No, Trump can't run for a 3rd term — but he keeps talking about it. Here's what the president, lawmakers and the Constitution say on the topic.

President Trump has repeatedly mused about the possibility of serving more than two terms in office.

Trump is the second U.S. president ever to serve a second, nonconsecutive term in the White House. The only other president to do so was Grover Cleveland, who served from 1885 to 1889 and again from 1893 to 1897.

“They say I can’t run again — that’s the expression,” Trump said last week at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. “Then somebody said, ‘I don’t think you can.’ Oh.”

In a meeting with congressional Republicans in November, shortly after his second presidential election victory, Trump jokingly suggested they could help him seek a third.

“I suspect I won’t be running again unless you say, ‘He’s so good we’ve got to figure something else out,’” Trump said.

What does the Constitution say?

Trump is legally barred from running for a third term by the U.S. Constitution. The 22nd Amendment prohibits any president from serving more than two terms in the White House. This also applies to terms served nonconsecutively, as in Trump’s case.

The amendment states: “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.”

The 22nd Amendment was adopted into the Constitution in 1951 after Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to the White House an unprecedented four times: in 1932, 1936, 1940 and 1944.

Until that point, U.S. presidents honored a long tradition dating back to George Washington of a self-imposed two-term limit.

Could Congress change the 22nd Amendment?

Yes, but changing a constitutional amendment is a lengthy and involved process. It would require a two-thirds vote from both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Then it would need to be ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures.

At least one GOP lawmaker appears willing to try.

In January, Rep. Andy Ogles, a Republican from Tennessee, introduced a resolution that would revise the 22nd Amendment to allow presidents who serve two nonconsecutive terms to run again.

“President Trump’s decisive leadership stands in stark contrast to the chaos, suffering, and economic decline Americans have endured over the past four years,” Ogles said in a statement on Jan. 23 — three days after Trump’s inauguration. “He has proven himself to be the only figure in modern history capable of reversing our nation’s decay and restoring America to greatness, and he must be given the time necessary to accomplish that goal.”

Back in November, Rep. Dan Goldman, a Democrat from New York, introduced his own resolution to reaffirm the 22nd Amendment after Trump’s comments to the GOP conference.

“How he operates is by floating trial balloons that he often claims are jokes, but he’s very serious about it,” Goldman said on Bloomberg TV. “And he’s been talking about staying on past this next term for years.”

Has Trump said anything else about 2028?

On Election Day in November, Trump was asked by a reporter whether the 2024 campaign was his last.

“I would think so,” he said.

At a rally in Las Vegas after taking office, Trump said, “It will be the greatest honor of my life to serve not once, but twice or three times or four times.”

The crowd applauded, but Trump quickly corrected himself.

“No, it will be to serve twice,” he said, adding: “For the next four years, I will not rest.”

In a recent interview with Fox News host Bret Baier, Trump was asked whether he views Vice President JD Vance as his successor — and the Republican nominee in 2028.

“No,” Trump replied. “But he’s very capable. I mean I don’t think that — you know, I think you have a lot of very capable people.”