Bret Baier Asks Amy Coney Barrett if Presidential Term Limits Are ‘Cut and Dry’ After Trump Floats Running Again
As President Donald Trump has repeatedly suggested he will attempt to run for a third term, Fox’s Bret Baier asked Justice Amy Coney Barrett about the (un)constitutionality of such a prospect.
The 22nd Amendment bars individuals from being elected president more than twice. It was ratified in 1951, six years after the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt, who ran and was elected an unprecedented four times.
On Monday, Baier interviewed Barrett on Fox News’s Special Report, where he asked about constitutional interpretation and the text of the 22nd Amendment.
BAIER: And for the folks who say, “Well, the Founders were dealing with completely different problems back then. They were not contemplating what a country could look like decades, decades later.” How do you– you know, they want a living, breathing Constitution that changes. How do you respond to that?
BARRETT: The genius of our Constitution – and I talk about this in the book when I describe originalism, I describe our written Constitution – is that it’s written at varying levels of generality. So, sometimes it’s very specific. The president has to be at least 35 years old. But sometimes it’s very general. We’re protected from unreasonable searches and seizures. We have freedom of speech. And to have freedom of speech doesn’t mean that you have only to pass out pamphlets in a town square. I mean, it means you have freedom to be on broadcast news.
BAIER: Right. And the 22nd Amendment says you can only run for office for two terms.
BARRETT: True.
BAIER: You think that that’s cut and dry?
BARRETT: Well, you know, that’s what the amendment says, right? You know, after FDR had four terms, that’s what that amendment says.
In an interview in March, Trump floated the possibility of running again.
“You know, a lot of people would like me to do that,” he said. “But, I mean, I basically tell them, we have a long way to go, you know, it’s very early in the administration.”
He added, “There are methods which you could do it, as you know.”
In an interview the following month, the president said, “That would be a big shattering, wouldn’t it? Well, maybe I’m just trying to shatter.”
Watch above via Fox News.
