EIGHT MORE YEARS... IS TRUMP SET TO DIG IN?
US president makes bizarre claim he’s ‘entitled’ to stay
DONALD Trump is eyeing up another eight years in the White House, four more than he can legally serve, he has told supporters.
A triumph in November’s election would seal a second term for the 74-year-old president but he told a crowd in Nevada he was ‘entitled’ to a third – currently banned under the US constitution.
Mr Trump told the huge outdoor gathering, where most attendees were not wearing masks, that he was going to win the state, which he lost in 2016, and four more years in the Oval Office.
He then claimed, to the horror of constitutional experts: ‘And then after that we’ll negotiate because we’re probably, based on the way we were treated, we’re probably entitled to another four after that.’ Mr Trump has long claimed his campaign Obama offering no administration, evidence. was spied on by while the
impeachment He believes scandals trial and such the as Russian his collusion investigation were attempts to derail his presidency.
Many dismissed Mr Trump’s talk as bullish rhetoric, designed to fire up his support base, but his former personal lawyer said his words should not be disregarded easily. Michael Cohen, jailed for paying hush money to women who claim affairs with the president, said: ‘He is going to automatically [from] day number one start thinking how he can change the constitution for a third term, and then a fourth term.’ The 22nd Amendment of the US constitution, barring any president from more than two terms, was ratified in 1951 after Franklin D Roosevelt served four terms. Before that, the limit had been an unwritten rule.
The president, who is behind in the polls, later held a second Nevada event, his first fully indoor rally in months, outraging state officials who warned it violated coronavirus restrictions.
Asked later if he had been worried about coronavirus spreading through the crowd in the Las Vegas suburb of Henderson, Mr Trump said: ‘I’m on a stage and it’s very far away. And so I’m not at all concerned.’
Governor Steve Sisolak tweeted that ‘President Donald Trump is taking reckless and selfish actions that are putting countless lives in danger here in Nevada.’
He added: ‘The president appears to have forgotten that this country is still in the middle of a global pandemic.’
Plans for the rally drew a rebuke from local authorities, who noted events with more than 50 people are not allowed due to Covid-19.
‘The city of Henderson has issued a compliance letter and verbal warning to the event organiser that the event as planned would be in direct violation of the governor’s Covid-19 emergency directives,’ city spokeswoman Kathleen Richards said.
Mr Trump used the event to applaud his own handling of the pandemic, which has killed nearly 195,000 Americans, the world’s highest toll.
‘We have done an incredible job, we get absolutely no credit for the job we have done,’ he told the crowd at the Xtreme Manufacturing facility, adding that his leadership had ‘saved millions of lives’.
The Trump campaign said temperature checks would be done at the door of the Nevada rally and attendees would be given face masks and encouraged to wear them, but few did so.
Mr Trump’s indoor rally in the Oklahoma city of Tulsa in June proved deeply controversial, with most attendees refusing to wear masks or engage in social distancing. Coronavirus cases jumped in Tulsa in the weeks after the rally.
‘After that, we’ll negotiate’
‘Reckless and selfish actions’