Trump Says He Can’t Run Again and the Media Is Throwing a Parade

Okay, so let me get this straight. The man wears a hat. A HAT. And the entire news media spends six months clutching their pearls and writing think pieces about the end of democracy. Now he says “the law is very strong” and they’re acting like he just surrendered at Appomattox. I have four kids. I’ve seen bigger concessions over who gets the last Pop-Tart.

Here’s what actually happened Tuesday night. President Trump got off a plane at Joint Base Andrews after watching a football game, and a reporter asked him if he was serious about running again in 2028. You know what he said? “I’d love to run, but the law is very strong.” That’s it. That’s the whole story. The man said he’d love to do something but can’t because the law says no, and somehow that’s front-page news.

Shealeah Craighead (Public domain) via Wikimedia Commons

The reporter actually followed up with “Is that a no?” Like, honey, did you hear the words that just came out of his mouth? He said the law is very strong. What part of that needs clarification? But Trump had already moved on because, unlike the press corps, he has other things to do.

Now let me tell you what the media has been doing for the past several months. Trump puts on a red “Trump 2028” hat at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and says he “won three times” and is gonna do it again. He floats the idea during his State of the Union. The Trump store starts selling the hats. And every single time, the same people who told you Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation act like the Republic is crumbling. They write breathless articles. They bring on constitutional scholars. Gavin Newsom, who can’t even keep the lights on in his own state, starts warning that Trump might “rig” the 2028 election. Steve Bannon says Trump’s going to be president in 2028 and people need to “get accommodated with that,” and the media treats it like a declaration of martial law.

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Here’s what I see with my own two eyes: a man who knows exactly how to make the press chase their own tails. He says something, they freak out, he watches them freak out, and then he moves on to the next thing while they’re still hyperventilating about the last thing. My nine-year-old does the same thing to his younger brother and it works every single time.

And here’s the part that really gets me. The 22nd Amendment has been around since 1951. It says you can’t be elected president more than twice. Everybody knows this. I know this. You know this. Trump knows this. He said it out loud on Tuesday night. But the media wants you to believe that he was secretly planning to overthrow a constitutional amendment and that his saying “the law is very strong” is some kind of stunning reversal. No. It’s a man answering a question. That’s all it ever was.

Government of California (Public domain) via Wikimedia Commons

You know who else was worried? Representative Andy Ogles from Tennessee actually introduced a resolution to amend the Constitution so Trump could run again. That’s a real thing that happened. A member of Congress wrote up legislation for it. And Trump just said, on camera, that the law is strong and he can’t do it. So maybe direct your outrage at the people who were actually trying to change the law, not the guy who said he’d follow it.

I did my own research on this, like I do on everything. Trump has been inconsistent, sure. He told NBC News in March there were “methods” to run for a third term and he was “not joking.” Then in May he said he’d serve only two terms. Then in August he said he’d “probably not” run. Then at the correspondents’ dinner he announced a fourth term. You see the pattern? He says something provocative, walks it back, says something provocative again, walks it back. It’s a loop. And every time, the press falls for it like it’s the first time.

Look, I’m a mom. I don’t have time for people who cry wolf. If you tell me democracy is ending every time Donald Trump puts on a hat, I’m going to stop listening. And I have. The man said the law is strong. The law IS strong. It’s been strong this whole time. The only people who didn’t seem to know that were the ones writing the headlines.