Can Trump become President for a third time of asking?

[brucejoel99]

Absolutely not, the 22nd Amendment is pretty clear.

FWIW, even with the 22nd Amendment, if Trump managed to get re-elected & live until 2024, & the '24 GOP nominee ran on purposely choosing Trump as their VP so that they'd immediately step down & give Trump a 3rd term, you can bet that Thomas, Alito, & the 1-2 Justices he'd appoint in the 2nd term (if RBG/Breyer depart) would be totally fine with it. Maybe not Gorsuch & Kavanaugh, & definitely not Roberts, but the lackeys would be a-okay with it.

[brucejoel99]

Absolutely not, the 22nd Amendment is pretty clear.

FWIW, even with the 22nd Amendment, if Trump managed to get re-elected & live until 2024, & the '24 GOP nominee ran on purposely choosing Trump as their VP so that they'd immediately step down & give Trump a 3rd term, you can bet that Thomas, Alito, & the 1-2 Justices he'd appoint in the 2nd term (if RBG/Breyer depart) would be totally fine with it. Maybe not Gorsuch & Kavanaugh, & definitely not Roberts, but the lackeys would be a-okay with it.

It's funny that you consider Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, Trump appointments, to be less Trump lackeys than Thomas and Alito

It's not that I consider them to be lesser lackeys for Trump than Thomas & Alito so much as they've proven themselves during their time on the Court thus far to be lesser lackeys for Trump than Thomas & Alito.

[brucejoel99]

Absolutely not, the 22nd Amendment is pretty clear.

FWIW, even with the 22nd Amendment, if Trump managed to get re-elected & live until 2024, & the '24 GOP nominee ran on purposely choosing Trump as their VP so that they'd immediately step down & give Trump a 3rd term, you can bet that Thomas, Alito, & the 1-2 Justices he'd appoint in the 2nd term (if RBG/Breyer depart) would be totally fine with it. Maybe not Gorsuch & Kavanaugh, & definitely not Roberts, but the lackeys would be a-okay with it.

It's funny that you consider Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, Trump appointments, to be less Trump lackeys than Thomas and Alito

It's not that I consider them to be lesser lackeys for Trump than Thomas & Alito so much as they've proven themselves during their time on the Court thus far to be lesser lackeys for Trump than Thomas & Alito.

How so? There are two cases coming to my mind where the Trump administration was directly involved. One is Department of Commerce v. New York, which was a total mess as each Justice supported a different combination of parts of the majority opinion. The other is DHS v. Regents of the University of California, where none of Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Alito and Thomas joined the majority opinion. One thing that must be said is that Gorsuch is very pro-criminal defendants and Kavanaugh is somewhat so, and that separates them from the other conservative Justices.

Thomas & Alito have been & always will be staunch conservatives no matter what (& thus are inherently more likely to rule in favor of a Trumpian argument), whereas Roberts, Gorsuch, & Kavanaugh are conservatives who sometimes swing a-la Kennedy.

Even when Kavanaugh was first nominated, a lot of conservatives (before the accusations) were upset because they were worried he'd be less conservative than Barrett or Kethledge. That worry was more or less accurate, as he has been conservative for the most part, but less so than some others (e.g. Thomas, Alito) would be.