Steve Bannon dropped a political bombshell in Washington, D.C. this week, claiming Donald Trump will serve a third term as president despite the U.S. Constitution’s clear two-term cap.
“He’s gonna get a third term,” Bannon said during an interview with The Economist Thursday (October 23). “Trump is gonna be president in ’28, and people just sort of [need to] get accommodated with that.”
The 70-year-old former White House strategist, who walked out of federal prison last October after serving four months for contempt of Congress, insisted there’s already a strategy in motion to make it happen, despite the 22nd Amendment prohibiting it.
“There’s many different alternatives. At the appropriate time, we’ll lay out what the plan is, but there’s a plan,” Bannon said, without offering specifics.
Bannon didn’t just stop at logistics. He painted Trump as “a vehicle of divine providence,” saying, “He’s very imperfect. He’s not churchy, not particularly religious, but he’s an instrument of divine will. And you could tell [because of] how he’s pulled this off.”
He added, “We need him for at least one more term, right? And he’ll get that in ’28.”
The former Breitbart executive has remained loyal to the MAGA base, even after Trump dismissed him from the White House less than a year into his first term.
Donald Trump Says He’s Serious About Seeking Third Term
His latest remarks echo Trump’s own musings about a third term. Trump has sold “TRUMP 2028” hats and told NBC News earlier this year he was “not joking” about a third run.
But constitutional scholars aren’t buying it.
“There is no wiggle room [on the 22nd Amendment],” William Baude, director of the Constitutional Law Institute at the University of Chicago, told NPR. “That’s a clear statement of the Constitution, and I don’t think any serious person is going to interpret it otherwise.”
The 22nd Amendment, ratified in 1951, clearly states that no person can be “elected to the office of the President more than twice.”
Still, Trump loyalists have floated theoretical loopholes, including a constitutional amendment or a scheme involving a vice president stepping down to allow Trump’s succession. Legal experts say neither scenario is likely to pass muster.
Bannon, however, remains confident. “We had longer odds in ’16 and longer odds in ’24 than we’ve got in ’28,” he said. “We have to finish what we started.”
Trump’s hints about a third term date back to at least March 2024, when he first mentioned the idea publicly.