Karoline Leavitt Breaks With Boss on ‘Trump 2028'
During her second 'new media' briefing, where Leavitt speaks to a group of mostly Trump supporters, one attendee asked Leavitt to play a game of 'Trump Troll or Trump Truth.' The game involved Leavitt naming whether certain Trump proclamations were his true desires or just an elaborate form of public joking.
Leavitt claimed that some of Trump's desires—including invading Greenland and having Canada become the 51st state—were indeed Trump 'truths.' But when the attendee asked her the same about Trump's musings on running for president again in 2028, she was unequivocal: Trump was joking.
'Trump trolling,' she said, 'although the hats are flying off the shelves.'
Leavitt was referring to $50 red hats sold by the Trump Organization that boldly proclaim 'TRUMP 2028' and have been promoted by Trump son Eric Trump.
The admission is an about face from Trump's repeated insistence that he was not, in fact, joking about running for a third term.
Trump told NBC News last month that, though it was 'too early to even talk about it,' he was 'not joking' about considering a potential third term and claimed there were 'methods' to circumvent the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution that explicitly prohibits such candidacies.
He has since tried to walk back the desire, claiming to TIME he didn't 'believe in' using 'loopholes' in the law and telling The Atlantic a third term was 'not something that I'm looking to do.'
Attorney General Pam Bondi also said getting around the Constitution would be a 'heavy lift.'
Still, Trump has left the door open to 'shattering' the democratic norm after claiming his supporters beg him to stay in the White House. An ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday showed that 62 percent of Americans do not want Trump to run fro a third term.
'That would be a big shattering, wouldn't it?' he told The Atlantic last week.
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