Trump Loves to Say He May Not Leave Office After Two Terms, and It's Dangerous

By Peter Wade, Rolling Stone

18 June 19

We are living in a time where the unbelievable has become believable

onald Trump thinks his supporters will want him to serve a third term, despite not yet winning a second. On Saturday, the New York Times reported that Pentagon and intelligence officials kept certain details from the president regarding a new U.S. military program that included cyber warfare attacks on Russia because of “the possibility that [Trump] might countermand it or discuss it with foreign officials.”

On Sunday morning, President Donald Trump, angered by the story, took to Twitter to blast both the New York Times and the Washington Post, calling both “the Enemy of the People.” Included in his dangerous tweet, the president also floated the idea of staying in office longer that what is constitutionally allowable because his supporters might “demand that I stay longer.”

As laughable or terrifying as that may sound, the notion that Trump would try to stay in office should not be scoffed at. We are living in a time where the unbelievable has become believable. As the Washington Post reminded us after the Mueller report was released, Trump shared a tweet from Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. that called for extending his first term by two years “as pay back for time stolen by this corrupt failed coup.”

Back in April, Trump seemingly joked about changing term limits and just last month House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke about Democrats having to win back the White House by a “big” margin, as to hold off charges from Trump and his supporters who may question the legitimacy of the 2020 elections. “We have to inoculate against that, we have to be prepared for that,” Pelosi told the New York Times.

No matter what happens this election cycle or the next, the one thing we can be assured of, is that Donald Trump will not go quietly. And his repeated talk about not respecting the rule of law—let’s not forget he recently said to George Stephanopoulos that he would accept information on an opponent from a foreign country—should be a red flag to the Democratically-controlled House that still refuses to pursue impeachment.