'Power without limits': NYT demands 'forceful pushback' on Trump's 'fantasizing'
President Donald Trump delivers at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama on May 1, 2025, at Coleman Coliseum (Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok/Flickr)
Under the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution — which was ratified back in 1951 — presidents are limited to two terms. But President Donald Trump and some of his MAGA allies, including "War Room" host Steve Bannon, are calling for him to serve a second term and claiming that there are ways around the 22nd Amendment.
Some Republicans are dismissing MAGA talk of a third term as mere trolling. Sen. Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota), for example, recently told reporters, "I think that you guys keep asking the question, and I think he's probably having some fun with it, probably messing with you."
But in an editorial published on May 6, the New York Times' editorial board warns that Trump's "third term" talk isn't funny — it's "dangerous."
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"Mr. Trump’s third-term fantasizing is more dangerous than (Thune's) response suggests, and it deserves more forceful pushback," the Times board argues. "He has a history, after all, of using seemingly outlandish speculation to push ideas he genuinely favors — such as overturning an election result — into mainstream discourse. He tests boundaries to see which limits are actually enforced. Even when he backs away from a provocation, he often succeeds in raising doubts about those limits."
The Times board continues, "His behavior is consistent with a president who indeed wants to serve a third term, if not more, and who keeps raising the idea in the hope of getting Americans comfortable with it. More broadly, Mr. Trump has repeatedly demonstrated his disdain for constitutional checks on a president’s power."
Trump's behavior, according to the editorial, "suggests that he would prefer to wield power without limits."
"The appropriate response from the rest of the political system — especially from Republican members of Congress, governors and others — is not to laugh off his musings," the Times editorial board writes. "It is to assert the clarity of the law: Mr. Trump is barred from serving a third term, period."
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Read the New York Times' full editorial at this link (subscription required)
