The only sentence relevant to the above scenario is “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice”. Trump has been elected and inaugurated twice already, so he cannot be elected to POTUS again. That is perfectly clear.
But in the Bannon scheme, Trump would either be elected in 2028 as VP under Vance or he wouldn’t be on the ticket at all, but simply named by Vance to fill the vacancy. Is that possible?
For that one, we have to look at the …
The 12th Amendment
The 12th Amendment speaks mostly about the Electoral College, and the process for the House to settle an impasse in the E.C. None of that applies here. However the last sentence of that amendment is very important and is still valid, not having been overridden by provisions of any other amendment.
But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.
Taken in isolation, this clearly says that Trump cannot be accepted by the EC as the VP-elect.
So it seems that the Bannon scheme truly rests on the argument that the 12th Amendment does not apply when filling a vacancy outside of the normal election process. So that brings us to …
The 20th Amendment
and specifically, Section 3:
If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President elect shall have died, the Vice President elect shall become President. If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified; and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a Vice President elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified.
Now, this one seems to be a real mess. In the scenario above, Vance would have qualified. But perhaps they are planning for a scenario where the E.C. is deliberately deadlocked so that Congress can select the President.
It seems to me, as a lay person, that this whole thing is so badly written that the SCOTUS will have no problem handing the issue to Congress. Please note that this scenario does not instruct Congress HOW to resolve the situation, unlike the 12th Amendment, where there is this peculiar vote by state delegation, not by the actual representatives that are seated in Congress. So that seems to suggest that our best protection is to make sure that WE have the majority, at least in the house, both in the 2027-8 term and the 2029-30 term.