Trump calls for congressional term limits

Donald Trump on Tuesday said he would push for congressional term limits if he’s elected president — an expansion of his new campaign pledge to “drain the swamp” in Washington that comes as he propagates the conspiracy theory that the election will be rigged against him.

“If I'm elected president, I will push for a constitutional amendment to impose term limits on all members of Congress,” Trump said at a Tuesday afternoon rally in Colorado. “They've been talking about that for years. Decades of failure in Washington and decades of special interest dealing must and will come to an end.”


Trump clarified at a rally later in the day that he would propose a six-year limit for members of the House and 12-year limit for senators.

Trump, the Republican nominee, has recently refocused his campaign messaging on corruption in Washington. He’s made policy proposals — in addition to the term-limit amendment, he has called for new limits on lobbying by former members of Congress — and also attacked his opponent, Hillary Clinton, claiming that she is too corrupt to run for president.

Trump has also waded into the realm of conspiracy theories, making the unsubstantiated claim that the news media is conspiring with Clinton and other global forces to stop his election. He now regularly says on the campaign trail that the November election will be “rigged.”

While congressional term limits have been part of conservative campaign platforms for decades (and this year's Libertarian ticket calls for them), Trump’s talk about a “rigged election” has alarmed elected officials in both parties. There is no evidence to support the claim, but some of his supporters believe it, and Trump’s critics say he is setting a dangerous precedent and undermining the legitimacy of American democratic institutions. President Barack Obama rebuked Trump on Tuesday, telling him to “stop whining and go try to make his case to get votes.”

But Trump said he was the only candidate who would “end government corruption.” To make that argument, Trump also drew attention to a new controversy facing his opponent, related to Clinton’s use of private email server as secretary of state.

Although the federal agencies deny that it happened, documents released by the FBI this week revealed an allegation that a State Department official offered a “quid pro quo” arrangement to convince the FBI to declassify one of Clinton’s emails last year. However, the email’s classification was not changed, and officials at the FBI and State said that no such deal had been offered or struck. Obama himself argued on Tuesday that the outrage at the accusation was overblown and not based in fact.

Trump dismissed those objections, and called the alleged action “felony corruption” on Tuesday and said the State Department official, Patrick Kennedy, should be fired.

And despite Obama’s urging, Trump did not back down on his complaints that the election is “rigged.” He repeated his conspiracy theory that the news media is “an extension of the Clinton campaign.”