Don’t take anything for granted. Not even the 22nd Amendment.
Such is the warning of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who cautioned during an appearance on “The View” Tuesday that anything can be challenged. (Watch the video in the player above.)
Even though the 22nd Amendment plainly states that “no person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice,” that doesn’t mean someone ― President Donald Trump, perhaps ― can’t claim to interpret it a different way.
Sotomayor dispensed the warning in response to a question from “View” co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin about Trump’s repeated suggestions he might try to stay in office at the end of his second term.
“There has been talk that Donald Trump might seek a third term,” said Griffin, a former Trump adviser.
“It’s my personal belief that if he did, the Republican Party would likely support him,” she continued. “The 22nd Amendment prohibits somebody from seeking a third term in office. Do you believe the 22nd Amendment is settled law?”
“The Constitution is settled law,” Sotomayor replied. “No one has tried to challenge that. Until somebody tries, you don’t know. So, it’s not settled because we don’t have a court case about that issue, but it is in the Constitution,” she continued.
“One should understand that there’s nothing that is the greater law in the United States than the Constitution of the United States,” Sotomayor added.
Earlier in the interview, Sotomayor struck a more introspective tone as she reflected on the weight of the court’s recent decision enabling racial profiling by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Los Angeles.
Beyond its immediate consequences, the decision will have unintended ripple effects, the justice predicted.
“It affects your future. And it affects the conduct of leaders in the future, because what we permit today is not going to be duplicated exactly tomorrow. It’s going to be something different,” said Sotomayor.
“It will be a different group of people. It will be a different situation. But once we have approved it, it sets a precedent that can be ... really bad.”
“Each time we change precedent, we are changing the contours of a right that people thought they had. Once you take that away, think of how much more is at risk later,” she later added.
Fox News’ Bret Baier posed a similar question about the 22nd Amendment to Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett on Monday, and she offered a somewhat ambiguous response, sparking alarm among political observers.
“The 22nd Amendment says you can only run for office for two terms,” Baier noted, to which Barrett replied: “True.”
Asked if she thinks “that’s cut and dry,” however, she didn’t exactly answer in the affirmative.
“Well, that’s, you know, that’s what the amendment says, right?” Barrett said. “After FDR had four terms, that’s what that amendment says.”