Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett says the U.S. Constitution is pretty clear when it comes to presidential term limits—regardless of what Donald Trump might say.
During an interview promoting Coney Barrett’s new book Listening to the Law, Fox News host Bret Baier sprang a question on the conservative justice about the 22nd Amendment, which limits presidents to two terms in office.
Though he didn’t say why he was asking, presumably it was because President Donald Trump has repeatedly floated the idea of running for a third term, despite the constitutional bar.
ADVERTISEMENT
Baier seized on the topic as Coney Barrett was explaining that the Constitution’s “genius” is that it’s “written at varying levels of generality.” Some parts are very specific, such as the requirement that the president has to be at least 35 years old, while others are broader and open to judicial interpretation.
“We have freedom of speech, and to have freedom of speech doesn’t mean that you have freedom only to pass out pamphlets on a town square,” she explained. “It means you have freedom to be on broadcast news.”
“Right, and the 22nd Amendment says you can only run for office for two terms,” Baier said, smiling.
“True,” Coney Barrett replied.
“You think that’s cut and dried?” he asked, the smile widening.
“Well, you know, that’s what the amendment says, right? You know, after FDR had four terms, that’s what that amendment says,” she replied.
Congress approved the 22nd Amendment in 1947, two years after the death of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose four straight election wins between 1932 and 1944 raised concerns about presidents serving unlimited terms. The amendment took effect in 1951 after being ratified by the requisite three-quarters of U.S. states.
It says, verbatim, “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.”
Some Republicans have nevertheless tried to argue that the prohibition only refers to “consecutive” terms, even though the amendment doesn’t actually say that.
In March, the president said there were “methods” for circumventing the 22nd Amendment and that “a lot of people” wanted him to run again.
“I’m not joking. I’m not joking,” he said. “But... it is far too early to think about it.”
The White House has since claimed the president is trolling his critics with talk of running for a third term, though Trump himself has refused to rule it out.
The president has a collection of MAGA-red baseball caps with slogans like “Trump 2028” and “4 More Years,” which he showed off to world leaders gathered at the White House last month for a Ukraine peace summit.
After Coney Barrett’s answer, Baier quickly moved on to a question about how the Supreme Court schedules its cases.
Earlier in the conversation, the Fox News host had asked Coney Barrett how she would respond to critics who say the Supreme Court is backing Trump’s power grab and “helping to certify” the president’s move toward authoritarianism.
The justice responded that the court is deciding cases about the presidency more broadly, not “based on the president, as in the current occupant of the White House.”
“We are taking each case and we’re looking at the question of presidential power as it comes, and the cases that we decide today are going to matter four presidencies from now, six presidents from now, and so on,” she said.
