Is Trump planning a coup, and saying it out loud?

Floating the idea that he'll run again when the Constitution says he can't, Trump is trying to normalize the idea while also letting people choose what they want to hear. Corporate media enables it.

Donald Trump uses a well-worn technique of saying several distinctly different things in one exchange, or in a series of exchanges, allowing people—including media, but also voters—to choose what they want to hear.

A case in point in the past few days is his answer regarding running for a third term, something that the 22nd amendment explicitly prohibits for any president elected to two previous terms.

A reporter asked Trump about Steve Bannon’s recent interview with The Economist, in which Bannon referred to a “plan” that would get around the 22nd amendment to make Trump president. “Trump is going to be president in 2028. And people just ought to get accommodated with that,” Bannon claimed.

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Trump answered the question by saying this: “I haven’t really thought about it… but I have the best poll numbers I’ve ever had.” (That was a joke, as Trump’s numbers are in the toilet—but he doesn’t pass up any opportunity to spread disinformation.) And then he said, we “have great people,” floating Marco Rubio and JD Vance as strong candidates for president, suggesting he would not be running for president.

But then Trump added, “I would love to do it,” followed by this ambiguous line: “Am I not ruling it out? I mean, you’ll have to tell me.”

When asked about a scheme racing around right-wing circles in which he would run for vice president in 2028—which is legally dubious, but less clear cut—and then become president after his running mate resigns once in the Oval Office, Trump appeared to throw cold water on it while also saying he’s “allowed” to do it:

Yeah, I’d be allowed to do that…You’d be allowed to do that, but I wouldn’t do that. I think it’s too cute. Yeah, I would rule that out, because it’s too cute. I think the people wouldn’t like that. It’s too cute. It’s not—it wouldn’t be right.

So, in this entire exchange, Trump both promoted the idea of running and refused to rule it out—which tracks with statements and actions this year, including trolling online with Trump 2028 hats—and suggested he wouldn’t run by promoting other candidates for president while dismissing what appears to be the only semi-debatable way he could legally become president again.

People can take from it what they want. Most of the media reported on both responses—Trump dismissing running for VP as “too” cute but not ruling out a third term—but there was little in-depth coverage of how Trump would seek a third term. I believe that’s because it would mean speculating that he’s lying about not using the VP loophole or that he will engage in a coup. And our corporate media is deathly afraid of going to either place.

It’s possible Trump is promoting the idea of a third term, as some suggest, merely to elevate his power and put fear into people while he doesn’t have actual intentions of seeking it. A lame duck president is seen as weak, and Trump may be trying to scare Republicans in Congress, so they don’t begin pushing against him.

At the same time, we cannot rule anything out with Trump. And media should be deeply delving into anything he says, laying out the scenarios.

There’s nothing in the major news outlets, however, about the possibility of Trump staging a coup—even though he attempted to do so in 2020 and sent his MAGA mob to attack the Capitol. Conservative former appeals court judge J. Michael Luttig, writing in the Atlantic, explained this week just how much easier it would be for Trump to be successful the next time:

Today, Trump has vastly greater powers than he did in 2020. He has a willing vice president to preside over the joint session of Congress that will certify (or not) the next election, a second in command who refuses to admit that his boss lost the 2020 election. (Vance has said that he would not have certified the results without asking states such as Pennsylvania and Georgia to submit new slates of electors, a solution he invented to a problem that does not exist—there is no evidence of widespread fraud in those states or any state in 2020.)

Trump’s party controls both houses of Congress, and he will surely do everything he can to maintain those majorities. The Supreme Court, meanwhile, has paved the way for a third Trump term, as it did for his current term, by essentially granting him absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for any crimes he might commit in violation of the Constitution or the laws of the United States.

This kind of discussion is exactly what corporate media should be raising. They may claim it’s too conspiratorial and speculative, but the truth is that they’re just plain afraid. After all, it’s nothing out of the realm of possibility for Trump, because he’s attempted it all before.

They fall back on Trump giving mixed messages, and much of the public that wants to deny what Trump says follows suit. But how many times in the past nine months have we heard from Trump supporters, from Joe Rogan and the bro podcasters to average Trump voters, who’ve soured on Trump and now say they only thought he’d be going after hardened criminals—”the worst of the worst”—in his mass deportations?

How many times have we seen them express astonishment at the tariffs to which they are now strongly opposed? How many times have we watched as they expressed shock about mass firings in the government or attacks on foreign leaders and lands?

Trump said he was going to do all of this. He explicitly discussed deporting tens of millions of people during the 2024 campaign, for example, and even raised the reality of deporting mothers whose children are American citizens.

But people pre-disposed to like Trump’s rage and who were easily conned by his economic promises only heard what they wanted to hear. And much of the media has enabled this by not digging deeply into what Trump says, particularly when he purposely puts out mixed messages like a smorgasbord for people to choose from.

Right-wing UFC star Bryce Mitchell, an evangelical Christian who said during the campaign that he’d “take a bullet” for Trump, is now calling Trump the “Antichrist.” The fighter wrote on Instagram this week:

I do not like the guy at all…

Putting America last, and now he’s blaming the beef farmers for the price of beef. Hey, I’m not biased, man. He talked a good game, he tricked me. It fooled me. I admit it.

I’m glad he admits he was tricked and fooled. But again, it’s not like Trump didn’t say what he was going to do during the campaign. People who choose what they want to hear need to be hit over the head again and again with facts and analyses of potential outcomes. And unfortunately, our media didn’t do that and still isn’t doing it.