Supreme Court Justices Barrett, Sotomayor seem to agree that Constitution bars a third Trump term

Two Supreme Court justices appeared this week to shut down talk of President Trump legally being able to serve a third term.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett and Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in separate interviews, shot down questions of the 22nd Amendment providing Mr. Trump with any wiggle room to hold the presidency beyond his current term.

The president has at times teased another run, with his website selling “Trump 2028” hats.

Justice Barrett, whom Mr. Trump appointed to the court in 2020, told Fox News that it was “true” the 22nd Amendment appears to limit the president’s tenure to two terms.

“That’s what the amendment says, right?” Justice Barrett told Fox News “Special Report” host Bret Baier. “After FDR had four terms, that’s what that amendment says.”

Justice Sotomayor, an Obama appointee, dismissed any argument of Mr. Trump running for a third term, also citing the 22nd Amendment, during an interview with ABC News’ “The View.”

“The Constitution is settled law. No one has tried to challenge that,” Justice Sotomayor said. “But it is in the Constitution, and one should understand that there’s nothing that is the greater law in the United States than the Constitution of the United States.”

The 22nd Amendment reads, “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.”

It was ratified in 1951, roughly a decade after President Franklin D. Roosevelt had been elected for a third and fourth term.

Last month, the president said he will “probably not” run for a third term. Mr. Trump was elected in 2016 to his first four-year term, during which he appointed Justice Barrett, and Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh, to the high court.