WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. >> President Donald Trump did not rule out seeking a third term in office on Sunday, telling NBC News that he was “not joking” about the possibility and suggesting there were “methods” to circumvent the two-term limit laid out in the Constitution.

Trump told “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker that “a lot of people” wanted him to serve a third term, according to a transcript of the interview provided by the network.

“A lot of people want me to do it,” he said. “But we have — my thinking is, we have a long way to go. I’m focused on the current.”

Any attempt to seek a third term would run afoul of the 22nd Amendment, which begins, “No person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice.”

On Sunday, after the release of the interview, the White House reiterated Trump’s point that he was focused on his current term, and added that it was “far too early to think about” the idea.

Trump has often mused about the idea of a third term, particularly in rallies and speeches that have delighted his supporters, though he has often treated it more as a humorous aside. The interview was the first time that Trump indicated that he was seriously considering the idea. Already he has likened himself to a king, shown an affinity for autocratic leaders and displayed governance tactics constitutional experts and historians have compared to authoritarianism.

Amending the Constitution requires approval by a two-thirds vote of Congress and then the ratification of three-fourths of the states.

Democrats in Congress, concerned about the possibility of such legislation, have introduced a resolution to prevent loopholes to the two-term limit.

Records found on abducted children

The State Department has preserved information on Ukrainian children abducted by the Russian government during its war in Ukraine that lawmakers feared had been deleted, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday night.

Researchers at Yale University, who were tracking tens of thousands of abducted Ukrainian children, had created a database as one project under the State Department’s Conflict Observatory program during the Biden administration. In addition to tracking potential war crimes by Russia in Ukraine, the Conflict Observatory tracked the civil war in Sudan. Lawmakers feared that the database on the Ukrainian children had been deleted when the State Department cut funding for the group tracking the abductions.

“The data is secure,” Rubio told reporters on his plane flying from Suriname to Miami at the end of a three-nation tour of the Caribbean and South America. He said the database would be transferred to “the appropriate party,” without specifying who, and that the program would no longer operate because the funding had been cut as part of a halt to almost all foreign aid when President Donald Trump took office in January. The data is likely to be transferred to the International Criminal Court and Europol, Europe’s main law enforcement agency.

High court asked to allow deportations

The Trump administration on Friday asked the Supreme Court for permission to resume deportations of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador under an 18th century wartime law, while a court fight continues.

The emergency appeal to the high court follows a rejection of the Republican administration’s plea to the federal appeals court in Washington. By a 2-1 vote, a panel of appellate judges left in place an order temporarily prohibiting deportations of the migrants under the rarely used Alien Enemies Act

The Justice Department argued in court papers that federal courts shouldn’t interfere with sensitive diplomatic negotiations. It also claimed that migrants should make their case in a federal court in Texas, where they are being detained.

The order temporarily blocking the deportations was issued by U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg, the chief judge at the federal courthouse in Washington.

President Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act for the first time since World War II to justify the deportation of hundreds of people under a presidential proclamation calling the Tren de Aragua gang an invading force.

Court rules board firings can proceed

An appeals court ruled Friday that President Donald Trump can fire two board members of independent agencies handling labor issues from their respective posts in the federal government.

A divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit agreed to lift orders blocking the Trump administration from removing Merit Systems Protection Board member Cathy Harris and National Labor Relations Board member Gwynne Wilcox.

On March 4, U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras ruled that Trump illegally tried to fire Harris. Two days later, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell ruled that Trump did not have the authority to remove Wilcox.

The Justice Department asked the appellate court to suspend those orders while they appeal the decisions.

President Joe Biden nominated Harris to the MSPB in 2021 and nominated Wilcox to a second five-year term as an NLRB member in 2023.

Circuit Judge Justin Walker, a Trump nominee, said the administration likely will succeed in showing that the statutory removal protections for NLRB and MSPB members are unconstitutional.

“The Government has also shown that it will suffer irreparable harm each day the President is deprived of the ability to control the executive branch,” Walker wrote.

Administration ends clean energy grants

President Donald Trump’s administration is terminating grants for two clean energy projects and roughly 300 others funded by the Department of Energy are in jeopardy as the president prioritizes fossil fuels.

The DOE is canceling two awards to a nonprofit climate think tank, RMI in Colorado, according to a document from the agency confirming the cancellations that was reviewed by The Associated Press on Friday. One was for nearly $5.3 million to retrofit low-income multifamily buildings in Massachusetts and California to demonstrate ways to reduce the use of energy and lower planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions. The other was for $1.5 million to assess business models for electric vehicle carsharing in U.S. cities.

The department wrote that it had determined the awards do not meet the administration’s objectives. Both awards are on a list of about 300 clean energy projects under review.

-- From news services