Norms Impact
Trump is ‘gonna be president’ in 2028, MAGA leader bluntly declares: ‘There’s a plan’
A top MAGA strategist is signaling a deliberate plan to evade the Constitution’s two-term limit, testing whether the rule of law still restrains presidential power.
Oct 23, 2025
Sources
Summary
Steve Bannon said President Donald Trump will seek and win a third presidential term in 2028 and claimed “there’s a plan” to keep him in office despite the 22nd Amendment’s two-term limit. The institutional shift is the open normalization of strategizing around a constitutional prohibition by a leading figure in the president’s political movement. The practical consequence is that public officials, voters, and courts are put on notice for an impending attempt to redefine or bypass a core limit on executive power.
Reality Check
Normalizing a “plan” to keep a president in office past the 22nd Amendment is a direct assault on the constitutional limit that prevents executive entrenchment—and it conditions our politics to treat binding law as optional when power demands it. On these facts, the conduct described is not itself a likely prosecutable federal crime; it is an announced political strategy, not an allegation of falsified votes, bribery, or coercion that would squarely trigger statutes like 52 U.S.C. § 20511 or 18 U.S.C. §§ 371, 241, or 242. The danger is institutional: once movement leaders invite a public redefinition or bypass of a clear constitutional bar, every future limit on presidential authority becomes negotiable, and our rights become contingent on who controls the machinery of “mechanisms.”
Media
Detail
<p>In an interview with <em>The Economist</em> released Thursday, Steve Bannon said President Donald Trump will run for president in 2028 and “get a third term.” Bannon, host of the “War Room” podcast and a former White House chief strategist, said “Trump 28” and told viewers to “get accommodated with that.”</p><p>When asked about the 22nd Amendment, which bars any person from being elected president more than twice, Bannon said there are “many different alternatives” for Trump to stay in office but did not describe them. He said “at the appropriate time” he would lay out what “the plan” is, repeating that “there’s a plan.”</p><p>Bannon also questioned whether the amendment clearly prevents Trump from running again and asked whether, if “the American people” use “the mechanisms we have” to put Trump back in office, they are “tearing up the Constitution.” The context noted Trump has publicly entertained another term, and cited an August Data for Progress poll in which 50% of Americans thought Trump would attempt to run in 2028 and 69% said he should not.</p>