U.S. presidents can only serve two terms, but Donald Trump wants to run for a third. Could he?

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, Wednesday, March 26, 2025. (Pool via AP)

U.S. President Donald Trump may be publicly musing about serving a third term in the White House but the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution makes such a scenario highly unlikely.

Trump, 78, said Sunday he was “not joking” about serving a third term as president and told NBC News there are “methods” that would allow it to happen.

Most constitutional scholars disagree.

And any serious effort to amend the founding document -- which as currently written bars a president from serving a third term -- would send the country into uncharted territory.

Presidential history

America’s first president, George Washington, set a precedent by stepping down after serving two terms in office but the two-term presidential limit was only formally codified more than 150 years later.

Only one U.S. president -- Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt -- has served more than two terms in the White House.

Roosevelt was elected president four times -- in 1932, 1936, 1940 and 1944. His fourth term ended prematurely with his April 12, 1945 death at age 63.

Other former commanders in chief, notably Ulysses S. Grant and Theodore Roosevelt, have sought a third term in office but failed to win the nomination or re-election.

Trump is only the second president to win a nonconsecutive term in office, having won in 2016, lost in 2020, and won again in 2024.

The first was Grover Cleveland, who won in 1884, lost in 1888, and won in 1892.

22nd Amendment

The 22nd Amendment limiting a president to two terms in office was passed in 1947 -- two years after Roosevelt’s death -- by two-thirds of the House of Representatives and two-thirds of the Senate.

It was ratified by three-quarters of the 50 U.S. state legislatures in 1951.

The text states: “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.”

It also bars a president who has served more than two years “of a term to which some other person was elected President” from being elected again more than once.

Longshot resolution

During his presidential campaign and since taking office, Trump has jokingly speculated on several occasions about serving a third term.

But his remarks over the weekend were his most detailed yet about the possibility and were punctuated by the phrase “I’m not joking.”

“A lot of people want me to do it,” the Republican president said.

Trump was asked by NBC of a scenario whereby Vice President JD Vance would run for president in 2028 and then “pass the baton” to Trump as his running mate.

“Well, that’s one. But there are others too,” Trump said, without elaborating.

The 12th Amendment would seem to bar the door on that, however.

“No person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States,” it states.

In January, Republican lawmaker Andy Ogles of Tennessee introduced a long shot resolution in the House tailored to Trump that would allow a president who served nonconsecutive terms to serve a third term.

A constitutional convention could also be convened to amend the U.S. Constitution but that is considered equally unlikely.

At 82 years and seven months old, Trump will already be the oldest president ever at the end of his second term in January 2029.

Democrat Joe Biden was 82 years and two months old when he left office in January.