Steve Bannon Claims Trump ‘Will Be the President’ for a Third Term — and Inner Circle Has a ‘Plan’

Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s former White House strategist, says that some of the former president’s closest allies are seriously considering ways for him to serve a third term in office.

During an interview in Washington, D.C., with The Economist’s editor-in-chief, Zanny Minton Beddoes, and deputy editor, Ed Carr, Bannon expressed his confidence that Trump’s political influence will extend beyond his current second term.

“He’s gonna get a third term,” Bannon declared. “Trump is gonna be president in ’28, and people just sort of [need to] get accommodated with that.”

When asked about the 22nd Amendment—which explicitly bars anyone from being “elected to the office of the President more than twice”—Bannon claimed that a workaround plan already exists.

“There’s many different alternatives. At the appropriate time, we’ll lay out what the plan is, but there’s a plan,” he said.

Bannon described Trump as “a vehicle of divine providence,” insisting it’s the “will of the American people” that he continue leading the country.

“He’s not perfect. He’s not churchy, not particularly religious, but he’s an instrument of divine will,” Bannon added. “We need him for at least one more term, right? And he’ll get that in ’28.”
“We had longer odds in ’16 and longer odds in ’24 than we’ve got in ’28. We have to finish what we started.”

Despite the constitutional limits, Trump himself has repeatedly entertained the idea of serving a third term. Early in his second term, “TRUMP 2028” hats even appeared in the White House gift shop.

In a March interview with NBC News, Trump said he was “not joking” about considering another run, despite being on track to become the oldest president in U.S. history by the end of his second term in January 2029.

“A lot of people want me to do it,” he said. “I basically tell them we have a long way to go, you know, it’s very early in the administration.”

Like Bannon, Trump hinted at undisclosed “methods” that could allow him to bypass the rules and seek a third term. While no specifics were offered, his supporters have floated several theoretical approaches.

One potential route would involve amending the Constitution—either through a two-thirds vote in Congress or by two-thirds of U.S. states agreeing to convene a constitutional convention. Both options, however, are widely seen as improbable.

Another theory suggests that Vice President JD Vance could run in 2028 with Trump as his running mate and then resign once elected, allowing Trump to assume the presidency again. Similar hypothetical “loopholes” have been discussed in past elections but were never taken seriously.

“That talk never was all that serious,” said Brian Kalt, a Michigan State University professor who has written extensively about the issue.
“But in a certain situation where the president is more popular than the common understanding of the Constitution, you better believe people will jump all over any loophole they can and allow that person to flout term limits,” Kalt added. “And we’ve seen it in other countries. Everywhere there are term limits, there are vulnerabilities.”

Some have also speculated—at times jokingly—that a president could delay an election during wartime. However, legal scholars maintain that such a move would be unconstitutional.

“There is no wiggle room [on the 22nd Amendment],” said William Baude, director of the Constitutional Law Institute at the University of Chicago Law School. “That’s a clear statement of the Constitution, and I don’t think any serious person is going to interpret it otherwise.”

Justin Levitt, a constitutional law professor at Loyola Marymount University, echoed that sentiment.

“If Trump announced, ‘I’m canceling the elections,’ that has as much power as my announcing I’m canceling the elections,” he told the Associated Press.