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(CNN) - Even as he fights for a second term in November, President Donald Trump already has his eye on extending his time in the White House for much longer.
"We're going to win four more years," Trump said at a rally in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, on Monday. And after that, we will go for another four years because they spied on my campaign. We should have a four-year repeat, "he added.
Of course, what Trump proposes is prohibited by the Constitution, which limits presidents to serving two terms. (If Trump loses in 2020, he could theoretically run again in 2024.) There is no "repeat" provision in the Constitution for extrinsic circumstances surrounding a president's first term. And even if there were, Trump's accusation that he deserves a third term because his campaign was spied on would not pass any kind of test.
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What Trump calls "espionage" was actually an FBI counterintelligence investigation into Russia's efforts to meddle in the 2016 election. On Tuesday morning, the Senate Intelligence Committee released the final volume of its bipartisan investigation into Russia's activities in 2016. It concluded, among other things, that:
* Russia interfered in the elections with the express aim of helping Trump and harming Hillary Clinton.
* Campaign Director Paul Manafort was regarded as a "serious counterintelligence threat" whose "presence in the Campaign and his proximity to Trump created opportunities for Russian intelligence services to influence the Trump Campaign and acquire confidential information. about her".
* The campaign tasked Roger Stone with searching as much as he could about the information WikiLeaks had on Clinton and the Democrats in general, and “Trump and the Campaign believed that Stone was insider and expressed satisfaction that Stone's information suggested that more publications would be made. '
* Two (more) Russians who participated in the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with senior officials in the president's campaign had "significant connections with the Russian government, including Russian intelligence services."
Trump appears to be upholding his entire espionage accusation, at least for the moment, in a guilty plea made last week by an FBI attorney who admitted to changing an email regarding the surveillance order of the former foreign policy adviser of Trump Carter Page. (The man claims he made an honest mistake and had no malicious intent.) That statement, when opposed to everything in the Senate Intelligence Committee Report, as well as the findings of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, appears to pale in comparison.
Of course, all of this puts more thought into Trump's statement on Monday than the president himself did. He knows his base loves the idea that he's the victim of a "deep state" conspiracy. And he loves trolling the media with unconstitutional ideas, like serving a third term. (His base also loves to trolling the media.)
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Trump, if pressed, would almost certainly dismiss his promise to "go for another four years" after winning a second term in November as a big joke that the lame media just doesn't understand. This is how he has repeatedly handled the controversy that arose when he suggested in the past that he could run for more than two terms.
Trump campaign launches face masks 0:49While I hesitate to suggest that there is a real strategy behind Trump's proclamation - being a troll is not a strategy - I do believe that he is absolutely obsessed with his own legacy and what will happen to Trumpism when he leaves office (either voluntarily or involuntarily).
By constantly mentioning that he could run for more than two terms, Trump is putting in the minds of Republican voters the idea that perhaps another candidate with the last name "Trump" could be the best option for the party in 2024. Like Donald Trump Jr. ., who has spoken openly about her interest in running for office, or Ivanka Trump, the only one of Trump's children who has an official position in his White House.
But everything Trump has talked about about third terms hinges on him winning a second term, which at this point seems unlikely. If Trump loses to former Vice President Joe Biden in the fall - and this also costs Republicans control of the Senate - the name "Trump" could look very different (and much worse) in 2021, much less in 2024.
Elections 2020 United States