Dershowitz says he told Trump US Constitution not clear on whether he could serve 3rd term

WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump discussed a draft copy of a book by lawyer Alan Dershowitz that examines whether Trump could constitutionally serve a third term as president, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

Trump’s flirtation with the idea of a third term has alarmed opponents and constitutional experts, who say it would test the 22nd Amendment of the US Constitution, which Congress approved after Franklin Roosevelt was elected four times. The 22nd Amendment states in part that “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.”

But Dershowitz said he told Trump on Tuesday that the Constitution was not clear on the issue. He said that during an Oval Office meeting, he handed Trump a draft of the book, titled “Could President Trump Constitutionally Serve a Third Term?”

The book, to be published next year, lays out various scenarios in which an individual could serve a third term, Dershowitz said. He said Trump told him that he planned to read the book and asked him for his conclusions about a third term.

“He found it interesting as an intellectual issue,” Dershowitz said in an interview with the Journal. “Do I think he’s going to run for a third term? No, I don’t think he will run for a third term.”

One of the scenarios laid out by Dershowitz would see enough Electoral College members abstain for no candidate to get to the required 270 votes, passing the decision on to Congress, which would “select, and not elect, the president,” the report said.

According to the National Constitution Center, a nonprofit that studies the document, electors have only twice abstained from a vote when their pledged candidate was living, and neither situation led the election to be decided by the legislature.

Prof. James Sample of Hofstra University’s law school told the Journal that the idea was “absurd,” but suggested his own “credible” alternative — that one of Trump’s allies, “perhaps JD Vance and Donald Trump Jr,” run for president and vice president but plan not to serve.

They would then “resign upon taking office; and because the speaker of the House is not required to be a Member of Congress, Trump is elected Speaker, with the aim of succession,” Sample said.

The report came after Republican megadonor Miriam Adelson, appearing alongside Trump at a White House Hanukkah event, said Dershowitz told her it would be legal for Trump to run for a third term, and pledged that she would donate $250 million to his campaign if the president chooses to run again, as the crowd chanted “Four more years!”

Dershowitz, who defended Trump during his first impeachment, confirmed to The Wall Street Journal that he spoke with Adelson after meeting with the president and showed her the draft of the book.

“Is this real? Oh, my God, I hope this can happen,” Dershowitz quoted Adelson as telling him in response, before her remarks at the reception later Tuesday.

Trump said in October that he would not pursue a third term in what was a marked shift after months of teasing the idea of testing the Constitution’s language on the topic. “If you read it, it’s pretty clear — I’m not allowed to run. It’s too bad, but we have a lot of great people,” Trump said at the time.

Asked about the Journal report on Wednesday, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said, “The American people would be lucky to have President Trump in office for even longer.”

Trump won the presidency in 2016 and 2024 and continues to falsely claim that he lost the 2020 election due to extensive voter fraud, a view shared by millions of his supporters. Numerous inquiries have found no evidence of fraud.

White House chief of staff Susie Wiles said in a Vanity Fair interview published this week that Trump “knows he can’t run again.”