Trump suggested his supporters want him to serve more than two terms as president, which would violate the 22nd Amendment of the Constitution

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Trump suggested his supporters want him to serve more than two terms as president, which would violate the 22nd Amendment of the Constitution

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  • President Donald Trump took to Twitter over the weekend to suggest his supporters "would demand that I stay longer" than two terms in the White House.
  • This isn't Trump's first time mulling over the possibility of serving more than two terms as president, a blatant violation to the 22nd Amendment of the Constitution.
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President Donald Trump rebuked the 22nd Amendment of the Constitution in a series of tweets on Sunday that questioned presidential term limits and suggested his supporters "would demand that I stay longer" than 2024, which is when he would leave office if he wins the 2020 presidential election.

This isn't Trump's first time mulling over the possibility of serving more than two terms. The president retweeted Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr.'s tweet last month that "Trump should have 2 yrs added to his 1st term as pay back for time stolen by this corrupt coup," based on the notion that extra years should be added to his presidency to make up for the time special counsel Robert Mueller spent on the Russia investigation. 

And in April, on the day that Mueller released the findings of the report, the president jokingly told a crowd during a White House event for the Wounded Warrior Project that he would remain in the Oval Office "at least for 10 or 14 years."

Around a year earlier, in March 2018, Trump praised Chinese President Xi Jinping for abolishing term limits during a speech for Republican donors at a private event at Mar-a-Lago, according to recordings obtained by CNN. "He's now president for life. President for life. No, he's great," Trump said at the fundraiser. "And look, he was able to do that. I think it's great. Maybe we'll have to give that a shot some day."

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In the Sunday morning tweets, he also criticized the "failing New York Times" and "the Amazon (lobbyist) Washington Post" over those publication's recent White House coverage.

Trump's apparent disdain for term limits - even as a joke - violates the 22nd Amendment of the Constitution, which limits the president to two terms in office. The proposal also has implications for democracy at large. As President Barack Obama told members of the African Union in 2015, "I have to also say that Africa's democratic progress is also at risk when leaders refuse to step aside when their terms end."

President Franklin D. Roosevelt was the only president who served more than two terms, dying shortly after winning an unprecedented fourth term in the White House. In 1951, the 22nd Amendment was officially ratified to limit how long presidents could serve.

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