The Trump Organization Is Selling Merch Suggesting He'll Seek a Third Term

If you somehow weren't aware already, Donald Trump is the president. Although he was not the president from 2021-2025, he very much is now, and he was from 2017-2021. Thanks to an amendment to the Constitution, that means that Trump cannot run for president again.

In spite of that Constitutional reality, some are suggesting that Trump's official merch store is selling "Trump 2028" merchandise. Many want to know whether this is really true, and what it might mean. Here's what we know.

Yes, the store is selling "Trump 2028" merch, which includes a $50 hat with the words on it that Eric Trump posted about on Instagram. Trump's political operation also promoted the hat in a political post of their own.

As frivolous as this might appear, it's an indication that Trump and his team are seriously considering running for a third term, which again, is a thing they are not legally allowed to do.

The Constitution's 22nd Amendment makes it quite clear that “no person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.”

Nevertheless, Trump has been flirting with running for a third term as president for some time now, and this merch suggests that he's at least sort of serious about it, or at least wants his supporters to believe that he is.

When speaking with NBC's Kristen Welker, Trump said that he wouldn't rule out running for a third term, saying that "there are methods" for doing so.

“You know, we’re very popular,” Trump said, per Politico. “And you know, a lot of people would like me to do that. But, I mean, I basically tell them, we have a long way to go, you know, it’s very early in the administration.”

The shirt Eric Trump promoted on X (formerly Twitter) even had the subtitle "(Rewrite the Rules)” underneath the "Trump 2028" logo, which would seem to be a more explicit call to change who can run.

Although there have been arguments about whether Trump could somehow circumvent the Constitution, its plain text makes Trump's decision to seek a third term illegal. If the Supreme Court were to say that he was allowed to without changing the 22nd Amendment, we would be living in a functionally lawless country.

It's possible, of course, that Trump is just trying to make some money off of his supporters. After all, one of the defining qualities of his movement has been his desire to sell every conceivable product to his fans, and many of them have been eager buyers.

Trump's movement has also been defined by things that started out as something of a joke before becoming more and more serious.

Trump has mostly just flirted with the idea of running for a third term without ever fully committing to doing so. If he were to take steps to make that move more official, it would be a breaking point for American democracy. When we have laws, they're expected to hold even the most powerful people in the country to the same standard we're all held to.