Article II, which lays out the powers, duties, and limits on presidential powers, is one of the most debated and reinterpreted parts of the Constitution. So what does it say?
Today we are joined by Dr. Corey Brettschneider, a professor of political science at Brown, author of several books on presidential power, and co-host of the podcast The Oath and the Office. We go through each and every clause of Article II, but somehow it keeps coming back to the same 35 words.
Be sure to check out Corey's podcast here.
Transcript
C101_Article II.mp3
Nick Capodice: You are listening to Civics 101. I'm Nick Capodice.
Hannah McCarthy: I'm Hannah McCarthy.
Nick Capodice: And in one of the most 101 things we've ever done on this show, Hannah and I are continuing our meticulous journey through the articles in the Constitution. We have battled the Balrog of Congress, which is the very extensive article one. And now we're moving on with the job that Congress and the Supreme Court are tasked with keeping in check the gosh darn president of the United States [00:00:30] of America. Now, Hannah, I wanted to keep this episode, as we say in the podcast biz, as evergreen as possible, and that has been very difficult to do.
Hannah McCarthy: Evergreen, meaning that listeners can listen to this episode years from now. And it will still make sense because it's not, you know, super tied to current events.
Nick Capodice: Yeah. And again, it's been hard. But while we will touch on the current administration a little bit, first and foremost, we are focusing on the words. Today is [00:01:00] our top to bottom exploration of article two, what the Constitution says about the executive branch. Stick around. I want to start off with something that is not often simple to understand in the Constitution, and that's something is people's actual jobs what they do. So like, take a senator, for example. [00:01:30] Where in the Constitution does it say what a senator does?
Hannah McCarthy: Well, what we do know of their constitutional job description, that's in article one. So like senators do a ton of things. Representatives do a ton of things.
Nick Capodice: Yeah. And that job description of all those things, it is a full half of our Constitution. So what about the Supreme Court?
Hannah McCarthy: Supreme court is article three. But the supreme power of the Supremes, that is not in the Constitution. That is a power [00:02:00] they gave to themselves in 1803.
Nick Capodice: And we are going to get into all that when we do an episode on article three, by the way. But I bring all this up because article two, which lays out the executive branch and specifically the powers of the president, it's got the most succinct, most clear job description in the entire Constitution, and it's a neat 35 words. These words are the beating heart of article two. Words that have been uttered so far 74 [00:02:30] times.
Archival: I, Franklin Delano Roosevelt I, Dwight D Eisenhower, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute, and I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States and will, to the best of my ability and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. So help me God. So help me God. So help me God. Congratulations, Mr. President.
Nick Capodice: I [00:03:00] just want to start by saying, I am glad to be going on this journey with you. Hannah. Seven articles total in the Constitution. Now we conquered the first article already, and now we're kind of even going further towards Mordor.
Hannah McCarthy: I feel like, can I be Frodo in this one? I, I'm the Frodo. I, I like bearing burdens. I'm very pale.
Nick Capodice: Is Frodo pale?
Hannah McCarthy: Well, as things get harder, he [00:03:30] definitely gets paler.
Nick Capodice: You can definitely be Frodo in this metaphor. I think it's prudent to mention that I played Samwise in an eight hour production of the Lord of the rings at Summer camp production, which featured, by the way, a now very famous actor in the role of Bilbo Baggins.
Hannah McCarthy: You're not gonna say the famous actor's name?
Nick Capodice: I'm not gonna say his name. I'm just hoping he hears this and, like, remembers our friendship and gives the show a shout out. But I'm getting very distracted from our quest here. Hannah.
Hannah McCarthy: I mean, Nick, the Constitution goes ever on [00:04:00] and on down from the preamble where it began. You started by saying that the presidential oath of office was the heart of article two.
Nick Capodice: I did for a very good reason.
Corey Brettschneider: My podcast, as you know, is called The Oath in the office, and it's called that because of language in article two, which lays out word for word in a way that is distinct from any other office. What the president has to say in the first few seconds in office to even become [00:04:30] president.
Nick Capodice: This is Corey Brett Schneider. He's a professor of political science at Brown University and the co-host of the podcast, The Oath and The Office.
Corey Brettschneider: I also wrote a book called The Oath in the office, and another called The Presidents and the people five Leaders Who Threaten democracy and the citizens who fought to defend it.
Nick Capodice: So I started my interview with Corey by saying, it seems to me like a lot of stuff in article two feels kind of vague, and it's been reinterpreted [00:05:00] a lot over the years. So he brought up the oath, which is the last paragraph in section one of article two. Quote. Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take the following oath or affirmation, etc..
Corey Brettschneider: So on the one hand, yes, you're absolutely right. Article two is very vague, but it's very specific when it comes to the oath. So much so that when President Obama recited the oath with Justice Roberts, he flubbed some of the words.
Archival: That I will [00:05:30] execute the office of president to the United States faithfully, and I will execute. The. Faithfully the office of president of the United States. President of the United States, faithfully.
Corey Brettschneider: And will the listeners will remember this. And there was such a worry about this that they repeated the oath that night to make sure that he actually was president. That's how serious a requirement it is. It says that the president has to pledge to I preserve, protect and defend the Constitution [00:06:00] of the United States. That's what that defines the office. And we often think about the president as sort of the leader of the country. That's language that Woodrow Wilson introduced in the 20th century, kind of beyond, you know, the other branches. But what that language is meant to do is to say the opposite, that a president is not above the law, far from it is, is, is concerned with the implementation and protection of law, not just that they have to respect rights, but that they have to do more than that, right? They [00:06:30] have to preserve, protect and defend them, not just not violate them.
Hannah McCarthy: Okay. Nick, let's get into those vague parts you were talking about and all the rest. Let's do the nuts and bolts of article two.
Nick Capodice: Sure thing. Article two. It is 1023 words. That is half the length of article one. It's got four sections and it lays out the executive branch. It details the office of the president and the vice President and a bunch of other things. And here we go. Quote. The executive power [00:07:00] shall be vested in a president of the United States of America, end quote. And, Hannah, we gotta stop right there.
Hannah McCarthy: We just started. We did. We're not even out of the shire, Nick. This is as far as we've ever gone before.
Nick Capodice: If I take one step more.
Corey Brettschneider: I mean, it seems straightforward, but notice how quickly it becomes complicated. What is executive power? And that's on the one hand, you know, I think the best historical evidence suggests that the framers themselves had a very constrained [00:07:30] idea of what that power was. They thought it was executing the laws like it says.
Nick Capodice: But on the other hand, some judges and scholars have interpreted this sentence, which is called the vesting clause to me that the president is the single person in charge of the entire executive branch.
Hannah McCarthy: Right. This is the unitary executive theory, an interpretation that is tied to several recent Supreme Court decisions, specifically about who the president can and cannot fire. [00:08:00]
Corey Brettschneider: And I think it's just a weird pair, because the idea that the unitary executive is based in the text, you know, I feel embarrassed at the idea because what the text is that they're talking about is that one sentence, and it doesn't really tell us a lot. It's not like, for instance, birthright citizenship, which says, you know, you're born in the United States, you are a citizen if you talk about that too. Or I'll give an even easier example, the requirement age requirements for president or Senate [00:08:30] or the House of Representatives. You know, those are textual, very clear. And then there are provisions that are really vague and the executive power being vested in a president. I'd count that among the most vague.
Nick Capodice: All right, moving on. The next part in section one is pretty clear by comparison. The president, quote, shall hold his office during the term of four years, end quote. Now, the 22nd amendment enshrines the rule that you can only be elected two times as president, you only get two terms. And then it says quote. And together with the vice president chosen [00:09:00] for the same term, be elected as follows. Colon.
Hannah McCarthy: Colon here's how we elect the president.
Nick Capodice: Here's how we do it. This is the Electoral College. So first it goes to say that each state appoints electors and the formula for how many. I am not going to admit, Hannah, how old I was when I realized the number of electoral votes that a state gets is not just some arbitrary number based on how many people live in that state. I mean, it is tied to how many people live in your state, but it is not arbitrary.
Hannah McCarthy: The total number of senators and representatives [00:09:30] your state is allowed to have in Congress is the total number of electoral votes you get. So Texas is apportioned to have 38 seats in the House of Representatives and two senators in the Senate. So Texas has 40 electoral votes. The fewest electoral votes a state can have is three, which a few states do have. So does Washington, DC and the state with the most electoral votes and the most representatives and senators is California at 54 total?
Nick Capodice: Yeah. And those numbers aren't static. There [00:10:00] will always be 538 total. But when the census comes out every ten years, those numbers can shift during reapportionment, by the way. Hannah, did you know that the term Electoral college is not in the Constitution? Yes you did. I didn't know that. It's not even in the Federalist Papers. Like not once. Not once. It is an old term, though. The first use I could find was in the 1760s in England. Something to do with the Duke of Hanover, interestingly. Anyways, then [00:10:30] we move on to the longest paragraph in article two, how the electoral votes are tallied up, and who therefore is elected president and Vice president. Now, this chunk was amended in 1804 with the ratification of the 12th amendment.
Hannah McCarthy: Yeah. It used to be that the person who got the most votes became the president, and the person who got the second most votes became the vice president, which means that, you know, especially as elections got more and more vicious, which was pretty much from the beginning, the [00:11:00] guy who lost had to work directly with the guy who won.
Nick Capodice: Yeah, the 2024 election would have resulted under our original Constitution and President Donald Trump and his vice president, Kamala Harris. Match made in heaven. The dream team. So here is the process for how those electoral votes get counted.
Corey Brettschneider: This is where it gets complicated. The president of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall be counted. The person [00:11:30] having the greatest number of votes shall be the president. If such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed. And if there be more than one who have such a majority and have an equal number of votes in the House of Representatives, shall immediately choose by ballot one of them for president, and if no person have a majority, then from the five highest on the list, the said, how shall in like manner choose the president. But in choosing the president, the votes shall be taken by the States. The representative from each state having one [00:12:00] vote. But what all this does are two things. One is the idea that the. Which seems innocuous, right when I read it like. So how boring. The president of the Senate, the vice president is, the president of the Senate opens the the votes, you know, and certifies them. That's the language that Donald Trump and John Eastman use to try to justify the plot of January 6th, because what they said was that gave the ability of the Vice president, [00:12:30] Mike pence, the ability to say these ballots are invalid, they're fraudulent. Now, it doesn't say that, but that's what they read in.
Archival: It, aides to former Vice President Mike pence told the House January 6th Committee Thursday that the conservative lawyer John Eastman, pressured pence to reject certification of the 2020 election, but the former vice president refused and repeatedly told the former President Trump the actions were illegal. Committee chairman Bennie Thompson applauded pence for resisting [00:13:00] the pressure.
Hannah McCarthy: Their constitutional interpretation was that article two gives the vice president the authority to certify or not certify votes, and if enough states are declared invalid, then this other procedure would kick in.
Nick Capodice: Exactly.
Corey Brettschneider: Which is that under the electoral vote threshold, the states vote one by one, each state getting one vote. And what Eastman and Trump had calculated was that if you get [00:13:30] through this combination of pence refusing to certify supposedly invalid ballots, just to be clear, as I'm sure your listeners know, there's no evidence for the idea that that these ballots were invalid or that there was massive fraud to, to influence the election, but they were pretending that it was. And there were Trump and his supporters were threatening pence into trying to do this all with the idea of going to the House of Representatives and kicking in this procedure that we were just reading about.
Archival: It's [00:14:00] hard to believe, Anderson, what's going on here in the United States Capitol right now? I've been around here for a long time. I've never seen anything like this. I never thought I would see an armed mob like this, break windows and get into the United States Capitol and do what they're doing, and you can see what's going on. These individuals, they should be.
Nick Capodice: I have to add here that after what happened on January 6th, 2021, Congress did pass something called the Electoral Count Reform Act that [00:14:30] clarified that the vice president's role in all of this is truly a formality of just opening envelopes and saying, who won each state? All right, the rest of article two coming right up.
Hannah McCarthy: You're listening to Civics 101. I am Hannah McCarthy, Frodo Baggins.
Nick Capodice: I am Nick Capodice slash Samwise Gamgee or Gamgee?
Hannah McCarthy: I don't know. Ask Tolkien.
Hannah McCarthy: And we are journeying through article two of [00:15:00] the US Constitution. So we've gone through the process of electing a president. What comes next?
Nick Capodice: All right, article two, section one, clause five. This next clause is about the requirements for becoming a president. So you got to be at least 35 years old. You have to have been a resident in the US for at least 14 years and, quote, no person except a natural born citizen or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of this Constitution [00:15:30] shall be eligible to the office of president.
Hannah McCarthy: And everybody want to Nick Capodice trivia questions is who was the first president born in the United States of America? And Nick got me on this one the first time around. It is Martin Van Buren.
Nick Capodice: Yeah. Because technically there wasn't a United States until 1776. So, for example, George Washington was born in the colony of Virginia, but not in the United States. Anyhow, this requirement has [00:16:00] come up a few times during presidential elections. President Chester A Arthur was rumored to have been born in Canada. He was not. His father lived in northern Vermont, and he traveled between the two countries pretty frequently. Barry Goldwater. Hannah. Interestingly, did you know this about him? Goldwater was the candidate in 1964. He was born in the Arizona Territory three years before it became a state. Huh? John McCain was born in a U.S. naval base in the Panama Canal Zone. [00:16:30] And finally, Barack Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961, three years after it became a state. But due to conspiracy theories that he was actually born in another country, uh, President Obama was the subject of dozens of state and federal lawsuits attempting to remove him from office.
Archival: Donald Trump today finally submitting to the truth.
Archival: President Barack Obama was born in the United States. Period.
Archival: A seven second [00:17:00] statement after 28 minutes of build up trying to reverse a position Trump held for five years, championing a conspiracy theory.
Nick Capodice: You want to move along?
Hannah McCarthy: Yeah, I do.
Nick Capodice: All right. The next clause is about what happens if a president is removed from office by, quote, death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and duties of the said office. End quote.
Hannah McCarthy: The whole shebang goes to the vice president.
Nick Capodice: Yeah. Does it? Hannah, is that person the president or is that person just [00:17:30] acting like one? Is it a pipe or a picture of a pipe? After two centuries of presidents dying or nearly dying in office, and several close calls for the succeeding Veep also nearly died around the same time. This section was clarified with the passage of the 12th, the 20th, and the 25th amendment, which are all fascinating amendments that I can't get into right now. Now, penultimate clause in section one of article two, the president may receive compensation [00:18:00] for the job. That amount can't be raised or lowered during their elected term. So it has been $400,000 a year since 2001. Uh, and then there's this part they quote shall not receive within that period any other emolument from the United States or any of them, as in those states.
Hannah McCarthy: Like individual states. Right? Yeah. So this is the presidential emoluments clause.
Nick Capodice: It is. That word is one I had not heard until 2016. Emolument [00:18:30] means compensation basically payment for doing something. But this section Hannah it is crucial. There are no fewer than three emoluments clause in the Constitution. The other two are in article one. Here again is Doctor Corey Brettschneider.
Corey Brettschneider: To the founders, this was just the core. It was like the oath itself. What an emolument is, is essentially being able to profit from the office. And that is not just some abstract idea. It's really spelled out in these emoluments clauses [00:19:00] that essentially are saying you can't use the office for your own profit. And so George Washington, um, in his inaugural address, uh, says that, you know, he says, I will pledge to take no emoluments in the first inaugural. And to say the least, it's relevant to our current moment where there is, uh, you know, on this one, I'm not going to be neutral. There's a president of the United States who seems to be defying these emoluments clauses.
Hannah McCarthy: I do remember back in 2017, before we hosted [00:19:30] Civics 101, there was an episode on emoluments because everyone was talking about it.
Nick Capodice: It was such a hot topic. One reason being, when Trump was elected the first time, he did not divest himself of his myriad hotel businesses. People from all over the world stayed in those hotels. They paid for lavish things. There is a big potential to buy influence. So there were a bunch of lawsuits, and the Supreme Court finally got around to this after Donald Trump left office and said, essentially, well, [00:20:00] he's not the president anymore, so let's move on.
Hannah McCarthy: And move on. We did.
Archival: It is now official. Cnn projects that Donald Trump has been elected president, defeating Vice President Kamala Harris and making a political comeback unlike any.
Nick Capodice: One, reporter at The New Yorker said in January of 2026 that a very conservative estimate of how much money Donald Trump has made in the first year of his second term is over $4 billion. But while the Constitution says, you can't [00:20:30] do this, it does not say what happens if you do do this. There is no enforcement clause. So we too shall just move on. Last part of this section is the oath of office, which we talked a little bit about earlier, but it does bear revisiting.
Corey Brettschneider: So my favorite way of explaining it is to quote and explain the way George Washington took this oath so seriously, especially in his [00:21:00] second inaugural. It's the shortest ever given and I think the most powerful, um, inaugural address. What he says is, look, I just took the oath of office and it, you know, pledges me to, to have fidelity to the rule of law and to the Constitution. And if I violate it, I want the people assembled here to upbraid me. That's the word that he uses. Criticize me. And if I really violate it, this is my favorite part, subject me to constitutional punishment. [00:21:30] And what a, what a, what a profound moment. You know, Washington is really saying like, I'm not a king. I'm nothing like a king. I'm a temporary officeholder. And there are obligations and duties of this office that are spelled out in the oath to respect the rule of law.
Nick Capodice: Can't get more OG than George Washington. Hannah. All right, we are nearly there. The last few parts of article two. Right after a quick break.
Hannah McCarthy: We're [00:22:00] back. We're getting to the end of article two here. All right, what's left? What do we got?
Nick Capodice: All right, Hannah, we're basically at, like, what's the big battle in the Two towers? Helm's Deep.
Hannah McCarthy: Yeah, but that's. There's still a long way to go after Helm's Deep.
Nick Capodice: We're kind of at the point where Legolas sees an elephant for the first time. That's kind of where we are. We got sections two, three, and four, but those are all much shorter than section one. Section two starts with, quote, the president shall [00:22:30] be commander in chief of the army and Navy of the United States.
Hannah McCarthy: Commander in chief. But you can't declare war.
Nick Capodice: Exactly.
Corey Brettschneider: One thing to say is the framers, you know, did a lot to try to make it clear that article two was the opposite of creating an absolute monarch or anything like it. And one way that they did was they took monarchical power, in which, for instance, the ability to start a war and carry it out was held in the same person in the monarch and divided [00:23:00] them. Congress has the power to initiate or the framers use the word declare war. And now this is the other side of it. The president is the commander in chief. Once the war has been declared, he or she has the obligation of commanding the military and and and winning the war and carrying it out. Very different from the modern understanding of many presidents of both parties, I should say, and many scholars of so-called originalism, because I really don't think there's [00:23:30] any doubt about it. You know, defensive war. You know, that's one thing when a war is already underway. That's one exception to this. But aside from that, you want to start a war. That's Congress, not the president.
Hannah McCarthy: To be clear here, the last time the US declared war was 1942, when three countries were added to the original World War II Two declaration from the previous year.
Nick Capodice: Yeah. So the War Powers Resolution of 1973 dictates that a president has 60 days after a military action to get Congress's [00:24:00] approval, or you gotta get out of there. Now, the next part in this. This is all in the same paragraph is the pardon power. Pardon power is huge, to quote Grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.
Hannah McCarthy: Do you know how many people have been pardoned over time by presidents?
Nick Capodice: I looked it up. Thousands. Hundreds of thousands. So Andrew Johnson pardoned over 7000 former Confederates after the Civil War. And [00:24:30] Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter pardoned over 200,000 people for avoiding the draft in the Vietnam War.
Hannah McCarthy: And the pardon power is absolute right. Like anyone can be pardoned for anything.
Nick Capodice: Anything except for impeachment and impeached and removed. Judge or Senator or president Cannot be pardoned by a president. All right, next part. The president can make treaties with two thirds of the Senate approving it. And the president can, with the advice and consent [00:25:00] of the Senate, nominate, quote, ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court and all other officers of the United States whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for. End quote.
Hannah McCarthy: And this doesn't have to be the two thirds consent of the Senate. Just a majority.
Nick Capodice: Just a majority for appointments.
Corey Brettschneider: The president can't just pick a judge. He doesn't pick Justice Alito and put him on the Supreme Court. He doesn't even pick cabinet ministers. The attorney general, for instance, we just went through this can't just be put on permanently [00:25:30] in that position unless there is. And it's not both houses of Congress here. It's the Senate. A majority of the Senate approves. And that really is a fundamental check on the president's power. There was a debate, you know, in the 18th century, very early on, about whether or not you had to get permission from the Senate as well for removal. Um, and that has gone in the direction of the unitary executive where the answer is really no. That's up to the president. But what certainly remains, [00:26:00] and there is no debate about this, this isn't a controversial thing. Maybe the main check on monarchical power by a president is the idea that all the executive officers, judges, ambassadors have to be approved by a majority of the Senate.
Nick Capodice: The last part of section two is that the president may fill up any vacancies during the recess of the Senate.
Hannah McCarthy: Okay. How often does that actually happen?
Nick Capodice: Uh, not very often. You know, it sounds like it could be really big, but when you consider the [00:26:30] Senate isn't in recess all that much and that there has to be a vacant position, it hasn't come up a ton. The Supreme Court ruled in 2014 that anything less than ten days is too short a recess for this kind of appointment, and that it can't happen when the Senate is doing what are called pro forma sessions.
Hannah McCarthy: All right. That's the thing where just one senator goes to D.C. and gives a little speech to an empty Senate chamber on any topic they like, and that means the Senate is still in session.
Nick Capodice: Yeah, it's kind of like jiggling your mouse every [00:27:00] ten days. Section three is a fun one. Here it goes. Quote. He shall from time to time, give to the Congress information of the state of the Union and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.
Hannah McCarthy: You could kind of think of the state of the Union as the president's self-evaluation performance review.
Nick Capodice: They're always like, we're doing great. The state of the Union is what is it? Most often strong?
Hannah McCarthy: I think so.
Nick Capodice: Gerald [00:27:30] Ford once said, the state of the Union is not good. It's it's not good. And then it goes on to say that the president may, on quote, extraordinary occasions, end quote, convene both houses. So this is usually to discuss an emergency potential war declaration, a nomination they want to get through, etc.. And then it goes on to say that the president may adjourn Congress when Congress can't agree when to adjourn. [00:28:00] And this has never happened. Never, never, never. And then that the president receives ambassadors and public ministers. And finally, Hannah, last little part of section three. It is a teeny, tiny little sentence. I am going to take a dramatic pause before reading this. He shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.
Hannah McCarthy: That's really the whole job.
Nick Capodice: That's it.
Corey Brettschneider: Big one. I think maybe the most important and neglected sentence [00:28:30] because notice what it's doing, right? It's using very similar language to the oath. The oath talks about faithful execution as well of the office. And here we're talking about faithful execution of the laws. So that language really, really matters.
Nick Capodice: This is called the take care clause, and it is maybe the most debated, most widely interpreted sentence in the whole Constitution. So is it a power? Can the president do anything in the service of executing laws, or is it a restriction? [00:29:00] A president has to be faithful to the Constitution when executing laws and tied to that take care clause. Hanna is our very last paragraph. What happens when you don't take care? The final section of article two is section four, which says, quote, the president, Vice president and all civil officers of the United States shall be removed from office on impeachment for and conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. [00:29:30]
Hannah McCarthy: And while no president has been removed from office, three presidents have been impeached Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump twice. And if I'm not mistaken, Nick, the charge has always been high crimes and misdemeanors every time.
Nick Capodice: Always different high crimes and misdemeanors, but none so far for treason or bribery. So we have talked a lot about limits in this episode, and impeachment is one of those. The [00:30:00] framers debated long and hard about what should justify an impeachment. Ben Franklin said it was for when the executive, quote, rendered himself obnoxious. It's like the Mark Twain.
Hannah McCarthy: I think he got to the point. I think that's what Ben Franklin did.
Nick Capodice: He was just like.
Hannah McCarthy: I love reading his stuff. Yeah. He's like, come on.
Nick Capodice: Alexander Hamilton said in Federalist 65 that it was, quote, those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men or, in other words, [00:30:30] from the abuse or violation of some public trust, end quote. But whatever the cause, it is a limit.
Corey Brettschneider: We often talk about presidential power, but notice what this is about. It's all about what article two really is about is presidential duties, obligations to obey the law, limits on what the president is able to do. And I think that is consistent throughout, even in places where we thought the power was unlimited. Think of the way people talk about the war power as if it's unlimited [00:31:00] or the pardon power. And even there there are limits, certainly in the war power, more controversially in the pardon power. And I think that's all consistent with the idea that the framers weren't creating a monarch. They thought they were creating this limited branch that was at most, you know, not more than co-equal to the other branches. They thought it would be at the founding, at least, even weaker. And, um, you know, the language is in there, the language of obligation and duty [00:31:30] rather than the language of power.
Nick Capodice: And that, my old friend, is article two. We are like three quarters done with the whole Constitution. Like the rest are very important. There's a lot more articles, but they're very short. We are like almost to Mount Doom.
Hannah McCarthy: Which is I mean.
Nick Capodice: Isn't that the part?
Hannah McCarthy: Yeah. But to say like, [00:32:00] we barely got anything left, just just the Mount Doom part. We're almost at the part where Sam is like, maybe I should carry it for a while.
Nick Capodice: Share the load.
Nick Capodice: Wait, you could do a thing. We could do a thing. We could do a flip, a flip. See, we could do a verso where you do the next article and I help you out.
Hannah McCarthy: Okay. You're on. You got this, man. You got this.
Nick Capodice: This episode was made by me Nick Capodice with you, Hannah McCarthy. Thank you always.
Hannah McCarthy: Thank you.
Nick Capodice: Huge thanks to Corey for getting [00:32:30] us through the whole article. I got a link to his podcast, The Oath and The Office. In the show notes, he and John Fugelsang get much deeper into the stuff we touched on today. You should check it out. Civics 101 staff includes Rebecca LaVoy, Taylor Quimby, Marina Henke and Dana Cataldo. Music. In this episode from blue Dot sessions, Epidemic Sound and the unimpeachably talented Chris Zabriskie. Civics 101 is a production of NPR, New Hampshire Public Radio.
Nick Capodice: Oh, [00:33:00] you know, we're at that battle where the ghosts come out.
Hannah McCarthy: But it's it's Frodo and Gollum and Sam just just walking.
Nick Capodice: We're kind of like at the Elvish waybread point. We're kind of at like when the ghosts come out of the mountain and win the fight. We're kind of at the point where Legolas sees an elephant for the first time. That's kind of where we are. Uh, we got sections two.
Hannah McCarthy: An elephant.
Speaker 17: Or elephant? [00:33:30]
Nick Capodice: Isn't it called an elephant?
Hannah McCarthy: Oliphant.
Nick Capodice: Oliphant.
Hannah McCarthy: Like Timothy.
Nick Capodice: Like Timothy Olyphant.
Hannah McCarthy: It's not all that.
Nick Capodice: I thought Legolas was like...it's an elephant.
Hannah McCarthy: He has an English accent.
Nick Capodice: It's an elephant.
Nick Capodice: He wouldn't be like, oh. there's an elephant, sir.