US President Donald Trump has once again raised the idea that he may try to run again for the top job after the end of his second term in 2029. During a Sunday-morning phone call interview with NBC News, the 78-year old said he was “not joking” about trying to secure a third term as US president.
“A lot of people want me to do it,” Trump said, referring to his supporters. “But, I mean, I basically tell them we have a long way to go, you know, it’s very early in the administration.”
“I’m focused on the current,” he said, adding, “I like working…but… it is far too early to think about it.”
Trump did not explain what he will try to do to secure a third term, but added, “There are methods which you could do it.”
NBC News asked Trump if one possible avenue was having Vice-President JD Vance run for the top job and “pass the baton to you”.
“Well that’s one,” Trump replied. “But there are others too, there are others.”
“Can you tell me another?” interviewer Kristen Welker asked. “No,” Trump responded.
Currently, the possibility of seeking a third term in the White House is prohibited under the 22nd Amendment, which was added to the US constitution in 1951 after Franklin D Roosevelt was elected four times in a row. It states “no person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice”.
Amending the Constitution to abolish the two-term limit would require support from three quarters of the states or a two-thirds vote of Congress. One way Trump could successfully run for a third term is if a joint resolution to propose a change to the Constitution is passed, allowing a person to be elected president three times if they had not been previously elected to two consecutive terms. Another way involves presidential succession, whereby a twice-elected president could become vice president and then return as president if the current president were to be removed from office, resign or die.
Last November, New York Democratic Representative Dan Goldman of New York introduced a House resolution to reaffirm that the Constitution’s term limits for elected presidents would apply to Trump and his non consecutive terms.
“This is yet another escalation in his clear effort to take over the government and dismantle our democracy,” Goldman said in a statement this week. “If Congressional Republicans believe in the constitution, they will go on the record opposing Trump’s ambitions for a third term.”
If Trump finds a way to change the laws to retain his position as commander-in-chief, he won’t be the first. Several other world leaders (all of them, men) have found ways to change the rules to stay in power.
Vladimir Putin, Russia
In 2021, Russia’s most powerful politician successfully “reset” his presidential terms by revising the constitution through a referendum-like process, allowing him to run for presidency twice more in his lifetime and potentially extending his tenure in office until 2036. The new law lengthened presidential terms from four to six years, and also gave Putin and former president Dmitry Medvedev lifetime immunity from prosecution.
Putin assumed the presidency in 2000, aged 47 — the youngest person at the time to rule Russia since Stalin succeeded Lenin as Soviet leader in 1924. He served his first two terms in office before becoming the prime minister in 2008 but remained Russia’s de facto leader. Four years later, he returned to the presidency, sparking widespread protests among his critics.
Xi Jinping, China
In 2018, the National People’s Congress passed a constitutional change approving the removal of the two-term limit on the presidency, effectually allowing president Xi Jinping to remain in power for the remainder of his life. Since 1982, China had imposed a two-term limit on its president, stating that the president and the vice president “shall serve no more than two consecutive terms.”
According to some Chinese media, Xi wanted to alter the law in order to keep his roles as president, party leader and military chairman of the Communist Party. He was appointed as president by the country’s legislature in 2013 and has since established himself as one of the most powerful leaders in modern history.
Viktor Orbán, Hungary
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán came to power in 2010 and has since been accused of engineering a “hybrid regime of electoral autocracy” — dismantling the country’s legal system and changing the election system to ensure future election victories. His party, Fidesz, has increased restrictions on the freedoms for media, minority rights, civil society and democratic standards.
In 2021, American professor of sociology Kim Lane Scheppele described Orbán as “the ultimate twenty-first-century dictator” — “Orbán exercises control is through money,” she said. “Orbán has eliminated the system of welfare and unemployment insurance and so on, so that you only get those things if you pass his litmus test. With the media, his oligarchs have bought out all the media that were critical of him. They’ve consolidated the banking sector in their hands.”
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been in power since the early 2000s. In 2001, he co-founded the conservative and right-wing populist Justice and Development Party (AKP), which won the general elections a year later, forming Turkey’s first single party government in 15 years. Over the past 22 years, he has steadily increased restrictions on freedom of expression and administered authoritarian policies, removing checks on his own power and excluding opponents through the court system.
In 2017, he won a referendum which granted him sweeping presidential powers, including the right to intervene in the legal system. Over the past week, protests have erupted across the country after Erdoğan’s government arrested and jailed his main rival, Ekrem Imamoglu, who was voted in as the political opposition’s presidential candidate.
Paul Biya, Cameroon
As the founder of La Republique du Cameroun (from the defunct United Republic of Cameroon) Cameroon’s president Paul Biya has been accused of secretly bankrolling oppositional parties and fraud during his more than four decades of leadership.
In power since 1982, Biya has become the second longest serving leader in Africa. In 2008, the country’s parliament adopted a constitutional bill removing a two-term limit to allow him to extend his rule.
Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe took office as prime minister in 1980 after his ZANU-PF party won the country’s first election. Once described as a revolutionary hero who fought against the white minority rule, his legacy grew to become one marked by widespread violence, human rights violations and fraud allegations.
In 1987, the parliament amended he constitution, giving Mugabe new sweeping executive powers. For 37 years, he used constitutional changes to extend his rules and violence to suppress his rivals.
Yoweri Museveni, Uganda
Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni has been in power since 1986. His increasing authoritarian was witnessed in 2005, after he successfully removed presidential term limits from Uganda’s constitution, allowing him to run for additional terms.
In 2017, he also successfully changed the constitution which mandated a person standing for president must be under 75 years of age — a rule that would have made Museveni ineligible to stand at the next election.
Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, Equatorial Guinea
In 1979, at the age of 37, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo became the president of Equatorial Guinea, the Central African country that is now home to just under 2 million. The former military officer is only the country’s second leader — his uncle Macías Nguema was the first.
In 2011, a referendum approved constitutional changes allowing him to stay in power indefinitely. A rival party said there was evidence of ballot-stuffing during the referendum. During his reign, Mbasogo has been accused of human rights abuses and corruption.
Alexander Lukashenko, Belarus
Since 1994, Alexander Lukashenko has been the president of Belarus. Within years of him stepping into his leadership role, lawmakers attempted to remove him through a petition for impeachment proceedings. A 1996 referendum dramatically expanded his presidential powers, restoring the death penalty and extending Lukashenko’s presidential term until 2001.
Another referendum in 2004 removed presidential term limits from the constitution, allowing him to run for office indefinitely. Throughout his more than 30 year-reign, he has imprisoned oppositional candidates and hundreds of thousands of protesters have been arrested and jailed, including Nobel Peace Prize-winning human rights activist Ales Bialiatski.