Is President Trump signing an executive order creating term limits for Congress? No, that's not true. Trump has no current plan to sign such an order, which would run up against a 1995 U.S. Supreme Court ruling. Just as telling, the story was published by a liberal satire website that tries to mislead Trump supporters and Republicans into sharing made-up stories that are clearly marked as satire when you actually click them.
Articles from the site are frequently copied by foreign-run fake news websites. The people liking and sharing these stories are enriching foreign website operators or a liberal from Maine via the ad revenue generated with the content, which is probably not what they expected or wanted.
The story, which has already been copied by "real" fake news sites, first appeared in an article (archived here) published by Daily World Update on April 23, 2020, with the fake and suggestive byline Rod Gozinya and the title, "Trump To Sign Executive Order Creating Term Limits For Congress." It opened:
It's an idea whose time has come and one that the American people have been wanting for decades. Leave it to President Trump to finally do something about it. This week, Trump is expected to roll out an executive order which will put in place term limits for all members of Congress, both in the House of Representatives and in the Senate. The order will be binding and none will be able to dispute or reverse it."
The article goes on to say that Trump might allow terms to extend as far as 20 times, which, in the case of a U.S. Senator would last 120 years:
Though the number of terms that the elected will be limited to has not yet been made clear, it is expected to be somewhere between one and twenty. This is expected to curtail abuse of power and corruption on Capitol Hill amongst career politicians.
President Trump and his staff fully expect those in Congress to make significant noise about this, but they are prepared for it. Fantastically beautiful staffer Satya Martin told us what they feel is coming:
'The fat cats on The Hill Will be moaning about this endlessly. Those like Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer have been living high on the hog at the expense of the American people for decades.
They take bribes and they ignore what the people want in order to serve corporate interests. How else can Pelosi's net worth of almost $200 million be explained? She is a civil servant, making civil servant money. That level of wealth is not possible on her salary.
So they can complain all they want. It won't do any good. The people have spoken and they want the corruption to end. We are draining the swamp.'
This is what we elected Trump for. This is exactly the type of work we wanted him to do.
And he's not letting us down."
The idea of term limits for Congress has been raised, again and again, to stop members from serving so long that there is no turnover in both chambers. As recently as Janaury 29, 2019, the Cato Institute wrote:
Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas) and Representative Francis Rooney (R., Fla.) hope to rejuvenate an old idea, proposing a constitutional amendment to impose term limits on members of Congress. The measure deserves to pass, but it won't. However, states could take up the battle again by challenging a misguided 1995 Supreme Court decision that protected legislators from accountability to their voters.
America's political problems run deep, and there is no panacea, but term limits offer at least a partial remedy. In effect, they do what elections once did, ensuring competition for power and rotation in office.
Still, the Daily World Update story is pure fiction. The masthead for the site states, "satire for flat earthers, Trumpsters and Y'all Qaeda" with the word 'ALLOD,' which means America's Last Line of Defense.
NewsGuard, a company that uses trained journalists to rank the reliability of websites, describes dailyworldupdate.us as:
A news site that publishes false stories and hoaxes that are often mistaken for real news. The site is part of a network run by hoax perpetrator Christopher Blair.
According to NewsGuard, the site does not maintain basic standards of accuracy and accountability. Read their full assessment here.
