Posted on 08/24/2026 8:25:42 PM PDT by ransomnote
ransomnote: Trump posted the same promotional video featuring Jim Rickards (June 2026) on Truth Social again today.
Rickards has a strong track record of accurate predictions, including correctly calling Trump’s 2016 victory when many dismissed the idea.
In the video, Rickards forecasts historic levels of societal and financial turmoil in the run-up to the November 3, 2026 midterm elections. He anticipates a cascade of destabilizing events—prosecutions, perp walks, protests, and broader unrest—and outlines the potential conflicts and strategic paths facing the Trump administration.
Trump appears to keep elevating portions of this video because of Rickards’ detailed insights and guidance on navigating the tumultuous months ahead. The financial analysis is framed as practical advice to help Americans understand and respond to the market reactions that may accompany these unprecedented events.
(I am not covering the subscription or book offers promoted in the video, as FR does not use its platform to sell publications. The focus remains on the substantive analysis Trump is highlighting.)
Additional details from Grok on the video and Trump’s posting history appear at the bottom. Trump seems focused on sharing Rickards' plentiful insights about the approach to Nov 3, 2026.
Jim Rickards' promotional video is here. I've taken extensive notes below.
Narrator: "If you have a brokerage account, a 401K, or even a savings account at your local bank, the next few months could be the most important financial period of your lifetime. Not because of a recession, not because of a market crash, but because of something most Americans have never experienced: the collision of political, legal and military forces all converging upon a single date: November 3, 2026.
One man has raised an alarm. The same man who called the 2008 crisis before it hit; who predicted Trump's 2016 victory, and wrote about the Covid crash weeks before the market plunged in March of 2020. His name is Jim Rickards, a former advisor to the CIA, Pentagon, and four White House administrations.
And today, he's going to show you exactly what's coming, and the three moves you can make right now to protect your family and your wealth."
My notes on Rickards presentation begins: He says he's putting his career on the line with a prediction some will call extreme, reckless, and maybe even dangerous. He says he's been in this position before and each time he's been proven right.
Each time he warned investors months in advance, but he says today, we may have only weeksk to spare. His research indicates we are entering the most chaotic period in American history.
He says he's referring to the kind of turmoil most of us have never experienced, with massive street violence in major cities, criminal prosecutions of some of the most powerful people in Washington, a Constitutional crisis that echoes the darkest chapter in American history (ransomnote: the video features a clip of Nixon talking here) and a hidden plan already in motion that could reshape Washington DC for the next decade.
He says he knows it sounds extreme and talks about something that just happened. One of the most famous lawyers in America walked into the White House and handed the President a blueprint. Rickards said he was able to get the blueprint and says what's inside the document could change the course of American history.
He promises to show us exactly what it says and why it could be critical to your wealth and even your personal security in the weeks ahead.
But first he wants to tell us why what is coming in the weeks ahead could be far more dangerous than the public realizes.
1. He says in his video he will walk us through three critical moves every American should make, "before events take a turn for the worse."
2. A handful of companies which could surge as the chaos escalates
3. A safe-haven investment that he believes will be the single best-performing asset class in 2026. (he said he personally put over a million dollars of his own money into it)
4. The shocking details of the plan he mentioned, one that could hand President Trump extraordinary powers in the months ahead.
He cautions that what he will share is not for the faint of heart. He urges people who want to know the truth, even when it's uncomfortable, to stay with the video.
Rickards provides some of his background here: [includes photos of him with White House officials]. He said he spent close to 50 years working at the highest levels in Wall Street, International Finance, and US intelligence. During that time, he developed a reputation for making predictions which most people think are crazy.
Rickards provides an example, warning John McCain's campaign in 2008 that he wouldn't make it to election day without a major market meltdown. McCain's team laughed him off the phone and never spoke with him again. In the ensuing weeks, 8 trillion dollars was wiped out of American's 401K's and IRAs. 8.7 million people lost their jobs, nearly 10 million Americans lost their homes. According to the Federal Reserve's data, 100 million Americans still haven't fully recovered.
Those following Rickards at that time saw the crisis in advance. Most people didn't react until it was too late.
Then it happened again in 2016 the polls gave Hillary Clinton a 99% chance of winning, along with all media/news outlets. He went on television to make a prediction most people thought was insane - the President Trump would win the election. Investors who saw what was coming had a huge advantage.
In January 2020, he warned readers in his newsletter that a global pandemic was about to trigger a financial crisis. 3 weeks later the stock market plunged 30% in the fastest crash in history. Because his readers were prepared, they saw gains of 40%, 47% and 58% all in less than 9 months while everyone else was panicking.
Rickards notes the pattern - he warned, he was not believed, his prediction came true, many people realized he was correct too late to protect themselves. He says this pattern is now about to repeat again.
He says what is going to happen between now and November 3 will be unlike anything we've experienced in our lifetime. He hopes people will take him seriously. The next weeks could bring about the most turbulent period in modern American history.
He knows it would be hard for us to take his predictions at face value, and points to expertise acquired in his professional background. He's been at the center of some of the most important political events in modern history.
Rickards references the threat to America's financial system in 1998 and that the Federal Reserve brought him in to help manage the crisis. After 9/11 the CIA and Pentagon asked him to help with a computer system designed to predict the next terrorist attack by tracking unusual activity in the financial markets.
He says he's been inside the West Wing, Us Treasury, the boardroom of the Federal Reserve, and he's advised members of Trump's cabinet on economic and national security matters.
He says his connections are not the only reason he sees things before anyone else. Decades earlier working with the CIA at Los Alamos Laboratory, he learned about 'Complexity Theory' and that changes his thinking about all aspects (market, security, etc.). He says Complexity Theory is the single most important framework for understanding what's about to happen to this country.
In simple terms, most economists on Television think the markets work like a machine. Push this lever, pull that one and you get a predictable result etc. etc. Those 'machine' models have been wrong for decades.
Instead Rickards asks us to image snowflakes packed together on a mountain. It's not the final snowflake to fall before an avalanche occurs which is the real cause, it's just the trigger. The real cause of an avalance is the instability throughout the system which may not be visible from the outside - hidden stress building for years. He didn't learn this at Harvard or on Wall Street.
He learned this from the scientists who use the exact same mathematical principles to model nuclear chain reactions. He applied this knowledge at the CIA where they used it to predict terrorist attacks by tracking unusual patterns in financial markets. Their system detected a terror plot 72 hours before the London police broke it up.
He used this model at the Pentagon in the first ever financial wargame to show military planners how a single economic attack could cascade through the entire system in hours.
This is the lens he uses to see what's coming, a scientific framework for predicting when systems are reaching a breaking point.
Right now, this is what he sees. Something very strange is happening in Washington. He first became aware of it when he sat down with someone close to Trump's inner circle. He can't reveal the person's name. He said they have direct access to the President's strategy and to the Departement of Justice. What they told him was stunning.
Rickards notes that many people who voted for Trump are furious because at this point into the President's second term, we've seen zero insiders arrested. Not a single member of the Deep State or member of Biden's team, barely a soul from the infamous Epstein files. Most people have wondered, 'Why?'
As it turns out, there's a reason which will boil over into the front pages this summer. Behind the scenes, the White House has been quietly building criminal cases against some of the most powerful people in Washington.
[ransomnote: Text overlay on the video: "Former FBI directors, State attorney's general, Election officials. Even members of Biden family's inner circle"]
This is key: they've timed every single case to land between now and election day.
Soon the first indictments will drop.
By summer, the trials will begin.
When the fall rolls around, convictions will be making headlines
Wall Street will react to a string of guilty verdicts hitting the news every week for months.
Rickards says he'll show us what happened the last time Washington went to war with itself, but first he will unpack Trump's plan. Like most of his big moves, it's strategically brilliant, but highly chaotic.
This may seem random but, do you recall the final night Trump announced his candidacy? The next morning a strange bit of news emerged, not about Trump's speech or the state of his party. It was about the music he played at the 2024 Republican National Convention, an aria from the Italian opera named 'Nessun Dorma' (translated None Shall Sleep).
"Nessun Dorma" is one of the most famous pieces of music ever written. The climax of the piece is a single word written three times, "Vincerò, Vincerò, Vincerò," which translates to, "I will win." At the time, most people thought it was Trump being Trump.
But considering what's about to unfold, I think it was a declaration of war. As you'll see, what the Trump White House has been quietly planning for about a year has less to do with politics and more like the script of a Tom Clancy movie.
If you've seen, 'The Sum of All Fears," you know what I'm talking about. It's a film about elminiating terrorists and Deep State actors, and here's what's eerie about the whole thing: the same song plays at the climax of the film as the enemies are slaughtered - one by one they fall. And that's what I think is about to happen in American politics.
The WHite House and the Department of Justice have spent the last year quietly building criminal cases against some of the most powerful people in America.
After years of polictical lawfare, where the left weaponized the legal system against Trump, dragged him through two impeachments, indictments, 91 criminal charges and hundreds of millions in civil penalties, the tables are about to turn.
He will walk us through the target list - when we see who's about to be charged, he says we'll understand why he believes this will trigger the most violatile political environment in modern American History.
Target #1 Former Intelligence Director: this man launched the Russia Collusion against Trump, was already charged once but the case was dismissed on a technicality. Rickard's sources say the DOJ rebuilt the case from the ground up, a re-indicment that could soon be coming.
Target #2 State Attorney General: Went after Trump with a 400+ million dollar civil fraud judgement. Her case was also dismissed on technical grounds. Rickard believes she's about to be re-indicted as well.
Target #3 Attorney and former Special Counsel. He brought charges against Trump and could soon be facing criminal charges himself. He ran a rogue FBI operation (Arctic Frost) where he secretly spied on sitting Republican senators including Lindsay Graham, Josh Hawley, Ron Johnson and Marsha Blackburn. He also surveilled Charlie Kirk's Turning Point USA, the Republican National Committee and the America First Policy Institute
Target #4 State Governor, involved in one of the largest welfare frauds in history. Billions skimmed and sent over seas. The same scheme has now surfaced in California and Washington State. Investigators are asking what the Governor knew, and when he knew it.
Target #5 The Biden inner circle. This may be the most explosive case of all. During Biden's final years in office his staff used the autopen to replicate the President's signature allegedly without Biden's knowledge. While the President was wandering around in the bushes, his team was running the country. The staffers who operated the autopen are now the targets of a major investigation.
Rickards says he could keep going, but he thinks we can see his point. In the weeks ahead, we're going to see not just legal and political turmoil, but also financial turmoil. Because political crises of this magnitude don't stay political - it will bleed into the financial markets and with surprising consequences.
As Rickards recently wrote, "Watch for a slew of criminal charges to begin and for the trials and convictions spread like tidal wave damage as we draw closer to the election. Stock up on popcorn. The show's about to begin.
But what Rickards shared so far is just half the story. While the Trump administration is preparing a legal attack on his political enemies, the left is planning something far more dangerous.
Right now as I speak, 12 states and the District of Columbia have declared themselves 'Sanctuary Jurisdictions.' They're openly refusing to comply with federal immigration law. State Governors, Mayors, Attorney's General are ordering their police forces to stand down, to refuse to cooperate with federal agents, to physically block Ice Agents from doing their jobs.
Now, when was the last time in American history that a group of states banded together to defy the Federal Government?Rickards answers his own question: 1861. [video image shows newspaper report of start of the war].
Rickards notes there were 11 states in the original Confederacy. Today there are 13 states in what he refers to as the 'Sanctuary Confederacy.' [ransomnote: list includes D.C.]
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
District of Columbia
Illinois
Massachusetts
Minnesota
Nevada
New York
Oregon
Rhode Island
Vermont
Washington
Rickards specifically states he is not predicting another Civil War. He's not saying we're about to see armies marching against each other.
But the Constitutional confrontation happening right now is identical to the one that lead to the Battle of Fort Sumpter and here's why. The Civil War was morally about slavery, but legally it was about something else. Nullification.
The Southern states believed they had the right to ignore federal laws they disagreed with. The federal government said, "No"; the Contitution is the supreme law of the land, and no state can override it. That argument was settled at the cost of 620,000 American lives.
Now, 165 years later, it's happening again. The last time states defied the federal government on this scale the stock market lost more than half its value in the years surrounding the crisis. When the dust settled, stocks didn't just recover; they more than doubled. The people who understood what was really happening made fortunes. This time I suspect history will repeat, only now the uprising is coming from the Left.
Take Minnesota for example. The White House has reported over 4000+ criminal illegal aliens had been arrested there as part of what the Trump administration calls, 'Operation Metro Surge' with 2000 ICE Agents deployed in and around the city. Instead of cooperating, the State government turned the situation into a war zone. Govenor Tim Waltz, Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis and Attorney General Keith Ellison actively encouraged the obstruction of federal officers.
Citizens set up homemade blockades at key intersections, created make-shift checkpoints to slow down federal agents, used weapons against officers, and two Anti-Ice activists were killed in confrontations with Agents (Alex Pretti, Rene Nicole Good). The Mainstream press called it 'cruel and unusual killings,' but they missed the bigger picture. This is an insurrection against federal authority. And it was spreading. The same kind of resistance arose in Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle and other major cities.
As one analyst put it, quoting directly,
"They believe that the more turmoil, the more violence, the more resistance and the more a general sense of chaos and unrest swirl around the Trump administration, the more they can drive down its popularity during the midterms. ~ Victor David Hanson
In other words, the far-left wants the chaos. They want the violence. They want the images of federal agents clashing with civilians on the streets of American cities. They believe it will hurt Trump in November because it worked once before. Remember the summer of 2020? The George Floyd riots? Two billion dollars in property damage? Twenty-five people killed? Entire city blocks set on fire? The left called it the 'Summer of Love.' They believe, with good reason, that those months of violence, riots and arson were critical in defeating Donald Trump in the 2020 election. So they're running the same playbook.Only this time, the stakes are even higher. The question is, 'What is Trump going to do about it?' This where things get really interesting. Because he's facing a decision only one other President in American history has faced. Abraham Lincoln.
Here's the problem. If Trump sends in the National Guard, deploys federal troops and cracks down hard on the sanctuary states, the left will call him a dictator, a fascist. They'll compare ICE Agents to the Gestapo. Every major news network will run 24/7 footage of armed soldiers on American streets. Some moderate voters, who might otherwise support Republicans in November could be scared away.
But if Trump stands down, if he lets these states get away with nullifying federal law, his own base will turn on him. His credibility will be shattered. The message to every other state will be clear, 'You can defy the federal government and get away with it.' That's the trap. The democrats designed it that way.
Option A: Look like a tyrant
Option B: Look like a pushover
Either outcome creates massive volitility. Rickards says he will show us volitility like this is where fortunes are made.
So what will happen next? Rickards believes Trump will do exactly what Lincoln did. He'll stand up for the Union. Trump has an arsenal of legal tools that most Americans don't even know exist.
Legal Tool #1: Supremacy Clause (Article 6 of the Constitution, clause 2) which plainly states the Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land. Federal Law is supreme, period.
Legal Tool #2: Insurrection Act of 1807. 2019 year old law gives the President the authority to deploy federal troops inside the United States to suppress rebellion and enforce federal law. Lincoln used it. Eisenhower used it to desegregate public schools in Little Rock, AR. George H. W. Bush used it during the LA riots of 1992. Trump can use it now.
Legal Tool #3: Money. Trump can cut off federal funding to every sanctuary state and city that refuses to cooperate with federal law enforcement. Think about what that means for California and other states that are already drowning in debt that depend on billions of federal dollars for everything from highways, to hospitals, to schools....
1. California - $496.81B
2. New York - $233.27B
3. Illinois - $222.82B
Legal Tool #4: The most extreme tool is the arrest of State officials. Governors, Attorneys General, Mayors if they actively obstructing federal law enforcement, if they're ordering state police to interfere with federal agents - that is a crime. The DOJ has the authority to prosecute it.
Now, will Trump use all these tools? No one knows. But one thing is clear; Trump must act or risk losing the country because the alternative to confronting the Sanctuary Confederacy is the gradual breakup of the United States itself. That's exactly what Lincoln feared in 1861, and it's exactly what the Anti Ice movement is trying to achieve.
One way or another, we're about to witness what most people have never seen before. Rickard calls it the "Trump Supremacy, " not because Trump is supreme, but because the Supremacy Clause is.
Rickards says he's about to show us how to be on the right side of it.
Now to recap:
Remember the framework he showed earlier about the snowflake and the avalanche? The wave of prosecutions from the Trump administration - that's a snowflake.
The Sanctuary Confederacy and the street violence? That's a snowflake.
The Constitutional battle? That's a snowflake.
Any one of these could trigger a cascade, but several of them landing on the same mountain at the same time?
Look at the snowpack underneath:
- $39 trillion in national debt
- a dollar losing it's reserve currency status year after year
- a housing market on the brink of collapse
- consumer debt at record highs
- stocks near all-time highs, with little margin for error
Here's what most people don't realize:
3 out of 5 Americans who own an S&P index fund are directly exposed to every one of these threats.
Rickards describes the financial resources which depend on consumer confidence which is about to face turmoil.
If you own bonds or fixed income, you're betting that the government can hold things together, that inflation stays low, that the dollar holds its value while four political crises are unfolding simultaneously.
And if you have money sitting in a savings account with one of the big banks, you should know that 63 of them are sitting on hundreds of billions of dollars in unrealized losses in their bond portfolios.
That's why what Rickards is about to show us is so important.
Rickards has spent 50 years studying complex systems, he's modeled them for the CIA, he's war-gamed them for the Pentagon, he's watched them collapse in realtime (long-term capital management in 1998 and again in 2008).
In his entire career, he's never seen this many critical indicators pointing in the same direction at the same time.
The avalanche is coming. He can't say which snowflake will trigger it, but he can say the mountain has never been more unstable.
That brings us to the most important part of his presentation. What can you do about it?
Rickards says he's not a doom-and-gloom guy who delights in predicting the end-of-the-world. In fact he says America could emerge from this even stronger. But, history shows it's likely to get worse before it gets better.
The coming political chaos will quickly spread into the financial markets leading to tremendous losses for some, but tremendous gains for others.
Take the 1970's OPEC embargo for example. Saudi oil prices trippled and the stock market crashed 48%. Gas stations ran dry and our economy plunged into recession. But, investors who owned gold nearly trippled their value in 2 years ($65 per ounce to nearly $200 per ounce). By 1980, that same gold was worth almost $850 an ounce [1208% in just2 years]
The same thing happened during Watergate. He details the descent into the scandal, with negative news dominating the reportage every night. [S&P 500 graph charts a series of steep declines starting at 100 and crashing 48%. Investors panicked. Those who kept their nerve and bought quality stocks at the bottom reaped a 70%+ gain in the two years that followed.
More recently, it happened again [Defense stocks after 9/11]. Defense spending resulting in gains of 500% or more for those holding defense stocks.[Video includes examples of 1000%+ gains].
During Covid, the market crashed 37% in weeks, the fastest crash in history. Rickards says his readers were prepared because he had warned them weeks in advance. While everyone else was selling in a blind panick, those who followed his guidance were positioned to ride the recovery [25%+ gains in 2 months] and the market recouped every penny in just 5 months.
Do you see the pattern? Each time we faced a political and financial crisis, investors who panick; they lose. While investors who prepared, win.
Which brings us to the present moment. Most people will panick. They'll be caught completely off guard. But now you know what's coming. If you position yourself correctly, the next few months could be the most profitable of your life. Here's why.
During the Arab oil embargo of the 1970's, if you put just $5000 into gold @ $65 an ounce and held it to 1980, it turned into more than $65,000 [1200% gain in just under 10 years] while everyone else was standing around gas lines watching their stock values get cut in half.
Then came Watergate [Blue Chips during Watergate]. If you put $5000 in blue chips stocks in the October 1974 bottom, when the headlines were screaming that a sitting president had just resigned in disgrace, you'd have been sitting on roughly $8600 just two years later [72% gain in just 2 years] while most people were bracing for the end of the world.
Again after Sept 11, (Defense stocks after 9/11), if you split $10,000 across, Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Nortrup Grumman and General Dynamics ($50,000 total) it would be worth almost $500,000 twenty years later. (900%+ gain in just 20 years).
Each of these crises involved one major threat: an oil shock, a political scandal, a terrorist attack, a pandemic. Just one.
What we're facing right now is four crises hitting at the same time.- an avalance of criminal prosecutions
- street violence in American cities
- a shooting war in the Middle East with oil above $100
- and a Constitutional battle that could keep one man in power until 2033.
Four snowflakes on the most unstable mountain Rickards has seen in 50 years. If just one of these crises could turn $5000 into $65,000 or $100,000, what do you think happens when all four hit at once?
That's why Rickards wanted to make sure that you are armed with his research. Investors who see what's coming and make the right moves could make more money than all these previous financial crises combined.
It's critical you don't get overwhelmed in the months ahead. The news cycle is going to be fast and furious, and deeply emotional. If you can keep your cool, you'll have little to worry about and everything to gain.
FIRST: The first move he's recommending involves a clutch of companies about to see a massive surge in government spending. When a government faces multiple threats, it does the same thing every single time. Regardless of political party in power or who's in the White House, the government spends.
Right now, government spending is unlike anything we've seen in decades. The Pentagon just submitted a $1.5 Trillion budget for 2026, the highest since WWII.
Domestic law enforcement finance trippled in a single year from $10 billion to nearly $29 billion, making one agency alone the highest funded law enforcment agency in the country.
Hundreds of millions more are flowing into National Guard deployments, surveillance technology and security infrastructure across major American cities. You don't have to like it. You don't have to agree with it. But guess what; they're going to tax you to pay for it. This is your chance to get all that money back and then some.
Rickards offers one example [AI Surveillance Stock]. With increased security spending, this company's stock was up 300% in 2024 alone. Then it leapt 130% higher in 2025 [934% gain in just 2 years] [ransomnote: pardon my math error, the 934% total gain is correct]
Rickards believes the biggest gains are still ahead. He employs another example - a company that makes the bodycam and digital evidence platforms used by virtually every police department in America, plus federal agencies. Their stock returned over 2,300% gain in the last decade.
Here's a telling detail: Everytime domestic tensions escalate (e.g., civil unrest, protests, security emergencies) demand for their products surges. During the summer of 2020, this company's stock jumped 20% in a matter of days. Now imagine what happens when that kind of unrest spreads to a dozen major cities in the months approaching the Nov 3, 2026 elections?
Rickards says he put over $1 million of his own wealth into gold. It sounds old fashioned to some, but the gold market just handed us a gift. On January 28, 2026 gold hit an all-time high of $5089 per ounce. That was an 182% gain in just 5 years. It then pulled back hard, falling more than 20% from that high. Those who didn't understand what's really happening panicked.RIckards is doing the opposite of panicking; he's buying more gold because the events he's described to us today (prosecutions, street violence, Middle East war, Constitutional crisis) will all have the same effect on the financial system. They will shake confidence, and when confidence cracks, when people start to question whether the government has things under control, money flows to gold. That's what drove gold from $35 per ounce to $850 an ounce during the 1970's [Opec Oil Embargo, 1208%+ gain] He includes 9/11 and the short term fall of gold before it rose to realize a 25%+ gain in just one year.
The Mid-term elections he just described - gold is already pricing it in, and it's just getting started.
Rickard's (gold) target is $10,000 per ounce and he believes we could see it before the end of 2026. Even $20,000 is not out of the question. Most people think it can't happen, but the higher gold rises, the more likely it becomes because each $1000 step becomes a smaller percentage gain off a bigger base. Gold going from $3000 to $4000 is a 33% move but $9000 to $10,000 is is just an 11% move.
"Once gold gets rolling, the math itself starts working in its favor. But the real money won't be made in gold itself, it will be made in GOLD MINING STOCKS." ~ Jim Rickards
The biggest gold miners in the world have production costs of roughly $1300 to $1600 per ounce. Even when gold pulled back to $4300, they were still earning $2700 to $3000 in profit on every single ounce they pulled out of the ground. Those are extraordinary margins, and when gold climbs back toward $5000, $7000, $10,000 - their margins will explode.
One stock Rickards is watching returned 182% last year alone. Another returned 167%, a third returned 116% - all this before the crises he's just described fully unfolds.
Rickards says if you're lucky enough to see a pullback, take it as a gift from the market.
He says the following inforamtion is the most important piece of this entire presentation.
Remember the blueprint Rickards mentioned at the very beginning of the video, the one that was hand-delivered to the President. It's time for him to tell us what's inside.
On December 17, 2025, one of the most famous lawyers in America, a man named Alan Dershowitz walked into the White House. He's a Harvard Law Professor Emeritas. He defended Trump during his first impeachment. He's argued cases before the Supreme Court and advised Presidents of both parties. On that day he personally handed President Trump a draft copy of his new book titled, Could President Trump Constitutionally Serve A Third Term?
When the Wall Street Journal reported on it (Dec 2025), it sent shock waves through Washington. Now, before you dismiss this as a fantasy, let me walk you through the argument because it hinges on a brief passage, just 14 words, from the 22nd Amendment to the United States Constitution.
"No person shall be ELECTED to the office of the President more than twice."
Did you catch the key word? ELECTED. The 22nd Amendment doesn't say you can't SERVE more than two terms. It says you can't be elected more than twice. Those are two very different things. That distinction creates pathways that most Americans don't realize exist. Rickards will walk us through the most important ones.
PATH NUMBER ONE: Trump runs as VICE President on a ticket with JD Vance in 2028. Vance wins. Then Vance resigns. Under the 25th Amendment, the Vice President, Trump, becomes President. He wasn't elected President. He became President.
Trump himself has called this approach, 'too cute.' But some legal scholars agree it would work technically.
PATH NUMBER TWO: (Rickards considers this one the most likely) JD Vance runs for President in 2028 with someone like Marco Rubio as his VP. They win. Meanwhile Trump is chosen as Speaker of the House. Here's something most people don't know: the Speaker of the House does not have to be a member of Congress. Anyone could be elected to be Speaker. So Trump becomes Speaker, then Vance and Rubio both resign, and under the Presidential line of succession the Speaker of the House becomes President. Trump takes the oval office by ascending through the Contitutional chain of command.
PATH NUMBER THREE: (This is the Dershowitz argument. Rickards says it's pretty clever.) Trump runs in 2028 and wins the popular vote overwhelmingly. But instead of casting their votes for Trump, the Electoral College Delegates abstain. With no candidate receiving the majority of the Electoral votes, the election is thrown to the House of Representatives. The House then selects Trump as President. The keyword is 'selects' not 'elects'. The 22nd Amendment prohibits being elected more than twice, but it says nothing about being selected by Congress. It's the Constitutional loop hole hiding in plain site.
You might think this sounds far-fetched, but Steve Bannon, Trump's former campaign strategist, gave an interview to the Economist where he said that Donald Trump will be president again for a third term in 2028 - and that America needs him to. Bannon said there is a plan and that it will be laid out at the appropriate time. A Plan. Trump himself has said, (Rickards quoting him directly), "I would love to do it. I have the best numbers ever and I'm not ruling it out. You'll have to tell me"
Rickards says he's telling us all this, and how it connects directly to the mid-term elections on November 3, 2026. The most viable path to a third term, Speaker of the House route, requires one thing above all else - Republican control of the House of Representatives. If Republicans hold the House in November, the path to 2028 stays open. Trump could potentially remain in power until 2033. But if Democrats take the House, the third term is dead. An impeachment becomes not just possible, but likely.
Rickards asks, "Do you see why I'm calling this the most important election in American history?" These mid-terms aren't just about 2026. They're about whether one man holds the Presidency for the next 7 years.
The political establishment understands this. The markets are about to. When they do, the volitility will be unlike anything you've ever seen.
He says he has shown you the four forces about to collide this year: a wave of new prosecutions and perp walks, the Sanctuary Confederacy, a war in the Middle East, and the Third Term pathway that could shape American Politics for a decade. Any one of these would be enough to rattle the American markets. All four hitting at the same time is a once in a generation event.
Rickards spent 50 years scanning for threats and opportunities, and says he's not the kind of person who 'cries wolf.' There were many times in the past decade that looked bleak but he never issued a warning because the evidence wasn't there. But this time, it's serious.
Rickards books mentioned in the video:
The Midterm-Meltdown Portfolion: 3 Stocks That Could Soar in The Most Dangerous Year in American History.
The $10,000 GOLD PLAYBOOK: 3 Mining Stocks That Could Explode As The Dollar Crumbles.
TRUMP'S EXPLOSIVE THIRD TERM: The 14-Word Loophole That Could Keep the President in Power Until 2033
~~~~~~~~
Grok's response to my questions about the video:
June 2026.
The promotional “Midterm Meltdown” presentation by Jim Rickards (for Paradigm Press / Strategic Intelligence) is dated June 2026 at the end of the transcript/script. The associated landing-page URL uses the code “0626,” and a related “Midterm-Meltdown Portfolio” report PDF was published around June 25, 2026.
- The promotional video by Jim Rickards for Paradigm Press predicts chaos including prosecutions of figures like Comey and Biden allies timed to 2026 midterms, alongside opportunities in gold, defense stocks, and mining amid unrest.
- Rickards, a financial commentator and former CIA/Pentagon advisor known for crisis predictions, links political turmoil to market windfalls, with Trump amplifying the content multiple times in 2026.
Trump first shared/promoted it widely on Truth Social around July 27, 2026 (and again later), after which Rickards himself referenced it as “my Midterm Meltdown presentation.”
President Trump posted about the “Midterm Meltdown” video on Truth Social today (August 24, 2026, at approximately 12:34 AM EDT).
URL: https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/117148617954763691
He also posted it previously on July 27, 2026 (within the past month).
URL of the earlier post: https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/116990282989174946
(Note: These are Truth Social posts rather than X/Twitter posts.)
In short, it was recorded/produced in June 2026 as a forward-looking pitch ahead of the November 2026 midterms.
Dear FRiends,
We need your continuing support to keep FR funded. Your donations are our sole source of funding. No sugar daddies, no advertisers, no paid memberships, no commercial sales, no gimmicks, no tax subsidies. No spam, no pop-ups, no ad trackers.
If you enjoy using FR and agree it's a worthwhile endeavor, please consider making a contribution today:
Click here: to donate by Credit Card
Or here: to donate by PayPal
Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794
Thank you very much and God bless you,
Jim
Rickards is very generous with his insights into his methodology and how it has played out in past events (OPEC oil embargo, 9/11 etc.) and predictions about the multiple events which he believes will result in multiple shocks to the public sphere leading up to Nov 3, 2026.While Rickard's originally created the video in June 2026, the content still seems relevant.
Review
I'm still waiting. And Trump is still stymied by a 1000 injunctions slowly wending their way through the system. Time to cut the Gordian knot.
If there is no meltdown after midterms, should we ignore Rickards thereafter?
Something that can’t go on forever, won’t. We have a lot of those things. A change will eventually come. But politicians are in the business of putting that day off as long as possible. I would bet life goes on much as I has through November.
bkmk
Sounds like this was supposed to have started by now - it hasn't, for the most part.
Perhaps. I saw a video today of someone being roundly booed by every ‘rat audience member because he recognized what actually happened on 9/11. Might have been Piker.
Democrats are not your friends. That video proved it.
I noticed that too.
Summer is almost over, and there are zero trials.
Been a silver stacker for 5 - 6 years. Gold and Silver IRA also.
Wow! Thanks for your extensive work on this.
Jim suggests “summer” is the due date
Rule #17, never give a due date
Summer is almost over. Bummer.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.