Steve Bannon and the ‘Plan’ for a Neverending ‘Age Of Trump’

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Steve Bannon, the MAGA broadcaster and once-and-future adviser to President Donald Trump, just gave an interview to The Economist where he openly discussed a potential “plan” for a third term. 

“Well, he’s going to get a third term. So, Trump ‘28,” Bannon said. “Trump is going to be president in ‘28 and people just ought to get accommodated with that.”

This isn’t the first time Bannon has mused about Trump serving for 12 years — or more. Other high-level Trump allies have also hinted at the possibility and, as we’ve already told you in this very newsletter, the official campaign store even has “TRUMP 2028” merch ready to go. 

Many observers have dismissed all of this out of hand given that the 22nd Amendment seemingly serves as a hard line enforcing the two term limit. There are, however, actual legal experts who think there could be loopholes to this including a technique essentially pioneered by Russia’s Vladimir Putin, where the president joins a ticket as the vice president with the tacit understanding their running mate would move aside or serve as a mere figurehead. Another potential avenue experts have raised involves challenging whether the 22nd Amendment means solely two terms or actually only two consecutive terms. 

Most experts argue these various end runs violate the clear intent of the constitutional amendment. However, if we’ve learned anything about Trump and the Supreme Court that he has increasingly made over, it’s that they are willing to push legal boundaries to serve his interests. 

In this interview, Bannon didn’t say which route Trump’s allies are focused on, but he insisted that there is a “plan” in place. 

“There’s many different alternatives. At the appropriate time, we’ll lay out what the plan is, but there’s a plan and President Trump will be the president in ‘28,” Bannon said.

Bannon also cast the effort to erode one of the core traditional curbs on presidential power in positively Biblical terms. 

“President Trump will be the president of the United States and the country needs him to be president of the United States,” he said. “We have to finish what we started and the way we finish it — through Trump … He’s a vehicle of divine providence. He’s an instrument. He’s very imperfect. He’s not churchy, not particularly religious. but he’s an instrument of divine will.”

Bannon also offered a distinctly dictatorial vision for the “endpoint” of what he termed the “Age of Trump.” He said it would include Trump allies taking “control” of both “the institutions” and the “political process” en route to establishing “an entrepreneurial capitalism paradise.”

“We have to seize the institutions, seize them and then purge them,” Bannon said. “It’s not the DOGE crap, this is serious people like Russ Vought and others that have spent years thinking this whole plan through.”

Despite all of this talk of defying term limits, taking total power, and enacting dramatic purges, Bannon insisted the whole thing somehow isn’t blatant authoritarianism.

“President Trump is nothing but a series of negotiations,” Bannon said, adding, “He’s having tradeoffs all the time.”

The refusal to fully call this what it is and the obvious questionably legal nature of all this might make it tempting to dismiss. However, Trump allies continue to send loud and clear signals that this is something they are considering. And, hasn’t the president broken so many other aspects of our traditional government? Why doubt he would try to destroy term limits when Trump has literally demolished the White House?

In the end, Bannon said one thing we can probably all agree on: Trump’s authoritarian ambitions are clear, the only question is whether the population will let him achieve them. 

“The only way President Trump wins in 2028 and continues to stay in office is by the will of the American people,” Bannon said.

— Hunter Walker

Here’s what else TPM has on tap

• Even a handful of Republicans think it’s not the best look for Trump to be demanding a $230 million settlement from the Justice Department that he, essentially, runs out of the White House.
• National Democrats released the findings of a poll of Maryland voters this week, in an attempt to gently nudge state Democrats in the direction of redrawing some congressional district lines before the midterms to help offset the impact of Trump’s power grab.
• The good, the bad and the ugly: For TPM’s 25th anniversary, join us on a journey through 25 years of digital media history.
• House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) strategy — keeping the House out of session to compel Democrats to fold — doesn’t seem to be working.

Let’s dig in.

Even Some Senate GOPers Think It’s a Bad Look

By now, you’ve likely heard the news that President Trump is demanding that the Justice Department pay him $230 million in damages for what he claims are wrongful prosecutions damages. His former personal lawyer, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, is the person poised to sign off on the settlement.

Obviously, this is a total shitshow and a completely unprecedented action by the lawless president, who is running the Justice Department out of the White House. House Democrats have already launched an investigation into Trump’s discussions with the DOJ about the settlement. Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and Robert Garcia (D-CA), the top Dems on the House Judiciary and House Oversight Committees, respectively, called Trump’s actions a “blatantly illegal and unconstitutional effort to steal $230 million from the American people.”

But the move is so befuddling and ill-timed, it even has some members of the Senate Republican conference uncomfortable. Senate Judiciary Committee senior member Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) took issue with Blanche’s role in the whole ordeal.

“He shouldn’t decide, because he’s his former lawyer,” Graham told The Hill this week.

Retiring Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) took issue with the timing of Trump’s request, telling reporters this week that the “optics” were bad during a shutdown.

“At the very least, it’s horrible timing, given that we’re in a shutdown,” he said. “I got a lot of optics concerns, and I just don’t know if there’s precedent for it. There doesn’t seem to be.”

Another Republican acknowledged that it might just add fuel to the fire for people who are already protesting against Trump’s lawless presidency.

“The man, woman on the street, they know Donald Trump, they elected Donald Trump. Nothing about this, I don’t think, is either surprising or concerning to them,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) said. “That doesn’t mean it isn’t a good talking point for the No Kings crowd.”

— Nicole LaFond

25 Years of Digital Media

As you may have heard, TPM is turning 25 this year. But we know our story is far from the only one worth telling in the past 25 years of digital media. So we went out to a group of writers we admire — 25 of them, naturally — to weigh in on a moment or idea that’s shaped our strange and ever-changing online journalism ecosystem.

We’re rolling out this series, Pivots, Trolls and Blog Rolls, for the next few weeks on this lovely landing page that our design team put together. Already, you can read pieces like Elizabeth Spiers’ requiem for the early blogging years, Dave Dayen’s excellent takedown of D.C. access journalism, and our own Josh Marshall on the fundamental error of treating digital journalism like part of the tech business. We hope you like it.

— Allegra Kirkland

Poll Finds Maryland Voters Support Dem Redistricting to Level Playing Field 

Congressional Democrats are pushing the message to Democratic members of Maryland’s state legislature that redistricting that favors Democrats is needed to offset the impact of gerrymandering in Republican-led states, and to level the playing field. 

New polling by Change Research, first reported by Politico, has found that the majority of Maryland Democratic voters surveyed view redistricting efforts as necessary to counter the Trump administration’s pressure campaign on red states to change their congressional maps ahead of the midterm elections.

 The mid-cycle redistricting push by the Trump administration is part of an effort to ensure Republicans maintain control of the U.S. House. So far, states like Texas, Missouri, and North Carolina have all approved revised congressional maps that will likely flip Democratic seats. 

The polling for this research was conducted online from October 8 to 10 of this year, surveying 909 likely Maryland voters. 

According to the research, 85 percent of Democrats, 65 percent of Independents, and 23 percent of Republicans, responded that they believe that redistricting is necessary “both to provide a check on Trump and to undo some of the substantive damage being done by the Republican Congress.”

The poll also found that, after reading the arguments for redistricting on both sides, 69 percent of Democratic voters would be more likely to vote for a candidate who is supportive of redistricting.

This is one of several ways national Democrats are nudging the Democrats in Maryland’s state legislature to embrace redistricting. Earlier this month, per reporting from NBC, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jefferies (D-NY) met with Democratic Maryland Gov. Wes Moore to discuss possible redistricting plans in the state. And on Wednesday, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), described redistricting, in a post on X, as a “a political and ethical imperative to fight back across America, from coast to coast, from California to the Free State.” 

Similar Democrat-led redistricting counter-efforts are currently underway in California, where voters will vote on a measure next month to approve new congressional maps. And in Virginia, Democratic lawmakers have launched a campaign to redraw their congressional maps. 

— Khaya Himmelman

Johnson Won’t Bring House Back Next Week

It’s day 25 of the government shutdown.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said this week he won’t bring the House back in session to vote on a bill that would help pay air traffic controllers and other essential workers during the government shutdown.

The Speaker claimed the measure “would be spiked in the Senate,” adding that bringing back the House “would take the pressure off Chuck Schumer to get his job done and open the government again.”

For the sixth week in a row, the House is expected to be out of session next week.

Tuesday will be the first paycheck air traffic controllers will miss due to the shutdown, according to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. And hundreds of thousands of other federal workers officially missed their paychecks on Friday.

Separate party-line bills to pay some exempted federal workers during the shutdown failed in the Senate on Thursday. The issue may come up again next week as senators involved may try to combine their bills and come up with a bipartisan measure.

Meanwhile President Donald Trump doesn’t seem to be planning to negotiate with Democrats to reopen the government any time soon. He left for an extended Asia trip on Friday. Senate Republicans have also shown no signs of negotiating with Dems, who are asking for an extension of the ACA subsidies in exchange for their votes. 

— Emine Yücel