Jeff Caplan’s Minute of News: A third term for Trump?

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SALT LAKE CITY — It wasn’t exactly letting the cat out of the bag. For months, President Trump joked about a third term, and by now we know this is the way he rolls. He says something that’s seemingly outrageous, insists he’s just joking. His aids all go “heh heh heh”– joke — and then wonder if he’s serious.

 

Eventually, he admits that he is. Let’s take over Canada. Greenland. Panama. But this time no one’s laughing. Everybody at the White House knew he’d covet a third term, and here we are. President Trump told NBC’s Kristen Welker on Sunday that he’s not joking, there are ways to get around the Constitution, which says a President can only be elected twice. 

Unless — Now they’re saying if JD Vance runs for President, and Trump wins VP, Vance resigns and Vice President Trump takes over.

Is it constitutional? Sketchy. You’ll definitely hear that it’s unprecedented. But it’s been done before, in Russia.

Banned from a third term, Vladimir Putin got one of his cronies, Dmitri Medvedev, to run for President. When he won in 2008, Medvedev appointed Putin as Prime Minister. You can guess which one of them was calling the shots. Four years later, Putin ran again and he’s been living at the Presidential palace ever since.

For four years, they called it a Tandemocracy. Tandem like a bicycle built for two, and -ocracy, because it’s a form of government. Should it come here, President Trump would be 87 on his last day in office. Unless, he wants a fourth term.

Jeff Caplan is the host of Jeff Caplan’s Afternoon News on KSL NewsRadio. Follow him on Facebook and X. 

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