If you’re not a fan of Trump, you might be thinking about any way in which his presidency can be cut short, if not halted altogether (I’m assuming by legal means rather than storming the Capitol to prevent the certification). There are a few things that could cause this, namely death and removal via impeachment or impairment, and there is also the small possibility of a third term.
Death
At 78, Trump will be the oldest person to assume the office of President (Biden was 77). Depending on which figures you use, he is either at or beyond the average life expectancy for a man in the US, and many diseases (especially cancer) have age as a risk factor, so there is a possibility that he will die in office. However, he does have access to the world’s best private healthcare, as well as a dedicated medical team that accompanies him wherever he goes. Surviving to 82 is not an unrealistic expectation for someone in his position.
Removal via impeachment or impairment
Unlike in the UK, where an early general election can be called by MPs, a vote of no-confidence can be held at almost any time, and the Prime Minister can be booted out by their party at a moment’s notice, the only procedural ways the President can be forced out of office are by impeachment or impairment.1
Removing the President via impeachment requires:
- The House of Representatives to vote by a simple majority to impeach the President.
- The Senate to vote by a two thirds supermajority to convict the President.
If convicted, the President is automatically removed from office and there is no avenue for appeal. Note that the President can be impeached but not convicted – this has happened twice to Trump and once to Bill Clinton. This is potentially politically embarrassing but has no legal effect.
As the Republicans have a majority in the House and the Senate, the likelihood of Trump being impeached is very small, and the likelihood of him being convicted – and therefore removed from office – is zero (Representatives and Senators rarely vote against their party’s president in such cases). If the mid-term elections in 2026 were a huge success for the Democrats then this could change the mathematics, but after two failed attempts I can’t see them being up for a third.
Impairment requires the Vice President and ‘a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide’ to declare that the President is ‘unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office’. In this case, the Vice President becomes the Acting President.2 I can’t see this happening, given that Trump will appoint loyalists to his cabinet.
Court cases, pardons, and appeals
There are a number of outstanding court cases against Trump, at varying stages of the process. The President has a wide-ranging power to pardon, which leads to two questions: are any of the court cases pardonable, and if so can Trump pardon himself? If the answer to either of those is no, then he is still potentially in trouble.
First of all, can a president issue a self-pardon? In the past, this has been discussed but never got as far as an attempt – most notably with Nixon and Watergate. If Trump did try and pardon himself, this would be challenged and would eventually get to the Supreme Court for a final ruling – probably in his favour, given that judges nominated by Republican presidents have a majority and have recently made it clear that the courts have less power to stop a president than previously thought. Alternatively, he could allow the Vice President to become President temporarily, pardon Trump, then give back the presidency.
Second, the president only has the power to pardon federal criminal offences, with the exception of impeachment. This is wide-ranging, but it does not include:
State criminal charges: There are currently four criminal cases with indictments in three separate states and the District of Columbia.3 Two of these (New York and Georgia) are state charges, and therefore are not pardonable by the President.4 Trump has already been found guilty on 34 counts in the New York case, and sentencing is due soon. However, the judge in the New York case may decide that the charges are no longer relevant after a Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity. Even if sentence is passed, it’s likely to be a financial penalty rather than jail time – no judge is going to send a president-elect to prison. Finally, in some states the governor may be able to pardon Trump, although that’s not going to happen in a Democrat stronghold like New York.
Federal or state civil cases: There are numerous civil cases going through the courts, where Trump is being sued rather than prosecuted. He has lost some of these already, and been ordered to pay millions of dollars. Civil cases can continue whilst the defendant is serving as President, as Bill Clinton found out.5 However, no civil case is going to result in him being sent to prison or anything else that could reasonably interfere with his abilities as president.
For federal criminal cases, Trump also has the option of asking the Attorney General, whom he appoints,6 to delay the cases until the end of Trump’s term in office or abandon them completely. He has already explicitly stated that he will fire the special counsel Jack Smith.
Trump also has the option of appealing the decision in most of these cases if they’re not pardonable. Courts have a wide range of options – anything from refusing to hear the appeal to reversing the original decision. Even if he is likely to lose, appealing pushes the case further into the future and delays judgement day – a tactic he has used successfully on many occasions.
Finally, it’s worth noting that even if Trump lost every one of the outstanding cases, it would not result in his automatic removal from office. This can only be done by impeachment or impairment.
My prediction therefore is that Trump will get away with at most a slap on his wrist and some financial penalties (which he can afford to pay or get someone else to pay for him). He will not be going to jail, nor will he be removed from office.
A third term?
The 22nd amendment to the US Constitution states that:
No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.
Prior to this, presidents could and did seek and win election to more than two terms.
There are a few ways that Trump could potentially get around this, if he wanted to:
Amend the Constitution: In theory the two term limit could be changed, either by repealing the 22nd amendment or by passing another amendment (e.g. to increase the limit to three terms). This is very difficult though, even for a president with a majority in the House and Senate, because it requires three quarters of states to ratify the amendment, and Democratic states are unlikely to do this. However, it has been done before, so we can’t rule it out.
Ignore the Constitution: This would be an extreme step, even for Trump. However, the Constitution is only as good as the courts which enforce it, and we’ve already seen that the Supreme Court as currently constituted is willing to stretch the limits of what is considered within the President’s power. It’s also not clear what the consequences of ignoring the constitution would be – if the worst outcome is that Trump is barred from standing then why not risk it?
Also, the 22nd amendment states that a person may not elected as president for more than two terms. Arguably this doesn’t stop someone standing for election – only if they win does it actually mean something. If this is the case, Trump could stand for election and, if he won the electoral college or the popular vote (or both, as in 2024), then he could argue that he had been fairly elected and demand to assume office regardless of the Constitution.
There are plenty of examples round the world of individuals abolishing, ignoring or working around term limits. These include countries which claim to have free and fair elections but are in fact autocracies or dictatorships, but also some which are considered democracies or republics. I hope this doesn’t happen in the US, but I don’t think we can rule it out.
Conclusions
Unless Trump dies in office, he will serve his full term and will at worst pay some financial penalties in civil cases (and maybe one state criminal case). A third term feels less likely, as there are constitutional issues to overcome, and at 82 even Trump may think it’s time to head into retirement.
- There is no way to call an early Presidential election in the US. If anything happens to the President, the Vice President takes over. If the Vice President is also unable to fulfil their duties, there is a clear line of succession.
- The President himself can also make a declaration of inability, but I cannot imagine Trump admitting he is unable to do something.
- The District of Columbia, often referred to as Washington D.C., is neither a state nor part of a state, but often functions a bit like a state and there is a long-running campaign to make it a state. It does have electoral college votes but doesn’t elect Representatives or Senators – instead it has ‘shadow’ versions of both. Confused? So am I.
- The other cases are federal charges, even though they start in a state or D.C.
- Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681 (1997) held that the President does not have immunity from civil cases for acts before taking office or unrelated to office, nor can they force a case to be delayed until the end of their term. This ruling only applied to federal courts, but it seems likely that state courts would take a similar approach.
- Technically the President nominates the Attorney General and the appointment is confirmed by the Senate, but as Trump will have a Senate majority a nomination is effectively an appointment.