Trump Attorney Studied Options for Third Presidential Term
Wall Street Journal
By Annie Linskey and Josh Dawsey
April 2, 2025 7:00 am ET
Donald Trump’s attorney Boris Epshteyn made a bold assertion during a meeting in late 2023: Trump wouldn’t necessarily be limited to two terms in office.
Speaking to an associate in October 2023 in downtown Washington, Epshteyn pushed back on the notion that Trump would be a lame duck if he won the election in 2024. Epshteyn said he had studied the law—and he believed Trump could find a way to run again in 2028, according to the person Epshteyn met with.
At the time, the associate thought the comments were amusing, even if Epshteyn was serious. The person recounted them to others in Washington, joking that Epshteyn had already started planning a third term even before Trump had won the 2024 Republican primary. But 18 months later, the person looks back on the conversation with alarm, as Trump openly toys with remaining in office after his term ends.
Epshteyn, who is now the president’s outside counsel, didn’t provide a comment for this article. Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, said that “it’s far too early to think about” a third term.
Trump said this weekend that he was “not joking” about staying in office after his current term ends in January 2029, jump-starting a long-simmering Washington debate over just how serious he is about seeking a third term. The president, in an interview with NBC News, pointed to unnamed “methods” for clinching another four years in office. Trump would be 82 at the end of his second term.
Since first winning the presidency in 2016, Trump has been musing, kidding, flirting and otherwise raising the issue of remaining in office beyond two terms. The casual style the president uses to broach a serious topic has turned the idea into a Trump-shaped Rorschach test: Those who fear and dislike him see bright red flashing warning lights and many who adore him shrug it off or laugh along.
Some of Trump’s advisers dismiss critics’ concerns about the president’s remarks. He is joking, they say; he is trolling the media and liberals, they argue. Others close to the president contend he is shifting attention away from the revelation that his national security adviser included a journalist on a group text chat in which senior officials discussed a sensitive military strike. Trump recently told a friend that he made such comments to “make the media crazy,” the friend recalled to The Wall Street Journal.
But some senior Republicans privately said they take Trump at his word, and believe he could try to remain in office. In interviews, they noted that law firms, universities, corporations and lawmakers have marshaled little resistance to the president’s policies so far in his second term, and they said efforts to stop him could become more difficult in the coming years if he continues to amass power.
The fact that Epshteyn has discussed the matter with others shows that some of Trump’s closest advisers have also explored the idea.
Trump is constitutionally barred from being elected to a third term. The 22nd Amendment to the Constitution says presidents can’t be elected to more than two terms.
Marc Short, who was the chief of staff to Trump’s first vice president, Mike Pence, said he isn’t convinced that Trump would seek a third term. But Short also said that he has dismissed other Trump ideas that have found their way into reality: “I’ve said before that ‘he couldn’t’—and he’s shown the ability to do these things,” Short said.
Short said Republicans won’t stand up to him while his approval ratings among Republican voters remain high. “If the president has policies that have economic consequences that soften his approval numbers, then more Republicans speak out, but not until then,” Short said.
One Trump ally said the president’s comments shouldn’t be taken seriously. Asked for a similar example of a far-fetched Trump idea that went nowhere, the person was quick with an answer: taking over Greenland. But the idea of acquiring the autonomous Danish territory has gone from an unlikely Trump whim in the president’s first term to a U.S. foreign-policy imperative in his second term.
The chatter about a third term has permeated popular culture. In a mid-March episode of the tech-finance-culture “All In” podcast, host Jason Calacanis lobbed a provocative hypothetical to a guest: “Brass tacks,” he said, “Trump’s running for his third term versus Gavin Newsom—who do you vote for?” Last month, Steve Bannon, Trump’s first-term chief strategist, told NewsNation that “we’re working on” plans for another term.
Since Trump set off the latest round of third-term talk on Sunday, reporters have asked him to clarify his remarks. “I don’t want to talk about a third term now,” Trump said Sunday evening, hours after the initial interview was published. On Monday in the Oval Office, Trump said, “I’ve never looked into it. They do say there’s a way you can do it, but I don’t know about that.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday: “It’s not really something we’re thinking about.”
The mixed messaging from Trump and his team has led to speculation online and at Washington cocktail parties. One theory: Trump could run on a ticket as the vice president with JD Vance (or someone else) at the top. That person would then step aside and Trump would become president again. This theory still puts Trump crosswise with the 12th Amendment to the Constitution, which states “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of president” is eligible to be vice president.
Rep. Andy Ogles (R., Tenn.) introduced legislation to change the 22nd Amendment so that a president can serve three terms if one of them is nonconsecutive, which neatly would provide Trump with another four years. But amending the Constitution isn’t so easy. To be adopted, his resolution would need to muster a two-thirds majority in the House and Senate and be approved by three-fourths of U.S. states.
Trump frequently mused about a third term in the run-up to the 2020 election. In a June 2019 interview with NBC News, he appeared to rule out the third-term concept. “There won’t be a third term,” Trump said.
The following year, in June 2020, Trump was interviewed by his son, Donald Trump Jr., for a segment aired on a Trump campaign YouTube channel. “If you don’t run for a third term —” Donald Jr. said as he started to ask a question.
“He’s doing a good interview,” Trump responded, praising his son.
On the campaign trail in 2024, Trump brought the issue up from time to time as well, with a line about the potential for a third and even a fourth term.
Democrats seized on Trump’s musing and other actions, and made preserving democracy a major theme of the 2024 presidential campaign. It didn’t work for them.
“If we react the same way we have since 2016, you’re going to have the same results as we’ve had since 2016,” said former Rep. Tim Ryan, an Ohio Democrat. “He’s messing up the economy and he has control over every lever of government. Why would you want to talk about anything other than that?”
By Annie Linskey and Josh Dawsey
April 2, 2025 7:00 am ET
Donald Trump’s attorney Boris Epshteyn made a bold assertion during a meeting in late 2023: Trump wouldn’t necessarily be limited to two terms in office.
Speaking to an associate in October 2023 in downtown Washington, Epshteyn pushed back on the notion that Trump would be a lame duck if he won the election in 2024. Epshteyn said he had studied the law—and he believed Trump could find a way to run again in 2028, according to the person Epshteyn met with.
At the time, the associate thought the comments were amusing, even if Epshteyn was serious. The person recounted them to others in Washington, joking that Epshteyn had already started planning a third term even before Trump had won the 2024 Republican primary. But 18 months later, the person looks back on the conversation with alarm, as Trump openly toys with remaining in office after his term ends.
Epshteyn, who is now the president’s outside counsel, didn’t provide a comment for this article. Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, said that “it’s far too early to think about” a third term.
Trump said this weekend that he was “not joking” about staying in office after his current term ends in January 2029, jump-starting a long-simmering Washington debate over just how serious he is about seeking a third term. The president, in an interview with NBC News, pointed to unnamed “methods” for clinching another four years in office. Trump would be 82 at the end of his second term.
Since first winning the presidency in 2016, Trump has been musing, kidding, flirting and otherwise raising the issue of remaining in office beyond two terms. The casual style the president uses to broach a serious topic has turned the idea into a Trump-shaped Rorschach test: Those who fear and dislike him see bright red flashing warning lights and many who adore him shrug it off or laugh along.
Some of Trump’s advisers dismiss critics’ concerns about the president’s remarks. He is joking, they say; he is trolling the media and liberals, they argue. Others close to the president contend he is shifting attention away from the revelation that his national security adviser included a journalist on a group text chat in which senior officials discussed a sensitive military strike. Trump recently told a friend that he made such comments to “make the media crazy,” the friend recalled to The Wall Street Journal.
But some senior Republicans privately said they take Trump at his word, and believe he could try to remain in office. In interviews, they noted that law firms, universities, corporations and lawmakers have marshaled little resistance to the president’s policies so far in his second term, and they said efforts to stop him could become more difficult in the coming years if he continues to amass power.
The fact that Epshteyn has discussed the matter with others shows that some of Trump’s closest advisers have also explored the idea.
Trump is constitutionally barred from being elected to a third term. The 22nd Amendment to the Constitution says presidents can’t be elected to more than two terms.
Marc Short, who was the chief of staff to Trump’s first vice president, Mike Pence, said he isn’t convinced that Trump would seek a third term. But Short also said that he has dismissed other Trump ideas that have found their way into reality: “I’ve said before that ‘he couldn’t’—and he’s shown the ability to do these things,” Short said.
Short said Republicans won’t stand up to him while his approval ratings among Republican voters remain high. “If the president has policies that have economic consequences that soften his approval numbers, then more Republicans speak out, but not until then,” Short said.
One Trump ally said the president’s comments shouldn’t be taken seriously. Asked for a similar example of a far-fetched Trump idea that went nowhere, the person was quick with an answer: taking over Greenland. But the idea of acquiring the autonomous Danish territory has gone from an unlikely Trump whim in the president’s first term to a U.S. foreign-policy imperative in his second term.
The chatter about a third term has permeated popular culture. In a mid-March episode of the tech-finance-culture “All In” podcast, host Jason Calacanis lobbed a provocative hypothetical to a guest: “Brass tacks,” he said, “Trump’s running for his third term versus Gavin Newsom—who do you vote for?” Last month, Steve Bannon, Trump’s first-term chief strategist, told NewsNation that “we’re working on” plans for another term.
Since Trump set off the latest round of third-term talk on Sunday, reporters have asked him to clarify his remarks. “I don’t want to talk about a third term now,” Trump said Sunday evening, hours after the initial interview was published. On Monday in the Oval Office, Trump said, “I’ve never looked into it. They do say there’s a way you can do it, but I don’t know about that.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday: “It’s not really something we’re thinking about.”
The mixed messaging from Trump and his team has led to speculation online and at Washington cocktail parties. One theory: Trump could run on a ticket as the vice president with JD Vance (or someone else) at the top. That person would then step aside and Trump would become president again. This theory still puts Trump crosswise with the 12th Amendment to the Constitution, which states “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of president” is eligible to be vice president.
Rep. Andy Ogles (R., Tenn.) introduced legislation to change the 22nd Amendment so that a president can serve three terms if one of them is nonconsecutive, which neatly would provide Trump with another four years. But amending the Constitution isn’t so easy. To be adopted, his resolution would need to muster a two-thirds majority in the House and Senate and be approved by three-fourths of U.S. states.
Trump frequently mused about a third term in the run-up to the 2020 election. In a June 2019 interview with NBC News, he appeared to rule out the third-term concept. “There won’t be a third term,” Trump said.
The following year, in June 2020, Trump was interviewed by his son, Donald Trump Jr., for a segment aired on a Trump campaign YouTube channel. “If you don’t run for a third term —” Donald Jr. said as he started to ask a question.
“He’s doing a good interview,” Trump responded, praising his son.
On the campaign trail in 2024, Trump brought the issue up from time to time as well, with a line about the potential for a third and even a fourth term.
Democrats seized on Trump’s musing and other actions, and made preserving democracy a major theme of the 2024 presidential campaign. It didn’t work for them.
“If we react the same way we have since 2016, you’re going to have the same results as we’ve had since 2016,” said former Rep. Tim Ryan, an Ohio Democrat. “He’s messing up the economy and he has control over every lever of government. Why would you want to talk about anything other than that?”
