“Picture this: It’s 9 p.m. on January 13, 2026 – a Tuesday – and you tune in to your favorite cable-news network to watch the president’s annual State of the Union address. But this year, the president doesn’t take a bulletproof limo from the White House to the US Capitol. Gone are the hundreds of members of Congress traditionally in attendance. Instead, the commander in chief is wearing an orange jumpsuit, his message streamed to lawmakers and into your living room via Zoom from his prison cell. Yes, this scenario is equally far-fetched and outlandish – in the extreme. But it’s also possible, law experts told Insider, particularly given former President Donald Trump’s mounting legal woes and his expressed desire to win back the White House in 2024.”

“If Trump landed in prison, nothing in the Constitution would block him from another White House run, according to nine legal experts interviewed by Insider. The Constitution requires only that presidential candidates are natural born US citizens who are at least 35 years old and have been US residents for at least 14 years. And practically anyone – even fictional characters – can take the first step toward the White House by filing organizational paperwork with the Federal Election Commission. ‘If he happens to be in prison at the time of the next presidential election, the fact that he’s in prison will not prevent him from running,’ said Michael Gerhardt, a constitutional law professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law in Chapel Hill. Whether Trump could run for president from prison – he has not been charged with a crime despite being the subject of local- and state-level inquiries – is therefore the easy question to answer, according to legal scholars. From there, matters get more complicated” – Business Insider.