Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) caused a stir Thursday by entertaining President Donald Trump's suggestion that he could serve a third term.
The Kentucky Republican floated the idea, which Trump has raised in the past, discussing his opposition to a bill introduced by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) that would prohibit members of Congress and their spouses, as well as the president and vice president, from trading stock.
"I think we're going to discourage good people, successful people, from holding office," Paul told Fox Business host Stuart Varney. "Part of the bill, I do believe, would forbid the president immediately from buying and selling stocks, and it would exempt him from the divestiture part."
The president lashed out at Hawley on Truth Social on Wednesday, calling him a "second-tier senator" and accusing the lawmaker of targeting him specifically. Paul seemed to agree that Trump was the impetus for the bill.
"Future presidents wouldn't be allowed to own things, so Donald Trump or the next president, which, you know, or some say he might run for a third term," Paul said. "But he would be forced to divest everything. He would have to sell all of his possessions.
"I think Donald Trump's got a complicated, probably, financial empire, and a lot of people wouldn't want to get involved with all of that. You also don't want to sell it during a downturn. There's a lot of reasons to discourage successful people, and I frankly think some of the success of Donald Trump being president is he was used to the world of high finance, used to making deals with large amounts of money, and I don't think we want to discourage people like that from holding office."
Paul's comments set off alarm on social media.
"Chilling to see a senator floating the third term idea," wrote Dartmouth political scientist Brendan Nyhan.
"I love imagining a world in which Trump illegally takes power for a third term but follows the law in every other respect," posted Gizmodo reporter Matt Novak.
"He's LITERALLY USING THE OFFICE TO INVENT NEW FORMS OF CURRENCY TO MANAGE HIS WORLDWIDE CORRUPTION," added Bluesky user April Hawthorn. "Rand is like whispering goodnight to us here. lol"
"They’ll be aggressively normalizing with their cult the idea of not just a third term, but a dictator for life like in other countries Trump admires," said city planner Brent Toderian.
"Signs you might be a far right authoritarian party (#3191): Casual normalization by a sitting Senator of a 'third term,'" added University of Wisconsin political scientist Mark Copelovitch.
"Rand Paul casually dropping a Trumpian 'some say [Trump] might run for a third term' while pretending Trump is a good businessman," said Bluesky user Gabriel Montoya.
"Paul's framing of this is absolutely insane," posted Bluesky user Mark Willard. "The bill only prohibits the trading/holding of *individual* stocks; not diversified ETFs or mutual funds that comprise the majority of most people's investments. This wouldn't discourage 'successful' people from seeking office; just unethical people."
"Third term? That's unconstitutional," added Reuters reporter Michael Derby.
"If a third term for Trump came before SCOTUS, I'm willing to bet they would find a way to rule that Trump could run for a third term because it's *consecutive* to his second term, which would necessarily disqualify Barack Obama," replied Bluesky user Canadian Cynic. "That is *exactly* the sort of ruling they would make."