Ten Years of President Trump? -- It’s Actually Plausible

I am writing this post as a means to generate some interest and curiosity about the U.S. political system (and I am doing so with a sense of levity).

Please do not take this as any sort of political statement or political endorsement.

For those of you outside the U.S., hopefully this will inform you regarding some of the fascinating nuances associated with our political system.

This post examines the plausibility of Donald J. Trump serving as President of the United States for a combined total of nearly ten (10) years. The interesting thing about this concept is that it is not all that far-fetched (at least, not as far-fetched as it might initially sound).

The plausibility of this eventuality hinges on Article 1, Sections 2 & 3 of the U.S. Constitution (which establish the procedures for impeachment and removal from office of a sitting president and/or vice president) and the twenty-fifth amendment (Amendment XXV) to the U.S. Constitution, which established the presidential order of succession as follows:

• Vice President
• Speaker of the House of Representatives
• President Pro Tempore of the Senate
• Secretary of State
• Secretary of the Treasury
• Secretary of Defense
• Attorney General
• …

Here is my non-legal assessment of what would be required for this crazy turn of events to become reality:

1. Donald J. Trump runs for Congress (in any of the 435 congressional districts in the U.S.) in 2022 and wins.
2. Republicans win a majority of the seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.
3. Republicans win a super-majority of the seats of the U.S. Senate.
   • NOTE: Republicans currently hold 50 seats. Fourteen Democrat seats and 20 Republican seats are up for grabs in the 2022 election. Republicans would need to completely run the table in the Senate in 2022 to end up with 64 seats. They would still be 3 short of the 2/3 required to convict and remove-from-office a sitting president and/or vice president. As such, Republicans would need support from at least some Senate Democrats in order to make all this happen.
4. Republicans elect Donald J. Trump to serve as Speaker of the House presiding over the 118th Congress of the United States of America.
5. The U.S. House of Representatives passes Articles of Impeachment against President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris (only requires a majority vote of the members of the House of Representatives).
6. The U.S. Senate concurrently tries and convicts Joe Biden and Kamala Harris of “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors” (requires 2/3 vote of the members of the Senate) and subsequently removes both of them from office, simultaneously.
7. President Donald J. Trump is sworn in as 47th President of the United States (following the presidential order of succession detailed in Amendment XXV of the U.S. Constitution).
8. President Donald J. Trump runs for re-election in 2024 (which he can do provided he takes office after January 21, 2023) and wins re-election.
9. President Donald J. Trump serves out the entirety of his second full term as president.

Under the above highly unlikely series of events, Donald J. Trump will have served as President of the United States for just under 10 years total. He would also become the third president in U.S. history who succeeded his successor, the first two being Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison (with the fourth being Joe Biden).

I hope this crazy hypothetical made you think a bit!