President-elect Trump floated the prospect of seeking a third term in an apparent joke to House Republicans on Wednesday as they met ahead of internal leadership elections.
“I suspect I won’t be running again, unless you do something,” Trump said, according to pool reports and audio shared with The Hill. “Unless you say, ‘He’s so good, we have to just figure it out.’”
The comment got laughs from the GOP lawmakers in the crowd — several of whom later told reporters that the comment was not serious.
“That was a joke. It was clearly a joke,” Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) said after the meeting. “I leaned over to somebody beside me, [Arizona Rep.] Andy Biggs, and I said, that’ll be the headlines tomorrow, ‘Trump trying to thwart the Constitution,’ which — there’s nothing further from the truth.”
“That was a joke. I mean, he jokes all the time,” Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.) said, adding that a problem with politics is that “you can’t even tell a joke without being excoriated.”
Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas), sporting a Trump tie, dismissed a question about whether he would support Trump seeking a third term.
“Are you kidding me? Just stop it,” Nehls said.
Trump, like all presidents, is barred from seeking a third term in office by the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has argued that Trump is seeking to make major policy changes as fast as possible because of his limited time in office, and will not be having to worry about seeing another term as president.
During the campaign, Trump’s opponents warned he would be a “dictator” if elected back to office, an assertion Republicans largely brushed off or condemned.
Trump said late last year that he would only be a “dictator” for one day, to close the U.S.-Mexico border and “drill drill drill.”
“After that, I’m not a dictator,” the candidate said in December 2023.
Trump has previously expressed admiration for leaders who have kept power in foreign countries, including Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“He’s you know, an incredible guy,” Trump said of Xi in 2018. “Essentially president for life. That’s pretty good.”
Trump spoke to the House Republicans as they met at a hotel near the Capitol ahead of internal leadership elections.
Mychael Schnell contributed.
