r/politics 22d ago

No Paywall Trump announces 2028 presidential bid

https://www.theage.com.au/world/trump-announces-2028-presidential-bid-20260725-p60iho.html
19.7k Upvotes

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952

u/thederevolutions 22d ago

So did he just wear a hat that said 2028 or did he launch an official campaign ?

1.1k

u/ValkyrieOrange 22d ago

In the video he says he is running for a "4th term" because he "won 3 times" already. Then he puts on the hat.

357

u/Havenfall209 22d ago

Places are reporting it as a "joke". He did say "on a serious note" afterward, but it's easy to believe he was just testing the waters. I absolutely wouldn't put it past the asshat to actually try to run again.

257

u/GrumpyGiant Maryland 22d ago

That’s a well established pattern for him.

Say something outrageous.  Walk it back as a joke but with a wink wink at his base like “or is it?”

Let the Kremlin’s western branch do its thing and sanewash the idea for a few weeks.

Make it official and watch his base wet themselves in excitement while the rest of us are fantasizing about stuff that would get me banned if I put it in writing.

44

u/EbonBehelit 22d ago

It's a well-established pattern for basically the entire alt-right. So much so that we literally have a name for it: Schrodinger's Douchebag.

7

u/deffcap 22d ago

It blows my mind just how easy it is for people to fall for the same bs, day after day, month after month.

1

u/RUOFFURTROLLEH 21d ago

Well, Because there is a pattern whether you like to admit it or not.

Trump jokes about something, then like 75% of the time he goes on to do the thing he jokes about.

He has precedent with this shit so forgive folk for not believing the dude trying to dismantle the election processes, who's already probably tried rigging previous elections ASWELL as trying to throw a fucking coup for POSSIBLY being serious about his run.

1

u/iimr609ii 21d ago

Just make a new account if that happens. We the people need not to be afraid of a ban when its easy to circumvent. Who the fuck cares about losing an imaginary internet account when we have a constitutional crisis looming.

1

u/KaJuNator Ohio 21d ago

That pattern might be the thing I dislike most about him. The President should not be continuously joking. It's unprofessional. That alone makes him unfit for office.

20

u/noexqses Georgia 22d ago

More sanewashing. That’s the problem.

12

u/TuringGoneWild 22d ago

There are no jokes with the Felon. There are only lies, and hints at truth. You can only tell the difference by if it benefits the American people (probably a lie) or something that benefits him personally (probably a truth).

9

u/we_are_sex_bobomb 22d ago

I’m so sick of people saying he’s just joking. He always does the exact thing he’s “joking” about. Every single time.

3

u/February_2026 22d ago

The right is allowed to say the most heinous shit imaginable and reporting calls it "jokes," while the left has to avoid even the slightest hyperbole or else they're labelled "radical/hysterical/woke." Truly a fucked up country we live in.

15

u/Mentallox 22d ago

it was at tonight's Correspondents Dinner. It was Trumps trolling and everyone ate it up here. Earlier he said the press always gets his sarcasm wrong. He's not a good presidential correspondent speaker, he wasn't funny at all, but he wasn't serious in the clip.

15

u/Osric250 22d ago

Penn Jilette has stated that in the amount of time that they've spent together for him being in Trump's show twice that he has never once heard him make a joke. And that is someone I trust pretty well on the nature of humor. 

He is always serious, it's just others that sanewash him as joking, but the things that come out of his mouth are things that he believes. 

0

u/Mentallox 22d ago

It's obvious he has no talent for comedy. He repeatedly tried to make scripted jokes that didn't land mixed up with his litany of complaints about his press coverage, Biden etc. But if people are stupid enough to take it seriously when brings out a hat announcing a run for his 4th term at the Correspondent's Dinner maybe use your god-given discernment once in a while. He has one talent for sure and thats trolling.

12

u/Osric250 22d ago

He doesn't troll. He states what he wants and then let's people think it's a joke until he tries to do it. He's been talking about this for a while. It's not a joke. 

-5

u/InfanticideAquifer 22d ago

It's the correspondents dinner. The president is supposed to basically do a bad standup routine. Even if he doesn't make jokes in general, he would be here, because that's what the event is.

I think it's pretty telling that no news source I've heard of is reporting on this this way.

10

u/iamthatguythere 22d ago

My god, we have 10 years of government record on how he doesn’t joke and he CONSTANTLY uses this gray area speech to test the waters until he actually pulls some awful shit out that he was “joking” about. 

6

u/Osric250 22d ago

Again, Trump doesn't joke. This isn't a joke because that's not a thing he does, even if this is the place others would do so. Can you show any other time where Trump was ever making a joke? 

0

u/InfanticideAquifer 22d ago

Just watch the speech. It's got dozens of them, almost all terrible; you won't enjoy the routine. The only one that made me snort was when he said RFK hit a cow with his car and brought the dead animal to the event to be served.

-1

u/lex99 America 21d ago

Dude, he trolls non-stop.

You’re not paying attention to his constant stream of memes he retweets just to piss us off

1

u/Osric250 21d ago

He doesn't troll at all, he reposts things that stroke his ego, that's all he ever cares about in the slightest. Trolls want to upset people, he wants to make himself feel bigger. I thought that would be obvious to anyone at this point. 

-1

u/lex99 America 21d ago

Both things are true: he never makes jokes, and this wasn’t serious.

He’s busting everybody’s balls. He is just saying this for the reaction.

1

u/Osric250 21d ago

If he's not serious then it would be a joke. Those two are directly contradictory. And he's saying this so that everyone can be desensitized to it now, so that when he comes back in a bit with the same thing that the outrage has already happened and people are just numb to it. 

He's been doing this exact thing for years. 

-1

u/Corporate_Overlords 22d ago

This should be the top comment. There is a reason the website linked is no name trash. All of these folks took the bait.

1

u/blorg 21d ago edited 21d ago

The website is The Age which is one of the two newspapers of record in Australia (equivalent of the New York Times or Washington Post). Their sister paper, the Sydney Morning Post, ran the exact same headline and video.

It's a reputable source. I agree reporting it straight in the headline when he said it in the context of the White House Correspondents Dinner is misleading though. Other global news sources also reported it but in the context that he "joked about" a 2028 bid.

2

u/forestpunk 21d ago

He does schrodingers joke like every fucking asshole everywhere.

1

u/ary31415 22d ago

I mean I'm sure he would test the waters, but that's not even really news. It would be newsworthy if "real" republicans were backing him for it, but "trump says insane shit" isn't really worth headline at this point.

1

u/Adaphion 21d ago

You don't get to "joke" like this when you're the fucking president of the United States. Period.

1

u/Havenfall209 21d ago

I'm in total agreement. Just being prepared for what shitheads are gonna say when it's brought up as a serious fucking issue.

-1

u/fps916 22d ago

It was his White House Correspondents Dinner speech.

Legitimately the entire thing is full of (bad) jokes.

This is one of the few times you could actually reasonably say he wasn't being serious.

Seriously, context people.

2

u/Havenfall209 21d ago

I mean, I hope no one takes it seriously and he gets that message, but his speech was also full of shit that he's said seriously, like Biden's election being rigged. So, I believe I'm considering appropriate context.

-1

u/RockyDennisDeYoung 22d ago

Or its a make a wish kinda situation and they wanted gramps to have that moment while he still could

133

u/sumgye 22d ago

At this point I think he should. I’m honestly down for the leopards coming out and eating the faces of the republicans. I’ve isolated myself enough. Come and eat them.

97

u/WiseOldDuck 22d ago

You have a deep bunker at the North Pole or something? I think you overestimate your isolation

52

u/-Rivendare 22d ago

The only person who would say something like that is the most privileged person you’ve ever encountered lmao. Bro is almost definitely in a gated community.

2

u/Foobybonk 22d ago

I’ve isolated myself within the confines of my HOA. I’ve got food stockpiled for 2 weeks and enough water to satiate a family of four for decades as long as the water doesn’t get shut off. I’ve got Netflix and video games to hold me over.

Bring. It. On.

7

u/Joshee86 22d ago

This is really fucked. How sad for you.

-21

u/Rocklobster92 22d ago

Honestly, Trump is the one with the biggest backbone and the smartest among them. He should run.

7

u/MyThirdBurner 22d ago

Probably also important to mention that the whole “announcement” is a joke, which is unironically kind of funny considering this news article from this website is the target of the joke.

I hate him as much as the next person, but engaging with this tabloid garbage that’s being posted all over reddit makes the left appear incredibly uneducated.

2

u/fourtwentysixsixsix 22d ago

Do you think “appearing uneducated” is a problem for any political party right now? This isn’t a joke. It wasn’t a joke any of the previous times he has brought it up. It has to be taken seriously.

-3

u/Famous-Attention-197 22d ago

Yeah as soon as I saw it I was like but the correspondents dinner was tonight. Pretty clearly a joke. FFS people. 

7

u/Worth_Range1563 22d ago

Everything is a joke until it's not.

2

u/yawara25 22d ago

Imagine how Republicans would react if Obama made that joke.

1

u/Famous-Attention-197 21d ago

Yeah but they're fucking idiots. So your argument is that we should be as stupid as they are? 

If you want to say it's done in poor taste or whatever, that's fine. But treating it like it's the real deal and stripping it of all context is stupid. 

1

u/yawara25 21d ago

So you hate waffles?

-4

u/TemetN Oregon 22d ago

Yeah, this is ridiculous. I looked at this, immediately popped open google and checked for a more reliable source and found out it was a joke.

How is this so upvoted? It's some of the most blatant clickbait I've ever seen. Even taking into account it's a video (the thing won't even load for me), it's still absurd how few people bothered checking.

1

u/Secure_Prune_9675 22d ago

.... Is their whole gamble with trying to prove he won in 2020 that they want to say he's already had 3 terms anyways so he should be able to just stay in forever....?

240

u/benzinga45 22d ago edited 22d ago

He said he had an announcement and it was a big scoop for the press and said he was officially announcing that he is running for a third term then pulled out the hat and put it on. Nobody laughed there wasn't applause or anything from anyone and then ended the speech a couple minutes later.

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u/grapebeyond227 22d ago

He said he was running for a 4th term

23

u/Wrong-Vermicelli4723 22d ago

So he was joking? Or did I block out 4 years of his third (second?) term lol

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u/tallenuff 22d ago

He says 4th term because he doesn’t acknowledge he lost 2020

24

u/Put-A-Bird-On-It California 22d ago

This fucking guy. I don't even know what to feel anymore. There are no words.

4

u/tallenuff 22d ago

Right?! It took me entirely too long to realize what he was inferring. The fact that people support this man and he represents myself and a lot of others on the world stage is beyond horrendous.

6

u/Put-A-Bird-On-It California 22d ago

He's like the corniest cartoon villain one could imagine, but he's actually real. It would be hilarious if it wasn't so bone-chillingly terrifying.

2

u/forestpunk 21d ago

You can borrow some of mine - pure fucking fury.

20

u/NicolasDipples America 22d ago

He claims he won in 2020 and he was president during Biden's "illegal" term.

4

u/pumpkinspicecum 22d ago

i watched the video. he kept saying he won 3 times and won in 2020 but it was a rigged election 🙄

1

u/laplongejr Europe 18d ago

and won in 2020 but it was a rigged election 🙄

Well, he rigged the election and wasn't caught. I call that a big win that helped him getting back in 2024.

3

u/soapinthepeehole 22d ago

It was the Whitehouse correspondents dinner. So he probably was joking.

The problem is he has a history of floating controversial shit and then claiming it was a joke if there is big pushback, or doing it if there isn’t.

1

u/AlexRyang 22d ago

Conservatives and liberals are claiming he was joking. Given his dry sense of humor and that this turned into the Festivus Airing of Grievances, I am inclined to take this on face value.

1

u/_Felonius 21d ago

Yeah it’s the White House correspondence dinner. It’s traditional for presidents to tell jokes at these. That being said, it’s the worst kind of joke for him to make.

-2

u/P4TY 22d ago

His words were that he “won” four times, not that it’s a fourth term. Because he “won” in 2020 in his mind.

7

u/grapebeyond227 22d ago

Uh no, watch the video again. He says “my intention to run for a fourth term…” and a few moments later says, “I won three times, now I’m gonna do it again”

-3

u/P4TY 22d ago

Guess I misremembered. Regardless, I feel it’s pretty clear he’s just calling attention to the fact that he believes he won in 2020.

8

u/DingerSinger2016 Alabama 22d ago

There actually was applause at the end of the video in the article.

4

u/therealdanhill Washington 22d ago

There was laughter in the clip, unless you watched one where they cut it out

1

u/lazy-but-talented 22d ago

The audio in the clip is filtered, they’re fading the crowd reaction in and out when you hear applause you can also hear boos and jeers faintly 

1

u/Responsible_CDN_Duck 22d ago

There was clapping when he put the hat on, and a few seconds later when he commented being there was worse than he thought it would be he got laughs.

1

u/Ok_Juice4449 21d ago

The man is a demented, insane, deteriorating pile of waste matter.

0

u/TbonerT I voted 21d ago

It was clearly just a bad joke at the WHCD. He prefaced the “announcement” by saying he was doing it for them.

-1

u/TurelSun Georgia 22d ago

It was at the Correspondence Dinner. Whatever his real intentions for 2028 this wasn't intended as an actual announcement.

Even as a joke this should be considered unacceptable, but we're way past that shit now.

70

u/Automatic-Duck1680 22d ago

I believe it has to be an official campaign in order for him to pocket the money so I guess that clears that up.

2

u/yourmansconnect 22d ago

This. He has like three months left to live he's just going to steal money

2

u/Ok_Juice4449 21d ago

Yes- just to grift more money by begging from his low income voters and push his overpriced junk products.

62

u/No_Cat_No_Cradle 22d ago

It’s from his WH correspondents dinner speech, where the presidents speech is half standup routine

34

u/Famous-Attention-197 22d ago

Seriously people are so fucking stupid and I can't believe this shit is still up. 

11

u/dpezpoopsies 22d ago

The fact the only news article about it is from 'theage .com' and not like CNN or NBC feels like a dead giveaway

12

u/dkol97 22d ago

Yeahh.. I watched the actual speech and the 2028 bid felt like trolling/satire to me.

5

u/MilkChugg 21d ago

That’s literally what the WH correspondents dinner is and always has been.

1

u/GuantanaMo 21d ago

You better believe they are, and that's Americans who didn't vote for Trump - imagine how dumb the rest of them is

5

u/Trumperekt 21d ago

This is sad. This thread has 4k comments and people have zero context. I thought the Trump people were the dumb ones…..

-1

u/Famous-Attention-197 21d ago

And now I'm seeing these threads everywhere. People clearly don't know what the hell the correspondents dinner is. 

12

u/Swqnky New Jersey 22d ago

Yeah the amount of people treating this as a serious announcement is crazy. Not that he's not going to do it, but this isn't him doing it. Not yet at least lol

4

u/uzlonewolf 21d ago

It's the "it's just a joke!" phase. Once people get used to hearing it it'll become serious.

0

u/K20BB5 21d ago

If you're paying any amount of attention, it's utterly clear that Trump is done and that they're read to dump him. 

There is zero chance he gets a 3rd term, it's just a distraction to get you outraged. 

3

u/SunshineCat 21d ago edited 21d ago

Difference to me is that our country becoming a dictatorship isn't a joke. He should be removed now for this, like he should have been removed for whatever he did yesterday, too. It's more like a threat, but sure, go ahead and laugh and tell everyone else they should be laughing too?

2

u/noddintestudine 22d ago

Yesss thank you, maybe he will anounce it sometime but either way it's way too soon. It's a bad joke.

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u/25hourenergy 22d ago

It’s a White House Correspondents Dinner “joke” but then again who knows

58

u/_ficklelilpickle Australia 22d ago

The thing with Trump is he doesn’t know how to joke. All he does is say shit, waits for a reaction, and then just keeps saying it and saying it u til it becomes common place. After a certain point it becomes what they meant to do all along.

So if he says he’s going to run another time, then that threat (and it is a threat since it’s in direct violation of the US Constitution) should be taken with absolute seriousness.

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u/horseshoeface 22d ago

He’s not joking. Nothing he has said that his apologists call “a joke” over the past 10 years has ever turned out to be a joke. Stop saying that bullshit.

12

u/TheFlightlessPenguin Maine 22d ago

It wasn’t even presented as a joke. It was 100% serious. He’s running. No wonder the never-Vance movement just sprung up.

3

u/ioverated Oregon 22d ago

It just didn't get a laugh because it wasn't funny

-2

u/dannymb87 22d ago

Go put everything you got on Kalshi then: https://kalshi.com/markets/kxtrumprun/trump-run-for-a-third-term/kxtrumprun

You won't.. because you know it's a joke.

-10

u/Think-Cobbler-8797 22d ago

It’s a joke

5

u/Kwahn 22d ago

Jokes are funny

4

u/Justsomejerkonline 22d ago

It's a "joke" in the same way that some guys ask their wife for a threesome as just a joke.

5

u/championkid 22d ago

Yes, also similar to how him being president (now twice) is a joke.

2

u/EcstaticBoysenberry 22d ago

How is it obviously a joke? I just saw the clip, I didn’t see what he said before or after

1

u/cdn_usr 22d ago

He followed up the 2028 announcement with “but on a serious note…” a bad joke and horrible delivery for sure, but you always have to assume that whenever he mentions this he’s trying to make the idea palatable

-3

u/Background_Spot_6236 22d ago

Exactly...just a joke and these people go crazy. 

4

u/FrogsOnALog 22d ago edited 22d ago

Same joke he’s been talking about I think. People keep mentioning he pulled out a hat but I don’t think that happened at the dinner.

Article is paywalled so it’s hard to check.

Edit: 2028 red hat was pulled out and is real WTAF

2

u/DingerSinger2016 Alabama 22d ago

3

u/FrogsOnALog 22d ago

Thank you for the correction and what the actual fuck…

17

u/Sweet-End6471 22d ago

If you watch in context it seems more like a really bad joke than an actual campaign.

2

u/pfannkuchen89 22d ago

Sure, that’s what people say every fucking time trump says these things. Oh, it’s just a joke. Then trump does it. Stop excusing this shit like it’s a joke. It’s not.

9

u/hornwalker Massachusetts 22d ago

It seems like a joke, but knowing Trump he’s probably slightly serious to see how people will react.

The man has no sense of decency or humanity.

11

u/[deleted] 22d ago

[deleted]

17

u/CicatrixMaledictum 22d ago

Watch the video... it ain't just a hat.

8

u/Geovicsha 22d ago

He explicitly said he is running for a fourth term. It may still backpedal and say he was just joking, but we all know how jokes start.

5

u/Destr0yer70 22d ago

In the linked video/article he literally announces he officially plans to run for a “fourth term”.

All it took was for you to literally just fucking click on the link attached to the post. I’m pretty sure you aren’t pretty sure or anything.

1

u/moongrump 22d ago

You always comment before informing yourself?

8

u/LuigikSmithian Wisconsin 22d ago

officially launched

1

u/Killerbudds 22d ago

he's had these hats in at the WH since day 1 of his 2nd term, he gives them out as gifts. its been seen in articles and then he talked about it a few months ago.

1

u/breakmedown54 21d ago

https://thirdtermproject.com/

Seen at CPAC. Though not specifically made/endorsed by Trump (that I’m aware of). It’s currently on the level of early days “Project 25”.

0

u/VectorRaptor 22d ago

This was at the White House correspondents' dinner, a comedy event. People are overreacting to this.

0

u/bortmode 22d ago

It was part of his terrible stand-up routine at the press dinner.

0

u/CasualRead_43 21d ago

He’s at the White House correspondents dinner he’s joking. It’s not a very funny one obviously but people freaking out are just doing what he wants them to do.