OPINION — President Donald Trump is running for reelection in 2028.
Of course, he hasn’t officially declared it, the 22nd Amendment bars it, and he may decide to pull the plug later. But the president is acting like a candidate running for a third term.
Trump is raising millions of dollars for allied entities. He’s complaining about campaign interference. And he even has campaign merchandise. How would an official campaign look any different?
Trump has now been running for president for 10 years. His default setting is running for president. So it’s time to shift the conversation from a discussion about a hypothetical future Trump campaign to the reality of the Trump 2028 reelection campaign happening right now.
One of the most obvious candidate tasks is raising money, and Trump is doing just that.
“I’ve raised a lot of money for the next race that I assume I can’t use for myself, but I’m not 100 percent sure,” he told House Republicans at their winter retreat in Florida in late January. “I think I’m not allowed to run again.”
But then turning to Speaker Mike Johnson, he asked, “Am I allowed to run again?” followed by, “Mike, I better not get you involved in that argument.” That’s just one of many instances of Trump leaving the door open to another run.
Almost two months after I wrote a column in early February about a potential Trump 2028 run, the president left the door open again with NBC News’ Kristen Welker in late March, saying he wasn’t joking and that “there are methods which you could do it.”
Trump backed off the 2028 talk a little bit in a more recent interview with Welker, but he still has clearly contemplated it.
“It’s something that, to the best of my knowledge, you’re not allowed to do. I don’t know if that’s constitutional that they’re not allowing you to do it or anything else,” he said. “I’ll be an eight-year president; I’ll be a two-term president. I always thought that was very important.”
But, in the same interview, Trump floated concepts of a run, including a write-in option and “the vice presidential thing,” an apparent nod to the theory that he could get elected vice president on a ticket with JD Vance and then become president again.
If it acts like a candidate
Despite his evolving comments to Welker, Trump continues to act like a candidate. He hosted or attended $1 million-a-head fundraisers for MAGA Inc., a super PAC that supports him, in March and April, as part of an effort to raise as much as $500 million this summer to “push his agenda, help allies and punish foes,” according to Axios. MAGA Inc. can raise unlimited money but is barred from coordinating directly with the president’s official committee, as explained by CBS News. The fine print for the April invitation said the president was attending as a guest speaker and not soliciting donations.
Trump is also apparently accepting donations for a future presidential library since that’s reportedly where the $400 million jet from Qatar will go after Trump is out of office.
It’s not unusual for reelected presidents to raise money. President Barack Obama went on fundraising trips ahead of the 2014 midterm elections. But raising money for yourself and related entities without a future office in sight is not normal.
“The traditional model is for the president to raise money for House and Senate candidates in the midterm election cycle, and some for the party,” said a former top aide to President George W. Bush. But when it comes to Trump’s actions, “No president has ever done this. No one has ever done this.”
Fundraising for presidential libraries is supposed to take place after a president leaves office to avoid conflicts of interest. The current system is so opaque with the potential for corruption that a pair of House members from Florida, Republican Greg Stuebe and Democrat Jared Moskowitz, last year reintroduced bipartisan legislation that would require disclosure of presidential library donations above $200.
“Americans deserve assurance that presidents won’t be ‘bought and sold’ before leaving office, particularly as they still hold immense international power and influence over U.S. policy,” Steube said in a statement at the time.
Beyond the fundraising, Trump is also complaining about campaign interference. When polls showed his job approval rating sliding downward, Trump said on his Truth Social platform, “These people should be investigated for ELECTION FRAUD, and add in the FoxNews Pollster while you’re at.”
And when he didn’t like media coverage of his tariff policy, Trump complained again in the context of an election.
“MSNBC, the worst there is on Television misrepresentation, is so far knowingly off in their statements about me and Tariffs that it should be considered a Major Campaign Violation,” he said in another Truth Social post.
If he’s not running again, what campaign is there to be violated or election to be interfered with? In Trump’s mind, he’s always running.
If you’re still doubting the seriousness of his reelection campaign, there’s even Trump 2028 swag. While White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed it as “just a hat” at the end of April, the “Trump 2028” red hats are still available for $50 each from the Trump Organization online store with the description: “The future looks bright! Rewrite the rules with the Trump 2028 high crown hat.” The hat is not currently available on the campaign site.
Reaction
Some Trump supporters will dismiss this column as media fiction, but their responses often follow a clear pattern. First, it’s “Don’t be so sensitive. You’ve got Trump Derangement Syndrome. He’s just trolling. Of course, Trump isn’t going to do that.” Then it’s “Well, of course he did it. He said he was going to do it. They even made hats. Why are you surprised? Get over it.”
Remember, the question is not if Trump can constitutionally serve a third term, but who or what will stop him from running again and when. Testing limits until he receives enough pushback to stop appears to be Trump’s current standard operating procedure. Running for and being commander in chief has long been a political, business and legal strategy for Trump. Being president or a candidate for president is a shield against scrutiny.
If he doesn’t end up running, Trump is still setting himself up to hold all the leverage within the Republican Party for at least the next three years. By collecting campaign dollars himself, rather than to help other candidates or party entities, Trump would be able to threaten any wavering GOP lawmakers with a primary funded by himself and Elon Musk in the near term and then anoint his successor further down the line.
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