Trump’s use-by date should stop him running a third time

1 month ago 11

Editorial

January 20, 2026 — 5.00am

The prospect that Donald Trump will stand for a third term as US president has swirled ever since he returned to the White House.

Now Steve Bannon, the former Trump White House chief strategist turned podcaster with a nationalist pride for destroying the political establishment, predicts his former boss is staying put.

Steve Bannon has tipped Donald Trump for a third term.

“I think President Trump is running in ’28,” Bannon told the Herald’s North America correspondent Michael Koziol in an interview marking a year since Trump returned to the White House.

“You look at the long-term plans he’s got with Greenland, with Canada. I think he’s telling you he’s got a long-term plan to save the country. And this is why it puts him at the level of [former president George] Washington and [Abraham] Lincoln. Washington was here at the birth of the nation, Lincoln was here at the rebirth of the nation – and Trump is here to reclaim the nation.”

Should he pull it off in 2028, at 82, Trump will be a year older than Joe Biden when he lost the 2024 election, and the coming years are certain to be bruising if he opts to carry on.

There are huge impediments to a third-term presidency, but there is a precedent: Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to four terms, serving from 1933 to 1945, during the Great Depression and World War II. The concerns about his longevity in office resulted in the 22nd Amendment to the US Constitution, which was ratified in 1951 to ensure that “no person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice”.

Getting around the 22nd Amendment is a big ask. Two-thirds majorities in both the House of Representatives and Senate are required just to propose an amendment – far more than the slender majorities Republicans hold in both chambers. Alternatively, two-thirds of states have to call for a constitutional convention, but ratifying an amendment is even more troublesome and requires approval by 75 per cent of state legislatures.

With typical brio, Bannon said he would “drive a Mack truck through the 22nd Amendment to keep Trump in the presidency”. Just how remains a mystery. There are MAGA’s pet pipe-dreams: Vice President JD Vance could act as a stalking horse by winning the presidency and then stepping down for his vice president – Trump.

Trump fatigue has set in. The endless circus of tariff announcements, bombings, invasions and threats to invade, the Epstein files, false claims to have reduced prices, promises to make Gaza the “Riviera of the Middle East”, mass deportations and pondering the use of troops on US citizens and bluff poker over Ukraine have turned American exceptionalism into dust.

At home, Trump’s trampling of political norms and battering of institutional checks and balances have caused ongoing instability. For Australia, his cavalier attitude toward the sovereignty of other nations makes the AUKUS alliance a dangerous play.

We can only hope Americans consider Trump is past his use-by date if he tries a third tilt in 2028.

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