are going to win four more years,” Trump declared at a rally in Wisconsin back in 2020. “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.”
Last year, Trump also roiled his rivals, by suggesting that he would only want to be a dictator for one day.
Trump’s remarks Saturday came in Dallas to address gun rights supporters and saw him take shots at President Biden and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whom he bashed as “radical left.”
“If the Biden regime gets four more years, they are coming for your guns,” Trump warned.
“Crooked Joe Biden has a 40-year record of trying to rip firearms out of the hands of law-abiding citizens.”
The 45th president also once again scored the NRA’s endorsement. The group previously backed him in 2016 and 2020.
“The endorsement of the proud patriots of the NRA. These are great patriots. These are great people. We’re going to do things like nobody can believe,” Trump declared.
During his address, Trump vowed to fire the head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and scrap Biden administration policies on firearms.
“In my second term, we will roll back every Biden attack on the Second Amendment. The attacks are coming fast and furious,” Trump said.
Vice President Kamala Harris quickly slammed Trump’s remarks.
“It is clear that Donald Trump meant it when he said that Americans fed up with horrific gun violence should simply ‘get over it,’” Harris said in a statement.
“President Biden and I have sat with grieving families, and the thought of telling them to ‘get over it’ is unconscionable. Joe Biden and I are working together on common-sense solutions to this national epidemic.”
