Rick Rosner On, 28: Trump’s Second-Term Troubles, Iran War, Inflation, and the Constitutional Limits of a Third Term
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Personal SubStack
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2026/08/19
In this interview, Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner discuss Donald Trump’s second-term economic and political difficulties, including inflation, gasoline prices, weakening employment, the Iran conflict, military deployments, and presidential rhetoric. They examine Trump 2028 messaging and the constitutional limits imposed by the Twenty-Second Amendment, alongside unresolved questions involving the Twelfth Amendment and presidential succession. They also distinguish lawful constitutional amendment from attempts to remain in power outside established democratic constitutional procedures.
Rick Rosner: So things are going really badly for Trump. He’s underwater in polling on several major issues, particularly inflation and the cost of living. Recent polling has put his overall approval well below his disapproval. He’s also got us involved in this war with Iran, and it isn’t working out particularly well.
Gas is roughly twice the below-$2-per-gallon price he promised during the campaign. The national average is now about $4.07 a gallon. There’s still inflation. The labour market has weakened considerably. In July, the economy actually lost 23,000 jobs, and previous estimates for May and June were revised downward by a combined 103,000 jobs.
It’s a terrible presidency, but Lance will never admit that Trump is wrong about anything. He’ll have all these belligerent, bullshitty arguments about how things are great and Trump is brilliant. And A, I don’t want to platform that shit. And B, I don’t want the frustration.
Lance is strong at this because he listens to a ton of conservative podcasts, maybe 50 or 60 hours a week. I don’t know. While he’s working on art, he listens to conservative content. So he knows all the arguments very well and can repeat them in his very forceful way. But as things go worse and worse for Trump, the arguments become more and more bullshitty.
Trump posts nonsense all the time. Over the past couple of days, for instance, he put up an AI-generated video of himself giving George Washington a tour of the new White House ballroom. He also keeps putting up Trump 2028 messaging, even though the 22nd Amendment prohibits him from being elected president a third time. Trump himself has now acknowledged that the law prevents another run, although he continues to promote Trump 2028 imagery.
His people say the country has become more affordable. Trump himself has repeatedly called concerns about affordability a “hoax.” That runs counter to what people are actually experiencing. Consumer prices were still rising at a 3.4% annual rate in July, while energy prices were up 14.7% from a year earlier. Grocery prices have also risen during his second term.
Gas is now a little over $4 a gallon nationally, compared with Trump’s campaign promise to get it below $2. Much of the recent increase in fuel prices has coincided with the conflict with Iran and disruptions to global oil supplies. The job market has weakened, too. He has failed to fulfill a lot of the promises he made to Americans while campaigning, and he’s handling these problems in a dickish way.
Then there’s the USS Abraham Lincoln, the aircraft carrier that has been deployed for more than 260 days and has spent more than 240 consecutive days at sea. Sailors and their families have reported food shortages, sanitation problems, serious exhaustion, and mental-health problems. Sailors have also attempted to jump overboard.
And Trump’s response, when asked whether the deployment had gone on too long, was that it was “not nearly long enough.” It’s an extraordinarily long deployment, especially given that the United States isn’t engaged in the kind of total war that would historically explain keeping a carrier at sea for that length of time. He’s lost almost any ability to speak about these things without sounding like a dick.
And then there was the episode involving Air Force One. During a trip to Turkey, amid intelligence about a credible Iranian threat against Trump, security officials reportedly used an Air Force One aircraft as a decoy while Trump secretly left the airport aboard another U.S. military aircraft. He was moved using an airport catering truck as part of the security operation. So it isn’t accurate to say that Trump himself grabbed a meal cart and snuck away on his own. It appears to have been an organized security maneuver in response to a credible threat.
None of this is good, but Lance will say it’s all great and evidence of Trump’s brilliance. I don’t want to platform bullshit or have to argue with belligerent bullshit for a couple of hours. As I said, the last time I did a show with Lance, I got so pissed that a couple of days later I got a light case of shingles.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: I am going to primary sources. Section 1 of the Twenty-Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states, “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.” The Amendment was ratified in 1951.
The Twelfth Amendment states that “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.” There is, however, a genuine unresolved constitutional question about whether a person barred by the Twenty-Second Amendment from being elected president is thereby constitutionally ineligible to serve as vice president. The Constitution Annotated expressly identifies that question rather than treating it as definitively settled.
Then there is Article V of the U.S. Constitution. Congress, whenever two-thirds of both houses deem it necessary, may propose amendments to the Constitution. An amendment becomes part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the states, or by conventions in three-fourths of the states, depending on the method of ratification Congress specifies.
There is also the federal presidential-succession statute, 3 U.S.C. § 19. It provides for certain officers to act as president when the presidency and vice presidency are vacant, but those officers must satisfy the statute’s eligibility requirements.
Rosner: So Trump is constitutionally barred from being elected president again. Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first and only U.S. president elected to more than two terms. He was elected four times, and the Twenty-Second Amendment was ratified afterward, in 1951, limiting a person to being elected president twice.
Theoretical legal questions remain about whether a twice-elected president could reach the presidency through a route other than election, because the Twenty-Second Amendment expressly speaks in terms of being “elected.” But the Supreme Court has never resolved those questions. The Constitution Annotated notes uncertainty about whether a two-term president could serve as vice president or hold another office in the presidential line of succession.
Jacobsen: So that is the American constitutional position, with one qualification to make it precise. Within the existing constitutional order, Trump cannot simply run for and be elected to a third presidential term. If the Twenty-Second Amendment were repealed or altered through the Article V amendment process, that could change. Outside the constitutional order, if the legal and democratic structure of the United States itself were dismantled, you would no longer be discussing an ordinary constitutional third term. You would be discussing the breakdown or replacement of the constitutional system.
Rosner: And we’re not there. An attempt to remain president beyond the constitutionally prescribed term would face immediate legal challenges. Declaring a national emergency does not itself suspend presidential term limits or extend a president’s term. The Constitution provides a process for changing its provisions: the Article V amendment process.
That doesn’t mean Trump couldn’t campaign rhetorically for president in 2028, claim that he intends to challenge the constitutional restriction, or use that messaging to raise money. But saying that campaign contributions could “go right in his pocket” would be inaccurate. Federal law prohibits converting campaign funds to personal use.
Jacobsen: Thank you very much for the opportunity and your time, Rick.
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