After being released from prison in October, Steve Bannon seemingly did everything in his power to get Donald Trump back in the White House. Now he appears interested in helping the president-elect remain in the Oval Office—even beyond what is constitutionally allowed.
At an event hosted by the New York Young Republican Club on Sunday, Bannon reportedly floated the idea of a third Trump term, which if attempted, would be in direct violation of the 22nd Amendment of the Constitution. But to Bannon, that seems to be a mere technicality to overcome.
“I don’t know, maybe we do it again in ’28. Are you guys down for that?” Bannon asked the crowd which cheered in response. “Trump ’28!”
According to Bannon, GOP lawyer and Trump defender Mike Davis had told him that because the Constitution “doesn’t actually say ‘consecutive,’” Trump may be able to run for a third term.
BREAKING: Steve Bannon calls for Trump 2028 pic.twitter.com/bcPHFsNobu
— RSBN
(@RSBNetwork) December 16, 2024
It may be tempting to dismiss such remarks as Bannon being Bannon. But Trump himself has also pointed to the possibility of staying in power beyond another four years. At a July event hosted by the conservative political nonprofit Turning Point Action, Trump told the Christian audience that if he won reelection, “you won’t have to vote anymore,” as my colleague Arianna Coghill covered at the time. A few days later, he declined to walk back or clarify those comments, even doubling down on them in an interview with Fox News.
Bannon also has a record of accurately characterizing Trump’s moves. As I reported last month, just after Trump’s reelection, Bannon on his War Room podcast promoted a social media post from right-wing podcast host Matt Walsh that said, “Now that the election is over I think we can finally say that yeah actually Project 2025 is the agenda. Lol.” After reading the post on air, Bannon chuckled, saying, “Fabulous. We might have to put that everywhere.” Trump would eventually confirm as much. In an interview with Time Magazine published just last week, Trump told the magazine, “I don’t disagree with everything in Project 2025, but I disagree with some things.”
Spokespeople for the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to questions on Monday afternoon about whether Bannon speaks for Trump or whether the president-elect will commit to vacating office at the end of his next term in accordance with the Constitution.
Davis, the lawyer Bannon claimed proposed the idea that a third Trump term was possible, tried to dismiss the comments as a joke. “Steve Bannon is obviously trolling,” he wrote in a post on X on Monday. “Only Obama gets a third term, with his puppet Biden.”
