Here’s how U.S. presidential term limits work as Trump prepares for return

Donald Trump will return to the Oval Office in just two months and following his re-election to a second non-consecutive term, some Americans took to social media questioning if he could run again in 2028.

The simplest answer is: No.

Under the 22nd amendment in the U.S. constitution, which was ratified in 1951, no president can serve more than two terms and those terms don’t need to be back-to-back.

“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 President more than once,” the official text of the amendment reads.

This means not only can Trump not run again in four years, but should circumstances arise in which vice-president-elect JD Vance must take over for Trump before January 2027, he would only be able to run one more time in 2028.

However, if Vance were to take over after the two-year mark of Trump’s presidency, he could run in 2028 and 2032.

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“It prohibits anyone from being elected president more than two times. Donald Trump was elected in 2016, he was elected again the day before yesterday, he cannot be elected a third time,” said Michael McConnell, a former U.S. circuit judge for the Court of Appeals and director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford University.

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“I think there (are) just a lot of people running around panicking. Well, this is one thing they do not have to panic about.”

Presidents have held more than two terms in the past, with Franklin D. Roosevelt serving four terms consecutively, from 1932 until his death in 1945.

But it was, in part, Roosevelt’s multiple terms that led to the decision to limit presidents from serving for more than eight years in total.

According to the Ronald Reagan Library, there was concern in Congress after the Second World War ended in 1945 — a year after Roosevelt was re-elected for his fourth term — about executive overreach.

Term limits took effect six years after Roosevelt’s death in 1945.

Trump has not said he wants to stay in office indefinitely.

In fact, he was asked Tuesday if 2024 would be his last election and told reporters he “would think so.”

But some on social media have expressed concerns Trump could take steps to remove the third-term restriction, while some Trump supporters like Colorado Republican Lauren Boebert have said that “we must rally behind President Trump to secure his third term.”

Changing the rule, however, would face a steep barrier.

Repealing or modifying the amendment would require approval from two-thirds of both houses of Congress and ratification by three-fourths of state legislatures.

For Trump, that would be unlikely as although Democrats lost the Senate on Tuesday, they still hold at least 46 seats, preventing a two-thirds majority, and have won at least 190 seats in the House of Representatives.

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“I don’t think it’s an actual serious proposal,” McConnell said.

“I also think it’s probably a way to twit the other side. I mean if a Trump supporter says, ‘Let’s amend the constitution so he can be elected a third time,’ and then somebody on the other side goes, ‘no,’ you know, they go all crazy about it. But in fact, it’s all totally silly.”

There have been suggestions by previous presidents of both parties to make a change, with Truman, a Democrat, describing it as “stupid.”

Former Republican president Ronald Reagan said in 1989 before leaving office that he would push for a repeal.

Congress has also seen efforts to repeal the amendment since 1956, with 54 joint resolutions having been introduced.

So while social media may be active with suggestions of it, McConnell said the chances of it happening are slim to none.