Just days ago at CPAC 2026, evangelist Franklin Graham urged the crowd to do “everything we can to get him re-elected,” a constitutionally impossible ask that nonetheless drew cheers, while former White House strategist Steve Bannon told MSNBC on March 27 that he is actively working on “five or six different alternatives” to keep President Donald Trump in power past 2029. The spectacle is a direct reversal of Trump’s own September 2024 pledge that his campaign that year would be his last — a promise he has spent 16 months systematically dismantling, statement by statement.
The drumbeat has been relentless since Trump won the 2024 election and was inaugurated in January 2025. At a January 2026 rally, he asked supporters, “Should we do it a fourth time?” At his February 24, 2026 State of the Union address, Trump quipped mid-speech, “In my first year of my second term — should be my third term, but hey…,” a reference to his repeated claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him. Days later at a Texas rally, he told the crowd, “Maybe we do one more term… we are entitled to it.” Then in January, he posted on Truth Social: “RECORD NUMBERS ALL OVER THE PLACE! SHOULD I TRY FOR A FOURTH TERM?”
The irony is sharp. In September 2024, Trump told an interviewer flatly, “No, I don’t… I think that will be it. I don’t see that at all,” when asked about 2028. At 79, he was drawing direct comparisons to President Biden, who had just exited the race under pressure over his mental acuity. Trump won in November, and within months, the pledge had evaporated entirely.
The 22nd Amendment flatly prohibits any person from being elected president more than twice. Trump has occasionally acknowledged the wall. Aboard Air Force One, he told reporters the Constitution is “pretty clear” — “I’m not allowed to run. It’s too bad” — and ruled out a vice-presidential workaround, calling it “too cute.” But those admissions have not stopped him from continuing to float the idea in the next breath.
Bannon is less conflicted. “We’re working on five or six different alternatives that President Trump could run again and be president,” Bannon told MSNBC. “On the afternoon of January 20th, 2029, Donald Trump is going to be president for his third term.” At CPAC on March 26, Franklin Graham declared, “We’ll never get another president like Donald Trump. That’s why we need to do everything we can to get him re-elected.”
Constitutional law professor Jeremy R. Paul of Northeastern University called the most-discussed workaround — running as vice president on a friendly ticket, then ascending to the presidency — “a ludicrous argument,” noting that the 12th Amendment separately bars anyone ineligible for the presidency from serving as vice president. Democrats have moved to legislative pre-emption. California state Senator Tom Umberg introduced a bill allowing the state’s secretary of state to demand proof of a candidate’s eligibility before placing them on the 2028 ballot.
Yet even within Trump’s own base, the third-term push is showing cracks. Several CPAC attendees told the Washington Examiner they were looking beyond Trump to younger Republican leadership in 2028. “He’s got to pass the torch to JD Vance,” said Matthew Kingston, 26, of Lubbock, Texas. “I think we deserve a younger slate of leaders coming up the pike.” A congressional candidate in Mississippi flatly cited the 22nd Amendment: “That’s a nonstarter… it’ll be somebody else’s turn.”
Trump’s approval rating remains underwater, with only about 4 in 10 Americans approving of his second-term performance, according to an AP-NORC poll, and 56% of voters disapproving of his handling of the economy, immigration, and cost of living, per a New York Times-Siena survey. Polling separately shows 70% of Americans oppose a third Trump term outright.
The man who promised in 2020 that a loss to Biden meant “you’ll never see me again” — then spent four years dominating the GOP anyway — made the same kind of forever-promise in September 2024. With Bannon publicly counting down to Inauguration Day 2029 and “Trump 2028” hats selling briskly at CPAC, that promise looks no more durable than the last one.