As we inaugurate a new president and begging a new administration, my regular reminder that the president is not the legislator-in-chief. We have a perfectly capable Congress—indeed a better institution—for that job.

The president’s job is much tougher: governing. 1/

The primary job of the president is to govern. That is, to implement and execute American foreign policy that he is largely responsible for designing, and to use executive discretion to sensibly administer domestic policy set in broad strokes by Congress.

Of course POTUS is involved in designing the domestic policy. He has both the veto and a strong position from which to be a leader.

But executives aren’t vital to legislating. They are absolutely vital to governing, from crisis scenarios to mundane policy execution.

Laws are inherently inexact; all Congress can do is set broad policy. It’s up to the administration to plan, prepare, and execute the details of those laws. This is hard! And bad execution of the law means bad government.

IMO, the Trump administration was a failure in many ways, but most importantly it was a failure of governance. And particularly crisis governance. Trump lacked the leadership, either policy or political, to arrive at good policies acceptable to the public.

I will be often be a critic of the Biden administration on his domestic policy positions on various legislative proposals, as I was with Trump.

But, as always, I will be more concerned with his foreign policy, his domestic governance, and his policy and political leadership.