When former Trump advisor Steve Bannon recently said President Donald Trump was “going to get a third term,” the panel of “The View” panicked if the thought if the president becoming a “dictator.”
The topic came up on Monday’s show when Whoopi Goldberg started with, “Well, you-know-who told us he was going to be a dictator on day one and, damn, if he isn’t a dictator!” per Mediaite.
Trump also addressed the topic Monday on Air Force One when a reporter asked if he would go after a third term, which is currently prohibited by the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
“Am I not ruling it out? I mean, you’ll have to tell me,” Trump said vaguely.
Alyssa Farah Griffin said the idea should be taken seriously since it came from Bannon.
“There’s certain people in Trump’s orbit who, when they tell you what they’re going to do, I listen. And I would put Steve Bannon on the top of the list,” she said. “He has been one of the most senior advisers to Trump the first time he ran, predicted the events around January 6th, the efforts to overturn the election. And I feel crazy because I feel like a conspiracy theorist talking about this!”
Sunny Hostin pointed to the current ballroom construction at the White House as a sign he does not plan on leaving.
“He is hooking up the White House because he doesn’t plan on leaving it. I don’t think he plans on leaving,” Hostin said.
Goldberg piped in to say she called this scenario years ago.
“I told y’all that years ago, that he had — he was not going anywhere,” Goldberg said. “He said it. He said, ‘I want to be president for life.’ I heard him say it, I watched his lips move, and I thought, he means this!”
Ana Navarro opined that Trump “wants to be an emperor.”
“This is a guy who has got authoritarian envy. He goes around to these countries and he loves — he wants the parades, he wants the arches, he wants the ballrooms, he wants to be an emperor, he wants to be an authoritarian,” Navarro said. “Paying no attention to the Constitution, that’s the way Ortega does it, the way Chavez did it, the way Maduro does it, Putin does it.”
“What if he militarizes everything? He has sent in the National Guard,” Hostin asked.
“He’s going to do what he’s going to do,” Goldberg said. “If he wants to do it and there’s no opposition, he’s going to do it.”
