Third Term
Plus: Cannabis rules, people deported for tattoos, and more...
"I'm not joking," said President Donald Trump to NBC this past weekend, referring to his talk of seeking a third term.
"A lot of people want me to do it," said Trump on the air. "But I mean, I basically tell them we have a long way to go, you know, it's very early in the administration."
"I'm focused on the current," he added. When pressed on how exactly he could seek a third term—something barred by the 22nd Amendment—he claimed "there are methods which you could do it."
Get your morning news roundup from Liz Wolfe and Reason.
Get your morning news roundup from Liz Wolfe and Reason.
Some sycophants, such as Rep. Andy Ogles (R–Tenn.), have in the past introduced legislation to amend the Constitution to allow for a third Trump term. Former Trump advisor Steve Bannon told NewsNation earlier this month that "I'm a firm believer that President Trump will run and win again in 2028." Bannon called himself a "huge believer in democracy" in the very same interview, claiming the country is experiencing a "1932-type realignment."
He's of course referring to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who served four terms. (The 22nd Amendment, limiting the number of terms for which a president can serve, was passed after FDR's death.) No modern presidents have broken with precedent or attempted to skirt the Constitution in this manner. It would be wrong and bad for Trump to attempt this, and even his attempts to anchor—framing the whole negotiation, beginning to normalize such an idea early, going for the plausible-deniability approach and not endorsing the idea outright, resting it on how other people want him to do it—should be forcefully opposed.
The government can't tell what a gang tattoo looks like: On Friday, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to rule on whether the wave of deportations they've been conducting is legal. The administration claims that the case presents "fundamental questions about who decides how to conduct sensitive national-security-related operations in this country" and that we cannot wait for it to wend its way through lower courts.
This case will give us a sense of how the Supreme Court intends to handle the due process–free deportations Trump has been attempting under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which was used to put Japanese-Americans in camps during World War II and is now being used to mass-deport Venezuelans. With the gang Tren de Aragua declared a "foreign terrorist organization," the Trump administration has made the case that during times of war or invasion, citizens of a "hostile nation" ages 14 and above may be removed from the country with few legal protections.
One disturbing piece of all of this, beyond the basics: The Trump administration has apparently been deporting people based on their tattoos, with very sparse evidence that the tattoos signify actual gang affiliation. The tattoos worthy of deportation listed below include a nautical stars tattoo—common among people who've served in the Navy—and a Michael Jordan "jumpman" tattoo.
There are reports that asylum seekers were sent to a third-world prison for: having a tattoo based on Real Madrid, having a tattoo for autism awareness, and another for an alleged paperwork error.
Maybe they were guilty. And maybe they weren't, which is why due process is vital.
— Billy Binion (@billybinion) March 27, 2025
If you're concerned about safety within our borders, you should be terrified that the government is so unsophisticated at weeding out actual Tren de Aragua members. And if you're concerned about civil liberties, you should be terrified that an unknown number of innocent people are being deported from the country over harmless tattoos totally unrelated to gangs.
NEW: Another documents filed by the ACLU is an unclassified ICE document showing what it alleges are Tren de Aragua tattoos. The @nypost also published these in 2024.
But reverse image search shows these images were stolen from the internet and have nothing to do with TdA! ???? https://t.co/BFOlQQDM27 pic.twitter.com/HzB3CNxVGN
— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@ReichlinMelnick) March 30, 2025
Scenes from New York: Michael Flynn, a dispensary owner in Syracuse, New York, "is in some ways the type of person whom the state's legalization efforts were intended to support," reports The New York Times. "His conviction for marijuana possession 25 years ago put him at the front of the line for a state license to sell recreational cannabis products, part of New York's effort to right the wrongs of the war on drugs." (In this regard, he reminds me of Jonathan Elfand, whose story I featured in this recent Reason documentary, embedded below.)
Now Flynn is in hot water because he's attempting to exploit a loophole in the law to get around the fact that it bars a single owner from owning more than three dispensaries: He has started giving advice to would-be dispensary owners and allowed them to use his brand name, in exchange for a cut. The state's cannabis regulators are now scrutinizing his practices.
QUICK HITS
- "What [Secretary of State Marco] Rubio and his bosses are trying to do, via these guilt-by-association tactics—[Rumeysa] Ozturk wrote a pro-Palestinian op-ed, other Palestinian activists did bad or unlawful things, and therefore Ozturk has to go—is take every available measure to chill and outlaw pro-Palestinian advocacy, full-stop," writes Jesse Singal at his Substack. "Barring its adoption of truly frightening legal theories, the administration can't really do anything to directly punish American citizens for engaging in pro-Palestinian or anti-Israel speech. But it can try to stretch the law to the breaking point by targeting visa and green card holders, who are more vulnerable, and it can pressure universities to crack down on such speech with funding brinkmanship, such as it did with Columbia….I would have thought it too on the nose, even for the Trump administration, to try to ship someone back to Erdoğan's Turkey for the infraction of…coauthoring a college newspaper op-ed expressing a viewpoint disfavored by the regime. But here we are. We're living under an administration that admires the Erdoğanian way of doing business."
- On Friday, a federal judge ordered that a Venezuelan couple here on temporary protected status, with legal authorizations to live and work here, be released from federal custody. Judge Leonie M. Brinkema "rebuked government officials for claiming in court that the couple posed a public threat, and ordered both of them released straight from the courthouse," reports The Washington Post. "'There is no reason why they're being held,' the judge said. Addressing a government lawyer, Brinkema said, 'If this was a criminal case….I'd throw you out of my chambers.'"
- Very bad:
Wow. Huge drop in consumer sentiment among all income groups. Even the rich are worried now.
1) Sentiment is down more than 30% since November
2) People are worried they will lose their jobs. Two-thirds of consumers expect unemployment to rise in year ahead--> highest concern… pic.twitter.com/8215hFFDgo
— Heather Long (@byHeatherLong) March 28, 2025
- Amazing:
Can't decide whether to laugh or cry pic.twitter.com/mJ1kuiKOme
— Jeremiah Johnson ???? (@JeremiahDJohns) March 30, 2025
- In case you missed it: Our conversation with Phil Magness on Just Asking Questions.
