Trump hints at desire for third term before meeting with Biden at the White House

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump hinted at his desire to seek a third term Wednesday, telling congressional Republican leaders at a Capitol Hill meeting, “I suspect I won’t be running again, unless you do something.”

The comments came on a day when President Biden welcomed Trump to the White House, a routine part of the transition that Biden had intended to underscore the need to reinforce democratic norms as the nation prepares for a Trump presidency.

A third term for Trump would require a constitutional amendment — meaning supermajorities in Congress and the states would have to approve altering the 22nd Amendment, which limits presidents to two terms. Trump, 78, is already the oldest person to be elected president.

Trump may have been partly joking. But the president-elect, who often praises dictators, tried to overturn the 2020 election and has often made comments that have prompted concerns about his strongman tendencies — including threatening to be a dictator on Day 1 and to use the military to avenge “the enemy from within.”

For as much as Trump’s rhetoric and behavior have worried experts on democracy, his comments Wednesday suggested an appreciation for the role Congress would need to take in altering the Constitution.

Biden and Trump met in the Oval Office less than an hour after Trumpmet with House Republican leaders. The two men said little during a brief period in front of the press where they shook hands and appeared cordial, despite their rancorous history.

“Congratulations and I look forward to having a smooth transition,” Biden said.

Trump replied that “politics is tough and it’s in many cases it’s not a nice world but it is a nice world today,” while assuring a transition that’s “as smooth as it can get.”

Trump did not invite Biden to the White House in 2020, hampering the transition, as he refused to concede that Biden won that election. Trump’s obstinacy continued for weeks, culminating on Jan. 6, 2021, when Trump urged on an angry mob that stormed the Capitol in an attempt to halt the election certification.

Since Trump won the presidency last week, Biden and his team have made a point of highlighting their cooperation, which they see as a teachable moment in a public civics lesson. Vice President Kamala Harris, who took over as the nominee after Biden withdrew from the election in July, campaigned on the idea that Trump would be a threat to democracy.

“This is part of the process, when we talk about a peaceful transfer of power,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Tuesday. “This is what you’re seeing, kind of the beginning of that — when you see the current president and the president who’s coming in — sitting down in the Oval Office and having a discussion.”

First Lady Jill Biden helped welcome Trump, whose wife, Melania, did not attend the meeting. Mrs. Biden gave Trump a handwritten note for her, congratulating the once and future first lady and offering to help her with the transition.

Biden Chief of Staff Jeff Zients and Trump’s incoming chief, Susie Wiles, also attended the meeting in the Oval Office.

Trump’s transition process has been hampered in part because he has missed deadlines to sign papers that promise to avoid conflicts of interest while in office.

But in other ways, he will come into office more aware than his predecessors of the inner workings because he is the only president aside from Grover Cleveland to win nonconsecutive terms.

After he was elected in 2016, Trump met with then-President Obama in the Oval Office for 90 minutes, an encounter that Obama’s advisors described at the time as less awkward than expected. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner met with Obama’s chief of staff, Denis McDonough, a sign of the influential role Kushner was to play during Trump’s first term. Kushner is not expected to hold a position in Trump’s next term.

Trump’s failure to sign an ethics pledge has held back some crucial aspects of the transition, including access to agency and national security briefings and documents for his team.

Brian Hughes, a spokesperson for Trump’s transition team, said in a statement that the team’s attorneys “continue to constructively engage with the Biden-Harris Administration lawyers regarding all agreements contemplated by the Presidential Transition Act” — the law governing the transition — and would announce later whether they intend to sign the documents.

Max Stier, president of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan group that seeks to help improve how the federal federal government operates, said that the delay in the process puts the nation at risk.

“Taking over the United States government is the largest, most complex and important operation, I think, not only in our country, but the world,” he said.

The transition is a particularly vulnerable time in the nation’s security, he said, noting that the failure to prevent the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks was blamed in part on a truncated process following the contested 2000 election. Trump’s team needs to review documents and meet with current leaders throughout the federal government to make sure they are prepared for any manner of crisis, he said.

“You get ready by having access to critical information and critical people, to know what’s going on,” he said.

The president-elect has progressed in assembling his advisory team in recent days, selecting a chief of staff, Wiles, along with her deputy, Stephen Miller. Trump is expected to select Florida Sen. Marco Rubio as his secretary of State but has not yet made an announcement.

The lack of experience in running large organizations in Trump’s early picks for high-level positions is also of concern, even as Trump has pledged to improve efficiency with the help of Elon Musk, Stier said.

“The No. 1 way that you’re going to have an efficient government is to choose people who know how to run organizations well,” he said. “They’re not picking those people so far.”