TheUSAPresidents.com

Every Presidential Election Every American President About the Executive Branch Presidential Events All Political Parties America's Founding Documents

The United States Presidency

The Presidential Seal

What the Presidency can do

The President of the United States is the head of the Executive Branch of the U.S. government, and has certain powers over the other branches. The most important ones include:

• Vetoing bills passed by Congress
• Appointing Supreme Court Justices
• Making Executive Orders
• Being Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Military

However, like every other branch, the president is checked by the others, with the most important checks being:

• Congress overriding vetoes
• Supreme Court declaring Executive Orders unconstitutional
• Appointed Justices must be approved by the Senate

The Presidency was made to be a balanced position, just as equal as Congress or the Supreme Court. However, today, most people view the President as the person in charge of the government. There have been a total of 46 presidents in office, and a total of 45 men have served. You can check our list of every president and all their pages here.