Before reading chapter 12 of our textbook, watching the three Crash Course videos about the president’s role in our government, and researching and analyzing President Trump and his administration, I did not know what to expect. Besides knowing that the presidency is the most prestigious position in the nation simply because the president is the representative of our country, I had little other prior knowledge about the actual office of the president or the duties accompanying it. I was surprised to learn that presidents have numerous powers and responsibilities bestowed to them by the Constitution, Congress, and themselves. As a result, those who are elected into the highest office in the nation have …show more content…
Two points from the video that I found to be the most interesting are: 1) presidential candidates must be born in and be a resident of the United States for at least fourteen years and 2) the powers and responsibilities of the president given in the Constitution are vaguely worded. I found these points interesting because they represent the fears of the Framers of the Constitution; the Framers feared foreign and monarchical rule like that by King George III of the British Empire, which led them to craft the office of the president with such requirements and openness to interpretation. In addition to these interesting points, there are two main topics discussed in the video that help explain the powers of the president: the concepts of formal and informal powers. Formal powers are those explicitly described in the Constitution such the power to appoint individuals to the courts and bureaucratic agencies, like the Executive Office of the President, or EOP. Informal powers differ greatly from formal powers in that they are not expressly given in the Constitution, but implied to fulfill the duties of the