The President is the Head of State, the Government and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. The President appoints Cabinet members and Supreme Court Justices with the advise and consent of Congress. He or she has the power to make treaties with foreign countries and can grant reprieves and pardons, except in cases of impeachment. The President is also the Chief Diplomat and is responsible for representing our country and interacting with other nations and governments. He or she has the ability to sign legislation passed by Congress, or veto bills that he or she doesn’t want to support.
The President also has the power to nominate federal judges and other high officials and welcome ambassadors to our country. This gives the President a chance to shape the political landscape of our federal courts by selecting those that will lean one way or another and can change the balance of the federal judiciary.
While the framers of our Constitution envisioned a limit to the power of the presidency, as our nation evolved into a global superpower and leader of other wealthy or democratic nations, the president has come to wield a tremendous amount of influence. That, combined with the sway that politicians have in a democracy, has made it hard to define or pin down exactly what makes someone a leader and whether they have the right stuff to be the president of the United States.