On December 12 2019, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee tweeted ahead of a purported appearance on Sean Hannity‘s show on Fox News that he planned to go on the air to explain how United States President Donald Trump is “eligible” for a third term in 2024:
Huckabee’s tweet read:
I’ll be on @seanhannity 2nite @FoxNews at 9pm ET and will explain how @realDonaldTrump will be eligible for a 3rd term due to the illegal attempts by Comey, Dems, and media , et al attempting to oust him as @POTUS so that’s why I was named to head up the 2024 re-election.
Responses to the tweet were predictably unamused, ranging from outrage to dismissal (often from the same account.) The tweet also became the basis of several “breaking” political articles and blog posts, reiterating what Huckabee had tweeted without much context.
Huckabee did appear on Hannity’s show on the evening of December 12 2019, and the tweet was addressed both immediately before and immediately after Huckabee was introduced:
After reading the tweet, Hannity said:
Now … liberals on Twitter, they had a full-on meltdown over a JOKE … look at Susan Rice tweeting out “WTF??!!”
Hannity went on to describe Twitter users as “triggered” by the tweet, introducing Huckabee and beginning by saying:
Not that I should have to do it … but Governor, it was a joke. An obvious joke!
Regarding Huckabee’s original assertion, the 22nd Amendment was ratified on February 21 1951. It mandates a two-term limit on elected presidents:
Section 1
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 President more than once. But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this Article was proposed by Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.Section 2
This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress.
Huckabee tweeted that he was going on Hannity to “explain how @realDonaldTrump will be eligible for a 3rd term due to the illegal attempts by Comey, Dems, and media , et al attempting to oust him as @POTUS so that’s why I was named to head up the 2024 re-election.” What Huckabee actually did was claim his commentary was an obvious “joke.”
Regardless of Huckabee’s actual intent, the Constitution’s 22nd Amendment flatly prohibits third terms for presidents, save for cases in which succession is a factor.