9mo ago

ELI5: If Trump claims he won in 2020, wouldn't the 22nd amendment make him ineligible to be president for this upcoming term?

The 22nd amendment states "No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once."

Quantifying that, if he won in 2020, that would mean that he's been elected more than twice, making this upcoming term invalid. Couldn't the Democrats just say that he won in 2020, and then tell him he can't be president this time? What would be the repercussions to what Biden has done if that were to happen? What else am I missing? I'm hoping the hive mind here can help me be better informed.

24 comments

Constitutionally, I think “being elected to the office of President” means winning the actual Electoral College vote (which isn’t what Trump’s supporters are disputing).
- And while I agree with you, he (and his cohorts) believe he won in 2020. If the Democrats changed course, and claimed that he actually won, then I would think that would make his current term invalid.
  
  They believe he won the "election" in that he should have been awarded the most electoral college delegates. They might argue that the electoral college voting of 2020 was invalid, but you can't retroactively change the result.
  Like, if Trump claimed to have called Shotgun first, but Biden actually called it first and then Biden got to ride in the front seat. On the ride back, you couldn't say Trump can't call shotgun because he rode in the front seat.
  Trump wasn't president, because he didn't win. He still claims he should have won, but that's both a lie and irrelevant to the Constitution. He could also claim to have been born in Ethiopia to foreign parents, which would also disqualify him from being President, but that would also be untrue and irrelevant.
  He did incite and support a terrorist attack and attempted insurrection, which should disqualify Trump from holding any office, but we don't have a functioning justice system.
  
  Funny things about that though. Despite what MAGA thinks, you can't just say something and make it be true.
  Bottom line, he did not hold the position of president for the past four years, so there's no reasonable way to say that they should count against his term limits.
- You are probably correct. I mean, in reality neither is true until and unless the SCOTUS were to weigh in (so, just take a wild guess at what they'd choose?), but I would bet that's the justification they would use.
This would only matter if they cared about facts, or had any scruples or shame.
Yes, you are correct.
If only the Olympics had a category for mental gymnastics.
Invalidating an election four years ago with votes cast by millions so you can try and invalidate a next election with votes cast by millions of Americans in order to weakly claim a constitutional loophole… what could go wrong? Don’t sink to their level.
I think it's logically consistent to say "It was incorrect that I was not declared the winner of the election, and I should have served the corresponding term. But since the government did not recognize my election victory and I did not serve the term, I am still eligible to serve another term". I think it's inconsistent to say that Trump was elected for the purposes of the 22nd amendment, but was not elected for the purposes of serving the term.
(Please don't mistake me though; although I think Trump's position in this particular matter is logically self-consistent, it is not consistent with reality. He lost that election.)
The constitution clearly doesn’t matter given that insurrectionists can’t hold office and he is assuming office. The god kings rule us now and whatever they believe is law.
- For real. All these law and order fetishists never once consider that the criminal will just break the law anyway. Fuckin law perverts
Just because somebody says so, doesn't mean it's true.
Nice try tho
His argument has legal inconsistencies. It's been soundly rejected by every authority with any say in the matter, so ... You're entirely correct. If his argument were to be accepted, then he couldn't be president.
A legal argument being rejected also rejects the parts that would harm the person making it, as well as the parts that would help them.
It's like a person in prison yelling that they're innocent. You can say what you want, but the decision has already been made.
This is an interesting question IMO. I think his followers argument would be that while he won the election (in their opinion), he was denied the opportunity to return for a second term. But to your point, the 22nd amendment doesn't differentiate those two nuances. So yes, if they believe he won in 2020, it could be argued that he isn't eligible. But then that opens up a while hornet's nest of future election abuse opportunities.
He would have to be sworn in

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