President Donald Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, accidentally blew up one of his favorite talking points — namely, that he can defy the Constitution by running for a third term.
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“I view this job as public service,” Leavitt told Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law, in a Fox News interview that aired on Friday. She added, “And I realize it’s temporary. President Trump is only here in D.C. for four years.”
While Leavitt is correct in stating that Trump can legally only serve as president until Jan. 20, 2029, Trump himself has repeatedly claimed he can run for a third term, most recently during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Friday. He has also worn a Trump 2028 hat and argued that he deserves a third term because he lost the 2020 presidential election.
“No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice,” reads the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, “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.”
This is not the first occasion when Leavitt has put her foot in her mouth. Earlier this month, her criticisms of Senate Majority Leader John Thune were so harsh that the South Dakotan lashed out, “Well, maybe she or somebody else ought to get on the phone and get the votes. Right?” Also in July, Leavitt was criticized for being out of touch when she described young Americans by saying, “My generation — I hate to say it, Gen Z and those younger than me —have been raised with just silver spoons in their mouths, just getting everything handed to them.”
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Leavitt has also mangled a metaphor on at least one occasion, commenting in July that Trump’s rhetoric “will shock you if you have an honest eye listening to the president.” A former Trump adviser for his Department of Homeland Security, Miles Taylor, joked by saying that “yes, and if your ears watch closely, you’ll be doubly stunned.”
This journalist also has a direct interaction with Leavitt’s penchant for gaffes. Speaking to me for Salon shortly after the second assassination attempt against Trump in 2024, Leavitt complained about a historian who compared Trump’s ongoing vilification of his opponents to the rhetoric of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
“It’s been less [than] 72 hours since the second assassination attempt on President Trump’s life and the media is already back to comparing President Trump to Hitler,” Leavitt told this reporter. “It’s disgusting. This is why Americans have zero trust in the liberal mainstream media.”
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