Former Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has said she fears President Donald Trump could use the Iran war as an excuse to cancel the 2028 presidential election and hold onto power.
During an interview with the right-wing commentator Alex Jones, Greene spoke of the time that Trump met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and learned that the country had not held elections since the start of the war with Russia.
“President Trump turned to him and said, ‘wait a minute. You mean that if there’s a war going on you can’t have elections?’ And he said it jokingly but at the same time, knowing President Trump, I looked at that and I said—I know he said it jokingly, but I don’t know if he’s joking,” Greene said.
Trump did not use Greene’s exact words, but instead told Zelensky in August 2025: “So you say during a war you can’t have elections. Let me just say, three-and-a-half years from now, if we happen to be at war with someone, no more elections…”
Had Russia not invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Zelensky would have likely sought re-election in spring 2024, when the next presidential election was scheduled. But after the Russian invasion, Ukraine quickly entered martial law, which has since then been repeatedly extended. Under Ukraine’s constitution, the country cannot legally hold national elections during a period of martial law.
Greene said that Trump made the remarks to normalize the idea in the eyes of the public. “He constantly says it so that he can normalize the idea and test the support, and test people’s reaction,” she said. “I think it’s incredibly dangerous and no one should ever accept it.”
She added: “There cannot be a third term, no. That’s against our law, that’s against the Constitution, there is no third term. And if this country is at war, no—our elections should not be canceled.”
Greene resigned from Congress in January after a falling out with Trump and the MAGA movement.
What Trump Has Said About the 2028 Election
The 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states that no person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, 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 once.
Despite this, Trump has repeatedly mentioned staying on for a third mandate since his return to the White House, though he has also often spoken about who will succeed him in what appears to be a toss between Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
After returning to office in January 2025, the president told a crowd gathered at a rally in Las Vegas that “it will be the greatest honor of my life to serve, not once but twice—or three times or four times.” He added, amidst applause from the audience, that he would have only served twice.
A few days later, on January 27, Trump told Republicans at a House GOP conference in Florida that he thought he was not allowed to run again. “I’m not sure. Am I allowed to run again?” he quipped.
On February 6, 2025, he asked supporters at the National Prayer Breakfast if he should run again, as they responded with the chant of “four more years.”
A month later, he told NBC’s Kristen Welker he was not joking about serving a third term, saying many of his supporters would like to see that happen. “There are methods which you could do it,” he said in a phone interview, adding that it was “far too early to think about it.”
Shortly after, he told reporters: “People are asking me to run. There’s a whole story about running for a third term. I don’t know. I never looked into it. They do say there’s a way you can do it, but I don’t know about that, but I have not looked into it,” he told reporters in the Oval Office.”
In another interview with Welker on May 2, 2025, Trump repeated that “so many people” wanted him to serve a third term.
On October 27, 2025, he told reporters he “would love” to serve a third term while dismissing the idea of running as Vance’s vice president, saying he would be “too cute.”
A couple of days later, he admitted that the Constitution was “pretty clear” about forbidding a third mandate, saying it is “too bad.”
Could Trump Serve A Third Mandate?
Trump could only hold onto power for a third term if he convinced Congress to amend the Constitution to allow him to legally do so. For this, he would need a supermajority or two-thirds in both the House and the Senate—an unlikely political feat. Even if successful, the amendment would then need to be ratified by three-fourths of U.S. states.
“It’s not just a risk, it’s a likelihood that he’ll be the Republican nominee absent unforeseen events regarding his health or something of that nature,” Baltimore University Law Professor Kimberly Wehle previously told Newsweek.
“The 22nd Amendment is not self-executing, meaning it must be enforced for it to operate. States each decide who gets on their presidential ballots, not the federal government,” she explained.
“Ultimately, it’s the party that makes the nomination. If enough states put him on the ballot, the GOP will obviously nominate him—it has put no checks on his illegal behavior whatsoever this far, so it cannot be expected to choose the 22nd Amendment over him.”
How The Trump/MTG Relationship Deteriorated
After entering Congress in early 2021, Marjorie Taylor Greene became one of Donald Trump’s strongest supporters, including defending his actions around the 6 January attack on the US Capitol.
Simmering issues around the U.S.’ relationship with Israel and the conflict with Iran were brought to a head by the release (or partial release) of the Epstein files, with Greene attacking Trump’s unwillingness to fully release all documents related to the episode.
Greene has also queried Republican tactics during several recent government shutdowns, and attacked Trump for becoming involved in foreign conflicts, often encompassing vast amounts of financial and weaponry aid.
Greene said she thinks the Republican Party needs to be “burned to the ground,” in an interview with Alex Jones in April, the founder and host of Infowars.
MTG, Ro Khanna And The Populist Coalition
In early April, California Representative Ro Khanna and Greene both voiced support in a social media exchange for a new populist coalition that advances the interests of working-class Americans.
Khanna, a Democrat, and Greene criticized the ongoing war in Iran. Khanna said in a video on X at the time that he is “relieved” that President Donald Trump has accepted a ceasefire.
“But let’s be clear, this did not happen because of Congress, which barely made a whimper. This happened because of the force of the American people. Not just progressives and liberals, but conservatives like Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene and even Ann Coulter spoke out against the horror of threatening genocide against another people,” Khanna said.
Greene responded on X in early April, “Ro, I agree with you that we need a strong populist coalition of the right and left that can come together on the most important issues for the future generations of Americans.”