Transcription
Alright, welcome back. In this video, we're talking about roles and the powers of the president. Let's do it.
Alright, so we're gonna talk about some powers of the president. The first type of power the president has are exclusive powers. These are powers that belong only to the president. They are directly stated in the Constitution. These include his commander-in-chief power, meaning that he is head of the Armed Forces, the power to grant pardons, the power to receive ambassadors, he can call Congress in the session, and he can deliver the State of the Union address. Surprisingly, that's it, according to the Constitution. As far as his exclusive powers, everything else is either shared or an informal or implied power.
Foreign policy provides a good example of the president having both formal and informal powers. The formal powers of the president include that he is commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces and that he has the power to make treaties with other nations, subject to Senate confirmation. However, he has the informal power to create executive agreements. Now, these operate just like treaties. They are agreements with the heads of state from other nations, but the difference is that these don't require Senate confirmation. So presidents have typically liked to rely more heavily on executive agreements than treaties because they have more power to do them on their own.
Now, there are certain powers the president has in the area of legislation. First of all, the president can sign a bill into law. So Congress passes it, the president signs it, it becomes a law. The president can also veto a law. A veto is a message to Congress rejecting the bill, telling them why he didn't sign it into law. It's important to remember that Congress can override the president's veto by two-thirds vote. However, this rarely happens. Historically, only about 4% of all presidential vetoes have actually been successfully overridden. So usually, a veto is a pretty strong check the president has on Congress. In fact, that check is so strong that simply through to veto a bill is usually enough to cause Congress to change that bill to either add something that the president likes or to take away the part the president doesn't like.
Now, presidents also can sometimes pocket veto a bill. This can only occur in the final ten days of a session of Congress. So if Congress passes a bill during those last 10 days and the president doesn't sign it and doesn't do anything with the bill, that bill does not become law. At any other time during the year, if the president gets that bill and doesn't do anything within 10 days, that bill will become law. So this is an important kind of loophole the president can exploit only at the end of a session of Congress.
It's important to note that presidents also have the informal power of negotiation and bargaining with Congress. So he puts pressure on them, he negotiates, he says, "Alright, you guys do this and I'll do this for you." So he negotiates, he bargains, and he's often more successful getting things done at the beginning of his term when his popularity and approval ratings are usually at their highest.
Another power the president is to issue executive orders. Now, this isn't mentioned explicitly in the Constitution, but it's based on the president's power as head of the executive branch to manage and control the government. Executive orders have the power of law. They don't require any congressional action. So sometimes presidents rely heavily on their use, and this can obviously lead to tension and conflict with Congress, especially when the president might make an executive order about something like Congress might disagree with or want to make legislation about.
Now, why don't presidents always rely on executive orders? Well, for one thing, they have to be constitutional. So you must be in areas of policy that the president is actually in charge of. So traditionally, they are typically used to manage the bureaucracy, which we'll talk about in a few videos from now, and in the area of foreign policy because the president is clearly head of the executive branch and he is clearly head of the Armed Forces. So he has a lot of leeway with executive orders and those two areas of policy.
There are two good reasons that presidents don't try to issue executive orders unilaterally on all things. And one reason is because the next president can simply undo the previous executive order. All the new president has to do is issue a new executive order rescinding the old executive order. So they are more transient and more temporary than laws. Another reason is that they just don't look good when it comes to public opinion. People often criticize extensive use of executive orders as a way of presidents trying to avoid checks and balances, and that just again, it doesn't look good. So presidents in recent years have tried to make fewer and fewer executive orders to try to avoid that negative attention.
Finally, an informal power of the president is that of issuing signing statements. A signing statement is something that when the president is signing the bill into law, so he is signing it, but he might make some notes and say, "Alright, this is my interpretation of a bill, or I disagree with that portion, or I'm instructing the executive department or agency to enforce the law this way because this is how I think it should be done." So these are used to provide the president's interpretation of that bill and to again show how that bill will actually be enforced, and it might sometimes be different than the way that Congress really intended.
Alright guys, so that's our introduction to the presidency. Until next time, this has been an Alamani production. Thanks again for watching this video, guys. If you haven't already, make sure you subscribe. Hit that like button for me, you know I appreciate it so much. I'll see you guys next time.