Ogles Proposes Resolution For Trump To Serve A Third Term, Leading To Potential Obama Trump Faceoff
It is a nutty headline but it is accurate, because we live in a world which is getting progressively more off the walls by the minute.
Here we are, less than one week into this four-year sentence we’re collective serving as a nation (although half of us think it’s a joyride and a lark) and Rep. Andy Ogles has introduced a resolution allowing presidents to serve three terms.
You knew it was coming, but knowing it and seeing it are two different things. And what does that have to do with Barack Obama? You’re going to find out.
Remember when concerned Americans brought this up during the election — and were laughed at and ridiculed by MAGA?
Just like Project 25, which is fully happening now.
The “Reichstag Fire” event is next. Mark it
In a statement issued Thursday, the GOP leader says: “President Trump’s decisive leadership stands in stark contrast to the chaos, suffering, and economic decline Americans have endured over the past four years. He has proven himself to be the only figure in modern history capable of reversing our nation’s decay and restoring America to greatness, and he must be given the time necessary to accomplish that goal.”
Ogles adds, “To that end, I am proposing an amendment to the Constitution to revise the limitations imposed by the 22nd Amendment on presidential terms. This amendment would allow President Trump to serve three terms, ensuring that we can sustain the bold leadership our nation so desperately needs.” […]
According to WZTV Nashville, Ogles’ resolution reads: ‘”No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than three times, nor be elected to any additional term after being elected to two consecutive terms, 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 the President more than twice.’”
So all this boils down to Trump is the icon of what’s left of the Republican party coupled with the ascendancy of the lunatic fringe. And the GOP doesn’t want to let go of that. Now is this realistic? Not with the slim margins in both chambers of Congress. It takes a 2/3rds majority of both the House and Senate to pass a Constitutional amendment.
But wait, there’s more. If this trial balloon doesn’t fly, then there’s another way to do this, to keep Trump in power. And this is Plan B, if Plan A doesn’t work. And it involves Barack Obama:
Dahlia Lithwick: Our end-of-year show was the great revival of “Dear (Juris)Prudence,” and some of what we discussed raised listener hackles. You expressed some thoughts on a very complicated listener question about the possibility of a third Trump presidency, and I’m going to let you respond to those objections. First I will flag again that we both agreed in advance that this was kind of a low-priority hypothetical to freak out about. But then you went on and answered it, Mark, because you’re a good lawyer.
Mark Joseph Stern: And that got me into hot water! I argued in this episode that Trump could, in theory, exploit a loophole in the Constitution to serve a third term. The 22nd Amendment says that no person can be elected as president more than twice. It doesn’t say that no person could serve as president for more than two terms. So, in theory, I explained, Trump could run as vice president in 2028, with some patsy at the top of the ticket. Then, if they win, at 12:01 p.m. on
Inauguration Day, that patsy could resign, making Trump president a third time. We don’t think this will happen. We don’t want it to happen. But if we go by a rigid textualist reading of the 22nd Amendment, it could happen.
So we see where we’re at? How crazy this? And if that happened, then I say the smart money is to follow the GOP playbook and put a patsy on the top of the Democratic ticket and put Barack Obama in as the vice presidential candidate. And then you would get Trump v. Obama which is what he always made it sound like anyhow.
Trump used to complain about Obama this and Obama that as if Obama was his opponent. And in this Bizarro World scenario we’re cobbling together here, Obama might be his opponent.
A number of listeners objected by citing the 12th Amendment, which says: “No person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.” But that provision actually just reinforces the workaround I identified. Because if it’s true that a twice-elected president can serve a third term as long as he isn’t directly elected to it, then he is not “constitutionally ineligible to the office of President” under the 12th Amendment. That means he is eligible to be vice president, as well, and the 12th Amendment poses no bar to his election as VP.
Now, listeners raised a second objection, and our friend Jamelle Bouie identified this one on Bluesky as well: the argument that the distinction between being elected to office and holding office is semantic and artificial and not worth serious
