Bannon claims ‘there is a plan’ for Trump to run for a third term

WASHINGTON – Pro-Trump podcaster Steve Bannon, who briefly served as US President Donald Trump’s White House chief strategist in his first term, has publicly thrown his support behind the President’s talk of seeking a third term, in defiance of a constitutionally mandated two-term limit.

In an interview with The Economist, the convicted fraudster vaguely asserted that there was “a plan” to circumvent the 22nd Amendment, which states that “no person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice”, regardless of whether the terms are consecutive. He also suggested that he was part of a team developing that plan.

“Trump is gonna be president in ’28, and people ought to just get accommodated with that.

“At the appropriate time, we’ll lay out what the plan is,” Bannon said, without elaborating. “But there is a plan.”

He added that Mr Trump was an “instrument of divine will”, echoing – as the President himself has – the language of the divine right of kings.

Bannon’s statement comes after months of Mr Trump publicly toying with the idea of running for a third term. Even as the President insists he is serious, some Republican leaders have dismissed the idea as a joke, noting that the Constitution does not permit it. White House aides have mocked reporters for taking the President at his word.

Mr Trump has for years publicly and privately joked about being “president for life”. In 2019, he began posting a video on social media of an edited version of a Time magazine cover with imaginary campaign signs for 2024, 2028, 2032 and far beyond.

On Oct 19, he posted that video again, alongside fake videos depicting him as a king and dumping brown liquid on

“No Kings” protesters.

He has also at times said he would not run again. When asked by a New York Times reporter on election day in 2024 whether that year’s campaign was his last, he said: “I would think so.” His musings about a third term could be a way to avoid being seen as a lame-duck president, analysts say.

It is unclear if Bannon has been in touch with Mr Trump or his aides about the idea. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Bannon has not worked in the Trump White House since 2017 and is known for being a provocateur. In February, he was convicted of defrauding donors who had sought to help build a wall at the US’ southern border.

And he is not always in lockstep with Mr Trump and his administration, questioning the military campaign against suspected drug traffickers and the end of the investigation into convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Still, the podcaster has considerable influence among the far right. He was one of the most powerful voices amplifying Mr Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him, culminating in the Jan 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

And Mr Trump has previously adopted fringe ideas developed by right-wing allies after initially distancing himself from them.

Mr Trump had, for example, repeatedly insisted before the 2024 election that he had “nothing to do with Project 2025”, an unpopular right-wing policy plan written by Republican allies that was widely viewed as extreme.

He then adopted many of those policies and hired Mr Russell Vought, a Project 2025 architect, to lead his White House budget office.

Mr Trump bragged about Mr Vought’s connection to those policies earlier in October, describing him as being “of Project 2025 fame”. NYTIMES