US President Donald Trump discussed a draft copy of a book by lawyer Alan Dershowitz that examines whether Trump could constitutionally serve a third term as president, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

Trump’s flirtation with the idea of a third term has alarmed opponents and constitutional experts, who say it would test the 22nd Amendment of the US Constitution, which Congress approved after Franklin Roosevelt was elected four times. The 22nd Amendment states in part that “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.”

But Dershowitz said he told Trump on Tuesday that the Constitution was not clear on the issue. He said that during an Oval Office meeting, he handed Trump a draft of the book, titled “Could President Trump Constitutionally Serve a Third Term?”

The book, to be published next year, lays out various scenarios in which an individual could serve a third term, Dershowitz said. He said Trump told him that he planned to read the book and asked him for his conclusions about a third term.

“He found it interesting as an intellectual issue,” Dershowitz said in an interview with the Journal. “Do I think he’s going to run for a third term? No, I don’t think he will run for a third term.”

One of the scenarios laid out by Dershowitz would see enough Electoral College members abstain for no candidate to get to the required 270 votes, passing the decision on to Congress, which would “select, and not elect, the president,” the report said.

According to the National Constitution Center, a nonprofit that studies the document, electors have only twice abstained from a vote when their pledged candidate was living, and neither situation led the election to be decided by the legislature.

Prof. James Sample of Hofstra University’s law school told the Journal that the idea was “absurd,” but suggested his own “credible” alternative — that one of Trump’s allies, “perhaps JD Vance and Donald Trump Jr,” run for president and vice president but plan not to serve.

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