Podcasts · CrashCourse

Presidential Powers 2: Crash Course Government and Politics #12

4 Nov 2026 · 12 min

This week Craig continues our conversation on presidential powers by looking at those NOT found in the Constitution - implied or inherent powers. We’ll talk about how the President uses their power to negotiate executive agreements, recommend legislative initiatives, instate executive orders, impound funds, and claim executive privilege in order to get things done. Implied powers are kind of tough to tack down, as they aren’t really powers until they’re asserted, but once they are, most subsequent Presidents chose not to give them up. So we’ll try to cover those we’ve seen so far and talk a little bit about reactions to these sometimes controversial actions from the other branches of Congress. Support is provided by Voqal: http://www.voqal.org This episode is sponsored by Squarespace: http://www.squarespace.com/crashcourse Chapters: Introduction: Informal Powers of the President 00:00 Informal powers of the President 0:50 Inherent power to use troops 1:20 War Powers Resolution 2:23 Executive agreements vs. treaties 2:42 CEO of the U.S. 3:31 Legislative Initiative 4:18 Executive orders 5:20 Impounding funds 6:02 Executive privilege 6:20 The importance of presidential precedent 6:56 Credits 7:21 Crash Course is on Patreon! You can support us directly by signing up at http://www.patreon.com/crashcourse Want to find Crash Course elsewhere on the internet? Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/YouTubeCrashCourse Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/TheCrashCourse Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thecrashcourse/ CC Kids: http://www.youtube.com/crashcoursekids

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Links in the notes 2

• https://www.instagram.com/thecrashcourse/
• https://megaphone.fm/adchoices