The difference between administrative and judicial warrants – CBS News
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CBS News has obtained a memo telling ICE agents that they can forcefully enter a home without a judicial warrant in certain instances. CBS News legal contributor Jessica Levinson joins with analysis.
President Trump appeared to concede Wednesday that he’s not allowed to run for reelection in 2028 — after teasing the idea of running for a third term on and off for months.
“It’s a very interesting thing. I have the best numbers for any president in many years,” the president told reporters aboard Air Force One on his way to South Korea. “And I would say that, if you read it, it’s pretty clear I’m not allowed to run. It’s too bad.”
President Trump speaks to journalists aboard Air Force One while en route to South Korea on Oct. 29, 2025.
Andrew Harnik / Getty Images
The 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1951, explicitly bars anyone from being elected to more than two terms as president.
Mr. Trump has periodically toyed with the idea of seeking another term. In some cases, he’s seemed to bring up the idea in a tongue-in-cheek manner, offering up “Trump 2028” hats to friends and foes alike. But he told NBC News earlier this year he’s “not joking” and he believes “there are methods” by which he could run for president again. And Trump ally Steve Bannon said in an interview released last week that “there’s a plan” for Mr. Trump to win a third term.
Asked about Bannon’s comments on Monday, Mr. Trump said he hadn’t given it much thought, but he did not definitively rule out running for a third term.
Another close Trump ally, House Speaker Mike Johnson, said Tuesday he doesn’t “see a path” to changing the Constitution to permit a third term.
“He and I have talked about the constrictions of the Constitution,” the Louisiana Republican told reporters. “I don’t see a way to amend the Constitution because it takes about 10 years to do that.”
Some observers have suggested that Mr. Trump could get a third term if he successfully runs for vice president and the sitting president were to step down, enabling him to retake the Oval Office. The idea is constitutionally untested and experts are divided on whether it would work.
Mr. Trump seemed to rule out that idea on Monday.
“I think that people wouldn’t like that,” he said. “It’s too cute”
On Sept. 17, 1787, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention signed the Constitution. Just before they did, Benjamin Franklin, 81 and too weak to speak, asked Pennsylvania delegate James Wilson to read his parting remarks, which were a lesson in humility for public debate. “CBS Evening News” co-anchor John Dickerson explains.
For more than a year now, author A.J. Jacobs pulled on woolen leggings more often than you put on socks. Why? “A couple of years ago, I realized I had never read the American Constitution,” he said. “But every day I’d open the news and there’s another story about how this 230-year-old document is affecting our lives. And I said, I need to know more about our founding document. And the way I like to learn is, I like to go all-in.”
For Jacobs, all-in means total immersion. For his bestselling book, “The Know-It-All,” Jacobs spent 18 months reading the entire Encyclopædia Britannica. For “The Year of Living Biblically,” he tried to follow all the rules in the Old and New Testaments. And now, his latest immersion: “The Year of Living Constitutionally.”
“I do look deeply absurd,” he said, dressed for the late 18th century. “But I am also deeply serious about this project. Part of my goal is to get inside the minds of these Founding Fathers as much as I can.”
Humorist A.J. Jacobs gets his Colonial-era attire right (except from the ankles down).
Reed Young
Accordingly, Jacobs joined the New Jersey Third Regiment of Revolutionary War Reenactors. He showed Dickerson his musket: “This is the real deal from the 1700s,” he said. “I got it online, which I assume is not how they did it back then.”
The reenactors, Jacobs noted, “are very committed. Of course, we were not using lead balls; we were using blanks.”
Regardless, he actually “died.” He said, “I did die for my country, but I died in the shade.”
To explore his Second Amendment rights, Jacobs also carried his antique firearm around New York City: “I was at a coffee shop in line with my musket, and a guy in front of me said, ‘You go ahead. I’m not messin’ with you.’”
To better understand the U.S. Constitution, A.J. Jacobs, author of “The Year of Living Constitutionally,” immersed himself in the era of the Founding Fathers.
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While visiting the 1765 Morris-Jumel Mansion in Manhattan (which Gen. George Washington briefly made his military headquarters), Jacobs was asked what scared the creators of the Constitution. “They had just fought a war to get rid of the monarch,” he said. “That’s one of the most brilliant parts of the Constitution, is how they built in these mechanisms to stop one person or one branch from taking over, this balance of power. I never really appreciated the balance of power. It has helped keep us from having a tyrant. So far!”
Jacobs’ research also took him to Washington, D.C., where he dove into the First Amendment right to petition the government. Jacobs brought along his own petition, a long scroll with 423 signatures, to Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, to reconsider Ben Franklin’s idea of having more than one president. Wyden remarked, “You are injecting logic and common sense, which often is lacking in public discourse.”
A.J. Jacobs presents his petition to Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon.
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So, how was the petition received? “I think he considered it for about five seconds, and that was the end of the consideration!” Jacobs laughed. “I will say he totally bought my underlying thesis that the president has too much power.”
While doing his research, Jacobs used a quill pen, which meant living the rest of his day with stained fingertips. “I love writing by hand,” he said. “There is something wonderful about taking out a quill pen, dipping it in ink, and just writing those sentences. I love the sound of the scratch, scratch, scratch.”
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A.J.’s wife of 24 years, Julie Jacobs … not so much. “We’ve lived through a lot together,” she said. “So, this is nothing! This is nothing.”
Asked if she is the World’s Most Patient Wife, Julie laughed, “I think so! Feel free to call me St. Julie whenever you like!”
A.J. not only wrote with a quill pen, he scratched his words onto parchment, which is not paper; it’s stretched and dried animal skin, like sheepskin. To learn how it’s made Jacobs got a lesson from brothers Jesse and Stephen Meyer, who run Pergamena, one of the few places parchment is made in North America.
A.J. Jacobs at Pergamena, one of the few places in North America where parchment is made.
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Asked to describe the smell, Jesse Meyer replied, “Somewhere between rotting flesh and really strong cheese.”
That same process was used to create the Constitution, which now rests under glass, displayed at the National Archives in Washington, protected by unbreakable glass.
“People come here and they look at it and they’re rejuvenated,” said historian Jessie Kratz. “And maybe they will go vote, not just in a presidential election, but maybe in a local election.”
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Jacobs said, “I don’t wanna say ‘Just read the Constitution.’ That’s not really the point. Read the Constitution and talk about it with people, especially with people who disagree with you. That, to me, is what democracy is about.”
Crown
All this running around might seem like a gimmick, but Jacobs says the immersive approach helped focus him on the key lessons of the system we all still live under today. “They thought about rights, but they also thought about responsibilities,” he said. “It was so ingrained in them that they had a responsibility to their community, to their country. But I feel we’ve lost some of that. It’s all about putting others before yourself sometimes.”
That lesson isn’t just a pleasing notion; it is vital to the Constitution’s survival.
Asked if his project made him more optimistic or pessimistic, Jacobs replied, “George Washington sat in a wooden chair at the Constitutional Convention. And it had a carving on the back of the sun, but not the full sun, just half of the sun, the top half. So, you couldn’t tell: Is it setting, or is it rising? At the end of the Convention, against all odds, they have this Constitution. Ben Franklin says, ‘Now I know the sun is rising on America.’
“And my question was: Is the sun still rising on America? It’s up to us. ‘Cause if we do nothing, then the sun will set.”
John Dickerson is the anchor of “CBS News Prime Time with John Dickerson,” CBS News chief political analyst, senior national correspondent and a contributor to “CBS Sunday Morning.” He also serves as an anchor of CBS News election coverage and political special reports.
Washington — Decisions in Maine and Colorado finding that former President Donald Trump is disqualified from holding public office have rested on a 155-year-old constitutional provision that was seldom used in modern times, but has now been invoked in escalating legal challenges from across the country targeting Trump’s eligibility to hold the presidency again.
The efforts aimed at Trump’s ability to appear on ballots under the Constitution’s so-called insurrection clause, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, began just months after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. That’s when the liberal advocacy group Free Speech for People sent letters to the top election officials in all 50 states urging them to bar the former president from the ballot as a candidate for the White House in 2024.
Since then, legal challenges to Trump’s eligibility under the measure have been brought in federal and state courts in more than two dozen states — 26 cases were filed by a little-known Republican presidential candidate named John Anthony Castro. Most cases brought by Castro have been dismissed, either voluntarily or by the courts. In 14 states, there are cases pending, according to Lawfare, a national security website that is tracking the Section 3 cases.
But in Colorado, a case brought by a group of voters became the first victory in the effort against Trump, when the state Supreme Court found he is disqualified from holding office again.
In a handful of other states, secretaries of state have said they cannot unilaterally remove Trump from the ballot. But Maine’s secretary of state became the first to do so Thursday night, when she issued a decision finding that Trump is not qualified to hold the presidency because of his conduct surrounding the Jan. 6 attack and should be removed from the primary ballot.
The Colorado and Maine challenges have been the only ones to succeed in declaring Trump ineligible under Section 3, though the question of whether he can appear on the 2024 ballot is likely to be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Here are the other states where noteworthy efforts have been underway to keep Trump off their primary ballots:
California
Shortly after the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Trump is disqualified from holding the presidency under Section 3, California’s lieutenant governor asked the secretary of state to explore “every legal option” to remove Trump from the state’s primary ballot.
“California must stand on the right side of history,” Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis wrote to Secretary of State Shirley Weber in a Dec. 20 letter. “California is obligated to determine if Trump is ineligible for the California ballot for the same reasons described in Anderson (the Colorado case). The Colorado decision can be the basis for a similar decision here in our state. The constitution is clear: you must be 35 years old and not be an insurrectionist.”
In response, Weber told Kounalakis in a letter last week that there are “complex legal issues surrounding this matter,” and said any decision on whether to list Trump on the primary ballot must “be grounded firmly in the laws and processes in place in California and our Constitution.” Both Kounalakis and Weber are Democrats.
In a landmark decision on Dec. 19, the Colorado Supreme Court found that Trump is disqualified from holding public office again under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. The divided 4-3 court ruled against Trump on all of the key legal issues it weighed, including that Section 3 covers the presidency and those who swore the presidential oath, that the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol constituted an insurrection, and that Trump “engaged in” insurrection.
The state Supreme Court’s majority ordered the secretary of state to exclude his name from the presidential primary ballot, but put its decision on hold until Jan. 4 to allow Trump to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Colorado Republican Party, which intervened in the case, asked the nation’s highest court to review the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision on Wednesday.
Attorney Eric Olson, far right, argues before the Colorado Supreme Court on Dec. 6, 2023, in Denver.
AP Photo/David Zalubowski, Pool
The appeal by the Colorado GOP means Trump will be included as a candidate on Colorado’s primary ballot unless the U.S. Supreme Court declines to hear the case or upholds the state Supreme Court’s ruling, the secretary of state said.
The Colorado Supreme Court, composed of seven justices appointed by Democratic governors, is the first to remove Trump from a presidential primary ballot, and its decision marks the first time a presidential candidate has been deemed ineligible for the White House under Section 3.
Maine
Maine law requires challenges to a primary nomination to be filed with the secretary of state, who then holds a public hearing where the challengers must make their case as to why the primary nomination petition should be invalidated.
Secretary of State Shenna Bellows receivedthreechallenges to Trump’s primary nomination petition, two of which argued that the former president doesn’t meet the qualifications for the presidency and is ineligible to hold public office under Section 3.
Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows speaks at an event on Jan. 4, 2023, in Augusta, Maine.
AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty
Bellows, a Democrat, held a hearing on the bids to remove Trump’s name from the primary ballot on Dec. 15 and issued her decision Thursday, finding that the former president is disqualified from holding office again because of his actions surrounding the Jan. 6 riot.
“I am mindful that no secretary of state has ever deprived a presidential candidate of ballot access based on Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment,” Bellows wrote in her 34-page decision. “I am also mindful, however, that no presidential candidate has ever before engaged in insurrection.”
Trump can appeal in state court, and Bellows suspended the effect of her decision until the court rules on any appeal. Maine’s highest court, the Supreme Judicial Court, can also be asked to review any ruling by a lower court. The case may ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Michigan
The Michigan Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to review a state Court of Appeals decision that allowed Trump to remain on the state’s presidential primary ballot.
The state’s high court said in a brief, unsigned order that it is “not persuaded that the questions presented should be reviewed by this court.” There was no vote count included in the order.
The challenge to Trump’s candidacy in Michigan was brought by four voters on behalf of the liberal advocacy group Free Speech for People, which is behind similar cases in Oregon and Minnesota. The group of voters argued that Trump cannot hold office because of his conduct surrounding the Jan. 6 attack.
A Michigan Court of Claims judge dismissed the case on technical grounds, finding in part that it involved a political question that cannot be decided by the courts and that the political parties determine their presidential candidates for the primary. A three-judge Court of Appeals panel upheld the lower court’s ruling and said the political parties and individual candidates determine who to list on the primary ballot. All three judges on the panel were appointed by former Republican Gov. Rick Snyder.
The appeals court’s decision, though, does not block voters from renewing a challenge to Trump’s candidacy for the general election ballot if he wins the Republican presidential nomination.
Minnesota
Minnesota’s Supreme Court tossed out a case brought by eight voters in the state who sought to have Trump’s name kept off the primary ballot. The high court said that while the Minnesota secretary of state and other election officials administer the election, the primary is an “internal party election to serve internal party purposes.”
“There is no state statute that prohibits a major political party from placing on the presidential nomination primary ballot, or sending delegates to the national convention supporting, a candidate who is ineligible to hold office,” the Minnesota Supreme Court found.
The court, though, said the voters could renew their challenge for the general election.
New Hampshire
Trump’s name will be listed on the primary ballot in New Hampshire after the state’s top election official, Secretary of State David Scanlan, said in September that there is no legal basis for excluding the former president.
“There is no mention in New Hampshire state statute that a candidate in a new presidential primary can be disqualified using the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution referencing insurrection or rebellion,” Scanlan said during a news conference. “Similarly, there is nothing in the 14th Amendment that suggests that exercising the provisions of that amendment should take place during the delegate selection process held by the different states.”
New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan displays a sample ballot on Nov. 15, 2023, in Concord, New Hampshire, while announcing the date of the state’s 2024 presidential primary.
AP Photo/Holly Ramer
Scanlan, a Republican, said that the language of state election law “is not discretionary,” and any candidate who pays a $1,000 filing fee and signs a declaration of candidacy swearing that they meet age, citizenship and residency requirements will have their name listed on ballots.
The secretary of state had asked New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella in August to advise on the meaning of Section 3 and its potential applicability to the 2024 election cycle. Formella, a Republican, issued his guidance in mid-September, saying state law doesn’t give the secretary of state discretion to withhold a primary candidate’s name from the ballot “on the grounds that the candidate may be disqualified under Section 3 when a candidate has not been convicted or otherwise adjudicated guilty of conduct that would disqualify” them under the provision.
Oregon
Oregon Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade said in late November that she would not remove Trump from the ballot for the Republican presidential primary because state law does not give her the authority to determine a candidate’s qualifications.
The announcement from Griffin-Valade, who was appointed by Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek earlier this year, came after Oregon’s solicitor general, Benjamin Gutman, determined that Oregon law doesn’t charge the secretary of state with determining whether a primary candidate will be qualified to serve as president if elected. Section 3, Gutman wrote in a letter to Griffin-Valade, “does not prevent placing a candidate on the presidential primary ballot.”
Gutman, who serves in a Democratic-led administration, stressed that his guidance is limited to the secretary’s responsibility as to the primary ballot and said the question of Trump’s eligibility may arise again with respect to the general election if he receives the Republican presidential nomination.
Griffin-Valade, too, noted that her decision not to exclude Trump from the ballot applies only to the primary and not the November general election.
Still, five voters in Oregon asked the state Supreme Court earlier this month to order Griffin-Valadeto disqualify Trump from both the primary and general election ballots, arguing he is constitutionally ineligible for the presidency.
The other states
Cases in 14 states arguing Trump is not eligible remain pending. Those states are: Alaska, Arizona, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming, according to Lawfare’s database.
In Arizona, a lower court decision dismissing the case has been appealed.
Melissa Quinn is a politics reporter for CBSNews.com. She has written for outlets including the Washington Examiner, Daily Signal and Alexandria Times. Melissa covers U.S. politics, with a focus on the Supreme Court and federal courts.
As former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy leaves Congress, he has some new aspirations involving artificial intelligence — but what does AI think? CBS News chief political analyst John Dickerson asked one platform to weigh in.
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An official first printing of the U.S. Constitution is set to go up for auction next month, New York-based auction house Sotheby’s announced Tuesday. The historic document will be put up for auction during a dedicated live sale on Dec. 13.
It is one of only two such copies that are in private hands, and one of only 13 total copies known to exist, Sotheby’s said. The other 11 are in public government collections.
It’s the first time in more than 125 years that this particular manuscript has gone up for auction, according to Sotheby’s, which estimates it will sell for anywhere between $20 and $30 million.
It will hit the auction block just over one year after Sotheby’s auctioned off the only other known privately owned first-edition copy, known as the Goldman Constitution. It went for a staggering $43.2 million last November, a record for any book, manuscript or printed text sold at auction, Sotheby’s said.
Richard Austin, Sotheby’s global head of books and manuscripts, said in a statement that last year’s record sale was proof of the “enduring importance and influence” of the historical document, adding that there are high hopes for the sale of the remaining copy.
“A year later after the record-breaking sale, we hope the remarkable opportunity to acquire one of two privately owned copies of the Constitution will inspire a similar response that galvanized the public last year,” Austin said.
