Yes.
In fact, there’s a loophole written into the text of the 22nd Amendment.
The text notes:
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.
But then it adds this loophole:
But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this Article was proposed by the 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.
The 22nd Amendment was ratified in 1951, and at that point, Harry Truman was serving as president. Truman had succeeded to the presidency in April 1945, less than three months after FDR was inaugurated to his fourth term, and Truman served close to four years of that term.
Truman was elected to a term in his own right in 1948. Following the loophole in the 22nd Amendment, Truman could have run for another term in 1952, and had he won the election and completed his term, he would have served as president for close to 12 years.
There is such a loophole. In essence, a person can only be ELECTED twice to the office of President of the United States of America. But presidents aren’t immortal, as we all know.
And lately Americans have had a habit of electing very old men. Say for instance, hypothetically, that Trump would win in November 2024. He’d be 78. He could die a year into office, and his Vice-President would then assume office.
Vice-President Vance would complete the three more years of Trump’s remaining term. He could then, technically, win another two elections. Adding another eight years to his presidency. By the time he would go out of office after this final term, Vance would have been in office for eleven years.
I’m not saying this will happen — we don’t know. But it very well could happen. In the picture above we see Lyndon B. Johnson sworn into office following the Kennedy assassination. Deranged gunmen twice tried to shoot Donald Trump in just the past three months alone…
In a political climate where elderly men like Biden and Trump find their way to power, it is very likely that sooner or later such a man may die in office, or become otherwise incapacitated due to a stroke or the effects of cognitive decline.
It’s why Presidents usually have a (much) younger Vice President. A President who were to die or step aside a week after being inaugurated could, in theory, lead to his running mate having a 12-year presidency.
