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Trump's Threat of Third Term No Laughing Matter, Says Democracy Watchdog
"It's a test to see how far he can go in his quest for unchecked power," said Stand Up America executive director Christina Harvey.
Feb 27, 2025
Between U.S. President Donald Trump's crackdown on immigration, to his administration's targeting of federal workers, and the White House's attacks on the media, a casual news reader may have missed that Trump has mused on multiple occasions about running for a third term.
But the democracy watchdog group Stand Up America said Thursday that Trump's recent remarks about remaining in office are worth paying attention to.
This "isn't a joke or a slip of the tongue. It's a test to see how far he can go in his quest for unchecked power," said Stand Up America executive director Christina Harvey in a statement.
Trump has made cryptic comments about a third term in office, something the U.S. Constitution does not allow, on multiple occasions.
While speaking with House Republicans on November 13, Trump said: "I suspect I won't be running again unless you say, 'He's so good we've got to figure something else out.'"
"Am I allowed to run again?" Trump asked in late January at House Republicans' annual issues retreat at Trump National Doral, Trump's golf club and resort outside Miami. "[Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.)], I better not get you involved in that."
Harvey's statement comes on the 74th anniversary of the ratification of the 22nd Amendment, which limits a person to being elected only twice to the presidency.
"Today would be a good day for every elected official to reaffirm the oath they took to defend our Constitution, including the 22nd Amendment," Harvey said.
Shortly after Trump was inaugurated, Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) introduced a resolution on January 23 seeking to amend the Constitution so that Trump could serve a third term.
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Judge Denies AP's Emergency Request to Lift Trump Ban Over Gulf of Mexico Spat
However, the Trump-appointed federal judge said he would expedite the case due to its importance.
Feb 24, 2025
A U.S. federal judge on Monday rejected an emergency request by The Associated Press to lift the White House's ban on its reporters for refusing to call the Gulf of Mexico the "Gulf of America"—but said he would fast-track the important case.
U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden—an appointee of President Donald Trump—said that the AP is not facing "the type of dire situation" that would warrant issuance of the temporary restraining order sought by the wire service, according toThe New York Times.
However, Politico senior legal affairs reporter Kyle Cheney said that McFadden "has ordered expedited consideration of the matter given the weighty issues at the heart of it."
Earlier this month, Trump indefinitely bannedAP reporters from White House press briefings and Air Force One flights over its refusal to fully adopt the president's new name for the Gulf of Mexico. The news agency responded by suing three Trump administration officials over the blocked access: White House Chief of Staff Susan Wiles, Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich, and Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
"The press and all people in the United States have the right to choose their own words and not be retaliated against by the government," the AP said in its lawsuit. The AP has explained that because the gulf is an international body of water, it will continue to call it the Gulf of Mexico, while referencing Trump's name change, because Mexico and other countries do not recognize the new appellation.
The White House welcomed the ruling with video screens reading "Victory" and "Gulf of America" in the James S. Brady Briefing Room, where press conferences are held.
"As we have said from the beginning, asking the president of the United States questions in the Oval Office and aboard Air Force One is a privilege granted to journalists, not a legal right," the White House said in response to McFadden's ruling.
"We stand by our decision to hold the Fake News accountable for their lies, and President Trump will continue to grant an unprecedented level of access to the press," the White House statement added. "This is the most transparent administration in history."
Dozens of media organizations—including pro-Trump outlets like Fox News and Newsmax—urged the White House to lift its ban on the AP.
In an extraordinary move earlier Monday, interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin used his official account on X, Elon Musk's social media site, to erroneously describe federal prosecutors as "President Trump's lawyers."
"We are proud to fight to protect his leadership as our president and we are vigilant in standing against entities like the AP that refuse to put America first," Martin wrote.
Martin's post drew a sharp rebuke from Democratic U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who retorted that "the U.S. attorney for D.C. is not 'President Trump's lawyer' and its job is not to 'protect his leadership' nor prosecute people who 'refuse to put America first.'"
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JD Vance's Hypocrisy Was a Trap. Many in Europe Walked Right Into It
By getting European political allies to rationalize or tolerate Trump's attacks on democracy and law, what Vance was doing was carefully setting the stage for an environment where the same things would be rationalized or tolerated here in Europe.
Feb 24, 2025
U.S. Vice President JD Vance threw a molotov cocktail into European politics with his speech in Munich last week where he said that Europe was abandoning “fundamental values” on democratic issues such as free speech and free press. “If you are afraid of the voices, the opinions and the conscience that guide your very own people,” Vance said, “there is nothing America can do for you, nor for that matter is there anything you can do for the American people.”
The broader European reaction to Vance’s speech was a mixture of shock, outrage, satisfaction, and glee.
For the outraged, Vance’s hypocrisy was staggering. The man who represented a government that had voided the convictions for all who violently stormed the U.S. Capitol Building in an effort to overturn a democratic election was lecturing Europe about values and democracy. The man who represented a government that has banned research funding based solely on the presence of specific words in the grant applications was lecturing about being offended by words. The man who represented a government that banned a news organization from being in the White House because it used the term “Gulf of Mexico” was lecturing Europe about free press. And, as a cherry on the cake, the man who represented a government whose leader would say that Ukraine was responsible for the Russian invasion was lecturing Europe on geopolitical security.
But there was a second category of responses to Vance’s speech—those who praised it as “refreshing” and important—where his blatant hypocrisy was both rationalized and diminished.
Vance knew he was being a hypocrite and these responses were precisely what he wanted.
Those who said, "Yes, it's hypocritical and I don’t like everything that’s happening in the U.S., but that doesn't invalidate his point” fail to understand that Vance's hypocrisy was the point. It was a conscious tool to undermine the very democratic values those in Europe who support him claim to protect.
Attacking European democracy, while representing a government that undermines democracy, fits perfectly with former Trump advisor Steve Bannon's famous political strategy of "flooding the zone with shit." You pump so much contradictory information into the public sphere that citizens can no longer distinguish truth from lies. Or, they simply don’t have the energy to care. And, in a sea of shit, everything stinks equally and thus everything is of equal value.
Here’s the central problem: if one minute you say “rule of law, democracy and free press are non-negotiable values,” you can’t then then turn around the next minute and say, “I don't like everything that's happening in the U.S., but JD Vance has a point.” If European politicians and opinion-leaders are willing to waive off Vance’s hypocrisy because he made some points with which they agree, what they are saying is that undermining the rule of law, the free press and free speech isn’t actually that important. And that's precisely the morally and ethically relativistic political ecosystem Vance wants to cultivate.
By getting European political allies to rationalize or tolerate Trump's attacks on democracy and law, what Vance was doing was carefully setting the stage for an environment where the same things would be rationalized or tolerated here in Europe. Those who waive off Vance's hypocrisy as secondary to his "main point" encourage the erosion of the very rights they claim to defend.
In short, if undermining democracy in the U.S. is dismissed as a mere rhetorical inconvenience, we set the stage for rationalizing and tolerating the same undermining process in Europe.
The hypocrisy wasn’t a mistake. It was a trap.
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