House Democrat: Trump not 'imagining a democratic election for his third term'

Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) compared President Trump's suggestion he could run for a third term to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is in his fifth term, saying Trump is not "imagining a democratic election."

“I don't think, by the way, that he's imagining a democratic election for his third term. He is trying to be Vladimir Putin,” Goldman, a frequent critic of the president, said Monday during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Inside with Jen Psaki.” 

“And we all know Vladimir Putin is in a democracy. He runs for election. It's a bogus election.  But that's Donald Trump's goal," he told host Jen Psaki, the former White House press secretary. "That's sort of his — you know, the ideal for who he could become, which is to ostensibly have an election, but not really. And that's where he's heading."

Trump has floated the idea of a third term several times since returning to the White House earlier this year.

He made his most expansive comments on the topic during an interview with NBC's Kristen Welker over the weekend. The president said he was "not joking" about the idea, adding that "there are methods which you could do it, as you know."

It was at least the fifth time he has addressed the issue since being sworn into office in January. U.S. presidents are prohibited from being elected to more than two terms by the 22nd Amendment of the Constitution. 

Goldman said Monday that Trump is not a “comedian” and contended the president is not joking.

“And he has a very set M.O, which is to float a crazy idea, claim that he's joking, have some sycophantic Republicans start to run with it, like in this case, Representative [Andy] Ogles [R-Tenn.], and then all of a sudden it becomes normalized and socialized,” Goldman told Psaki, referring to Ogles’s proposed amendment to Constitution that would permit Trump to serve another term.

In the January proposal, the Tennessee Republican wrote that “no person shall be elected to the office of the President more than three times, nor be elected to any additional term after being elected to two consecutive terms, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.”

Goldman seemingly scoffed at the idea, suggesting that is how Trump "moves it forward."

“He did it with self-pardoning back in 2018. And this is just yet more of his effort to break our democracy," the Democrat told Psaki. "That is what he's trying to do. He is trying to undermine the very fabric and the foundation of our democracy.” 

Republicans in Congress are dismissing the idea as something meant to enrage the left and own the news media. 

“We’ve got this little problem that’s probably going to prevent that from happening. It’s called the Constitution,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), a Trump ally, said. “I think it’s more tongue-in-cheek than anything else.”

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) stated that the commander in chief has a “great sense of humor.”