In the early hours of Nov. 6, 2024, just after The Associated Press called the presidential race for U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, a post went viral on Reddit that claimed "Trump is officially the second US president to serve 2 non-consecutive terms." The post received more than 13,000 upvotes, as of this writing.
Trump is officially the second US president to serve 2 non-consecutive terms
byu/Puzzleheaded-Cry2422 ininteresting
We looked into the claim, and found that Trump will, indeed, be the second U.S. president to have served two nonconsecutive terms in office. Grover Cleveland – who won the 1884 election, lost the 1888 election, then won the 1892 election – was the first.
Although Cleveland did win the popular vote in 1888 as well, he lost the Electoral College vote to Benjamin Harris. In 1892, Cleveland won both the popular and Electoral vote.
When a reporter asked Cleveland why he thought he lost New York (where he had served as governor), he replied:
I answer frankly that I do not know. I am not indifferent to the result. It is not a personal matter. It is not proper to speak of it as my victory or my defeat. It was a contest between two great parties battling for the supremacy of certain well-defined principles. One party has won and the other has lost, that is all there is to it.
In sum, because Trump is the second U.S. president-elect to serve two nonconsecutive terms after Cleveland, we rate this claim true. Other reputable outlets, such as The Associated Press, reached the same conclusion.