It’s a future as narratively neat as it is blatantly unconstitutional, and Donald Trump is all for it.
Speaking to reporters from the Oval Office on Monday, the president welcomed a hypothetical showdown between himself and former President Barack Obama in the 2028 presidential election.
“I’d love that,” he said when asked by Fox News’ Peter Doocy if he’d be ready to face his fellow two-termer. “That would be a good one.”
Though Trump spoke extensively about the possibility of another term over the weekend, he told Doocy that he’d done no research into the idea.
“They do say there’s a way to do it,” he said. “I have not looked into it.”
In an interview with NBC News’s Kristen Welker, Trump said he was deadly serious about running again. The president has teased the possibility of ignoring the 22nd Amendment and remaining the face of the GOP well into his eighties, saying on Sunday that he “likes working.”
“I’m not joking,” Trump said. “But I’m not — it is far too early to think about it.”
Obama’s roasting of Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in 2011 is widely viewed as the moment that kickstarted Trump’s decade of revenge. During a monologue, the president joked about Trump’s racist birther conspiracy theories.
“I know that he’s taken some flak lately, but no one is happier, no one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than the Donald,” Obama said at the time. “And that’s because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter — like, did we fake the moon landing? What really happened in Roswell? And where are Biggie and Tupac?”
Trump opted out of a run in 2012 and endorsed Mitt Romney. With a party that’s remade itself in his image in the years since it is doubtful he’d be so humble with nothing but the Constitution between him and a third term.
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