Arti­cle 2, Sec­tion 1, estab­lished the office of the pres­i­den­cy. The clause requires that the pres­i­dent and the exec­u­tive branch “faith­ful­ly exe­cutes” the laws put in place by Con­gress. One of the ways the pres­i­dent can do this is through exec­u­tive orders.  

Accord­ing to the Amer­i­can Bar Asso­ci­a­tion, exec­u­tive orders are the pres­i­dent “direct­ing a fed­er­al offi­cial or admin­is­tra­tive agency to engage in a course of action or refrain from a course of action.” While there is no spe­cif­ic pro­vi­sion of the Con­sti­tu­tion that men­tions exec­u­tive orders, the exec­u­tive vest­ing and take care claus­es are inter­pret­ed to estab­lish this pow­er.  

Exec­u­tive orders can be over­turned by the pres­i­dent, future pres­i­dents or inval­i­dat­ed by leg­is­la­tion passed by Con­gress.  

The total exec­u­tive orders issued by each pres­i­dent has var­ied wide­ly. The 18th pres­i­dent, Ulysses S. Grant, was the first pres­i­dent to have more than 100 exec­u­tive orders (217), accord­ing to The Amer­i­can Pres­i­den­cy Project. Franklin D. Roo­sevelt, who served longer than any oth­er pres­i­dent (1932–1945), had the most exec­u­tive orders at 3,726.   

In his first term, Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump signed 220 exec­u­tive orders. He has almost matched that num­ber in just the first year of his sec­ond term with 218 exec­u­tive orders as of Dec. 6, accord­ing to the Fed­er­al Reg­is­ter.  

The Con­sti­tu­tion didn’t estab­lish term lim­its for the pres­i­dent. The first pres­i­dent, George Wash­ing­ton, stepped down from the pres­i­den­cy after two terms, set­ting a prece­dent that all pres­i­dents fol­lowed until Roo­sevelt, who served for four terms. 

In 1951, Con­gress rat­i­fied the 22nd amend­ment, lim­it­ing the pres­i­den­cy to two terms of four years. A per­son who has served as pres­i­dent for over two years, such as a vice pres­i­dent serv­ing after a pres­i­dent dies or resigns mid-term, can only be elect­ed to one full term.  

Despite this, Trump and his sup­port­ers have often float­ed the idea that he would run for a third term. In an inter­view with NBC in 2025, Trump said that “there are meth­ods” to get him a third term in office but declined to elab­o­rate. 

Arti­cle 2 also estab­lish­es the president’s par­don­ing pow­er. They can only par­don fed­er­al offens­es and can­not par­don impeach­ments. While for­mer Pres­i­dent Joe Biden holds the record of clemen­cy actions grant­ed at 4,245 accord­ing to the fed­er­al Office of the Par­don Attor­ney, most of Biden’s clemen­cy grants came in his last three-and-a-half months in office. He grant­ed no par­dons in his first year. In his first term, Trump grant­ed just 238 acts of clemen­cy accord­ing to the U.S. Office of the Par­don Attor­ney. In his sec­ond term, how­ev­er, he began using his par­don pow­er right away, grant­i­ng clemen­cy on his very first day to over 1,500 peo­ple con­vict­ed of crimes relat­ed to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capi­tol by the president’s sup­port­ers.  

Trump par­doned for­mer Repub­li­can Rep. George San­tos, who was rough­ly three months into his sev­en-year sen­tence for fraud and iden­ti­ty theft. Jus­ti­fy­ing the par­don, Trump said San­tos’ words mis­lead­ing vot­ers about his back­ground and finan­cial sta­tus, includ­ing lying about char­i­ty orga­ni­za­tions, his degree, his “fam­i­ly firm,” past jobs and more were no worse than mis­lead­ing state­ments Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen. Richard Blu­men­thal from Con­necti­cut made about his mil­i­tary ser­vice in 2010 accord­ing to the AP. Blu­men­thal apol­o­gized for the com­ments at the time of the con­tro­ver­sy, admit­ting he mis­spoke. 

“This is far worse than what George San­tos did, and at least San­tos had the Courage, Con­vic­tion, and Intel­li­gence to ALWAYS VOTE REPUBLICAN!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. 

In May, Trump par­doned for­mer Con­necti­cut Gov. John Row­land, a Repub­li­can, who served from 1995 to 2004 before resign­ing dur­ing a fed­er­al cor­rup­tion inves­ti­ga­tion into gifts he received from state con­trac­tors. He served 10 months in a fed­er­al prison and anoth­er 30 months after anoth­er crim­i­nal con­vic­tion in 2014 for a cam­paign law vio­la­tion. 

—by Mikay­la Bun­nell, UConn Jour­nal­ism