Trump pulls out 'Trump 2028' hat at press dinner, fueling third-term speculation

President Donald Trump drew widespread attention Friday night when he pulled out a large red "Trump 2028" hat during his speech at the White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) dinner at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Washington. The moment came after he had spent considerable time calling out by name journalists he accused of writing critical coverage.

Trump told the assembled press corps that they did not know how lucky they were. "If I'm gone, you'll all go bankrupt," he said, suggesting that their ratings and readership depended on him even as they wrote unfavorable stories about him.

He then declared: "Tonight, to show how much I love the media and to keep your ratings up, and this could be a scoop, I am happy to announce my candidacy for a fourth presidential run." Trump added that he had "won three times," a claim rooted in his longstanding assertion that the 2020 election, in addition to his victories in 2016 and 2024, was stolen from him through fraud and that he had actually defeated Joe Biden.

While the dinner announcement was framed as a joke, most American media outlets have suggested it may be more than that.

Since returning to power last January, Trump has repeatedly raised the possibility of a third term — only to walk back the comments or give deliberately vague answers when pressed by reporters, consistently leaving the door open.

According to Newsweek, Trump said during a speech on Feb. 20 last year, about a month after his inauguration, "Should I run again? What do you think?" When the crowd chanted "four more years," he laughed and suggested the moment would make news. About a month later, on March 30, he was asked during an NBC interview whether his third-term comments were a joke — and he shot back: "No. It's not a joke."

He has also alluded to possible legal avenues that could allow a third term. Yet on the same day, in a separate exchange with reporters, he said he did not want to talk about a third term because he still had plenty of time left in his current one.

When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the White House last August, Trump remarked: "If we're at war with somebody in three and a half years" — around the time of the next US presidential election — "there won't be an election. I like that." The comment was widely seen as a nod to Zelensky's own situation, as the Ukrainian leader has remained in office past the end of his term under wartime conditions.

By rough count, Trump has publicly raised the prospect of a third term at least a dozen times since returning to the White House. Many of those instances were quickly brushed off as jokes, but several came across as entirely serious.

The 22nd Amendment to the US Constitution explicitly states that no person shall be elected to the office of president more than twice.

Franklin D. Roosevelt is the only president in American history to have occupied the White House for more than eight years. He won four consecutive presidential elections beginning in 1933 and remained in office until his death in 1945, a tenure that directly prompted the ratification of the 22nd Amendment in 1951.

Under the current Constitution, a third Trump term is not legally possible, and amending it would require a two-thirds majority in both chambers of Congress — a near-impossible threshold. Against that backdrop, some of Trump's most fervent supporters have floated an unconventional workaround: Trump running as vice president in the next election and then ascending to the presidency through succession.

Some analysts see Trump's periodic third-term references as connected to that scenario. His hard-line base has a history of extreme action in pursuit of keeping him in power — most notably the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the Capitol, when supporters attempted to block the certification of Joe Biden's electoral victory.