Originally posted by: Edso
How does that even work? If Trump resigns, his VP becomes President. We can agree on this. So who is the next VP? Not sure he gets to come back after his resignation, which is basically like quitting. Now if he is infirmed or incapacited and can't assume the duties of President, the 25th amendment calls for the VP to take over as President until such time as the President is well enough to assume his position again.
I guess Trump could resign, name himself VP and then after some time the VP resigns and Trump becomes President again. Pretty sure Congress is involved with this and not sure they would want to spit all over the Constitution for the Circus that is Trump.
In that scenario, the next VP candidate is whoever the new President wants. And I'm pretty sure that there's no disqualification for holding the office of VP, even for someone who's already served two terms as President.
So: Trump runs with someone we'll call Lackey as his VP nominee and wins the election. Immediately after Trump is sworn in, he resigns. Lackey is now Prez. His first, last, and only official act is to pardon Trump. He then chooses Trump as his veep and immediately resigns. Trump is now President, has a clean criminal slate (from a federal standpoint), and can proceed to fuck over the world. He would not be eligible to run for a third term in 2028.
However, the path for Lackey is not smooth. If either the House or the Senate isn't controlled by the RepubliQ, then Lackey's veep choice (the Turd) wouldn't be confirmed; the nomination needs both (majority vote in each case). So this scenario of the Trump do-si-do and pardon would only realistically happen if the MAGAs seized power in both houses as well as the White House.
And if Trump actually pulled this off, you'd see a march on Washington that would make Jan 6 look like a cocktail soiree.