President Donald Trump last fall acknowledged that the Constitution bars him from running for a third term. But more recently, he’s seemed to open the door a bit, from posting an AI image with him holding a sign that read, “TRUMP 2028, YES!” to talking to Alan Dershowitz about the upcoming book by the Harvard Law School professor emeritus, Could President Trump Constitutionally Serve a Third Term?

Only one president has ever been elected to more than two terms — Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was sworn in for his third term 85 years ago this month. And although FDR won his 1940 election handily, he provoked an intense backlash from members of both parties, as well as newspaper editorial pages. His decision to buck the two-term tradition led to the ratification, a decade later, of the 22nd Amendment, which banned presidents from being elected more than two terms.