Democratic Attorney Argues Trump Could Run in 2028 and Serve Third Term

Democratic attorney and strategist Dmitri Mehlhorn argued President Donald Trump could run for president again in 2028, despite the Constitution’s seemingly clear language barring anyone from being elected to the office more than twice.

Appearing on the David Pakman Show on Sunday, Mehlhorn told host David Pakman that the real question would not necessarily be what the 22nd Amendment says, but who would actually enforce it if Trump secured the Republican nomination.

“Those questions are really important because one of the things we’ve learned in the Trump era is that laws don’t enforce themselves. And so the question is which laws can be enforced,” Mehlhorn said.

He continued: “And Trump can absolutely be on the ballot for the nomination of the Republican Party. The Republican Party could choose to nominate him. And once they’ve nominated him, it becomes very difficult for anyone to force him off the ballot or for him to, you know, be somehow invalidated. And so then you’ve got a realistic chance that he could become a president yet again.”

Pakman countered, however, that the straightforward “end point” of the conversation should be the 22nd Amendment, which he quoted as saying “no person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.”

But Mehlhorn sketched out a scenario in which Trump announces a campaign in early 2028, sweeps through the Republican primary and becomes the party’s nominee before a legal challenge can definitively resolve the issue: “The United States Supreme Court has, in a couple of decisions, basically made it impossible for any state to individually block what a national party wants. And if Trump goes to the Republican Party and says, whatever he says, make something up. You know, ‘my first term didn’t count because of the Russia hoax’ or whatever and he says to the Republican Party, ‘make me your nominee.’ I think there’s almost no chance the Republican Party would say anything other than ‘yes, sir.’ So then he’s the nominee.”

Pakman argued that it was his belief that the Republican Party would reject a third term bid but proceeded with the hypothetical anyway, asking what would happen if Trump did push the question.

“The legal machinery for someone to challenge him is very slow,” Mehlhorn warned, then later added: “Imagine a situation in June or July where President Trump is the Republican Party nominee. That would mean that the Supreme Court would need to declare that the next president is the Democrat. I mean, that would be how it works. And my observation of this Supreme Court is there was no way they would do that. They would say it’s a political question. They would say it’s up to the voters. I also believe that the Overton window moves very quickly. And so you’d have, like the New York Times journalists saying, ‘Well, it’s up to the voters to enforce the 22nd Amendment.’ So I don’t see anyone who could enforce it at that point.”

Pakman pushed back, saying he believed even the current conservative-majority court would ultimately declare Trump “ineligible.”

Mehlhorn also predicted Trump’s would-be Republican successors would be reluctant to stand in his way. Both Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, he said, “view themselves as the successors to Donald Trump” giving them little incentive to directly challenge him if he decided to run again.

“They also know that Donald Trump is much older than they are. And so staying in his good graces until he shuffles off this mortal coil is a far better shot for them to become the president than trying to challenge him and risk him flattening them,” he said.

Mehlhorn did dismiss one hypothetical route floated around Trump’s third-term ambitions, that he may run for vice president before succeeding to the presidency, noting that the 12th Amendment says anyone constitutionally ineligible to be president cannot serve as vice president. Instead, the Democrat said the more direct route would simply be for Trump to challenge the meaning or application of the presidential term limit itself.

“He’s a malignant narcissist,” Mehlhorn continued. “And he is very used to being able to use the United States government to protect himself and anybody around him from any criminal laws, and also to make a massive amount of money for himself and all the people around him. And if he leaves office, he loses all of that, and so do all of the people around him. If they commit crimes in February of ‘29 and they’re not in office, they could be held accountable.”

“And I believe that if he is able to keep going and if he’s alive, he’ll want to keep that and the people around him will want to keep that,” he added.

Watch above via YouTube.

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