On the spur of the moment, and having consulted no one whatsoever, I have decided to offer myself as a candidate for the presidency of the United States, for the term beginning January 20, 2029.
Since 1980, the first presidential election in which I was eligible to vote, I have always cast my ballot for a Republican—though not, in each of the last three elections, for the person nominated by the Republican Party. So I would be happy to run under the Republican banner, but since the president of the United States is, for all constitutional purposes, a party of one, I will accept the nomination of any party that wants me as its standard-bearer. If nominated, I will consent to be elected, but don’t expect me to do much else. If elected, I will most certainly serve to the best of my ability.
My platform is the Constitution of the United States.
The presidency is neither the most important nor most powerful institution in American government. That institution is Congress. The presidency is merely the office that can be made to appear most important and powerful, by virtue of the fact that it has a single officeholder responsible for one of the three branches of government. But the most important clause in Article II—and the most neglected clause in recent years—is the one saying that the president “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” The Constitution is our supreme law, and Congress makes the rest of our federal laws. I will, to the best of my ability, faithfully execute them.
Article II exhorts the president “from time to time” to inform the Congress of the state of the Union as he understands it, and to recommend legislation that he considers “necessary and expedient.” There is no requirement concerning how often this should be done, or the manner of its doing. I will not at any time during my term of office give an address in the Capitol, where Congress sits. I will instead communicate with the House and Senate in writing, as was done by every president from Thomas Jefferson to William Howard Taft.
In the first 100 days of my administration, I will issue no executive orders other than those that I determine to be necessary for the revocation of my predecessors’ executive orders, or those that are most urgently necessary for the execution of acts of Congress my predecessors have heretofore neglected to enforce. At all times I will conform the executive actions of my administration to the requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act and other relevant acts of Congress governing executive-branch regulatory activity.
I will, in my first written message to Congress as well as subsequent ones, identify those acts of Congress that have vested the president with undue authority over taxation and regulation of economic activity, and urge their repeal or reform as seems appropriate in each case. I will particularly request that presidential powers over tariffs, international trade, domestic business activity, and “emergencies” of every kind be either eliminated or considerably curtailed from their present scope.
I will never declare an emergency unless the United States finds itself in a war or depression. By this I mean an actual war, not a metaphorical one, or something far worse than the occasional cyclical recession in the domestic or international economy. Executive branch agencies such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will of course continue to exercise power to respond to natural and man-made disasters.
I will appoint no persons to high office because of their celebrity, their media appearances, or their expressed loyalty to me as a person. Proven qualification for administration of government agencies will be my touchstone. In the case of any office whose permanent occupant requires Senate confirmation, I will not designate any “acting” or “interim” officeholder with no experience in the agency or office in question, and will prefer persons currently serving therein. I will make no recess appointments to executive or judicial office during the intrasession recesses of an annual congressional session.
My nominations for the federal judiciary will be guided by my own consideration of nominees’ devotion to the original meaning of the Constitution, to respect for the texts of federal statutes, and to a restrained understanding of the judicial power. My administration will unstintingly carry out any judgments of the federal courts that require the executive branch’s attention. And I will take seriously the guidance of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice, whose opinions will have binding force on all executive agencies unless directly countermanded by me.
Federal employees in the civil service will be held to high standards of performance, but will not be dismissed, laid off, or demoted except according to statutory norms governing their employment. No private citizens will be authorized by my administration to interfere in the performance of these civil servants’ duties.
American treaty obligations, existing alliances, and trading relationships will be the focus of my administration’s foreign policy, with a view to strengthening international relations of trust, security, peace, and freedom of commerce. The national security of the United States will not be considered in isolation from the security and mutual support of our historic friends and allies.
The aim of my administration will be to keep the friends we have, to make more friends among freedom-loving nations, and to make common cause with them against the adversaries of freedom. Territorial expansion of the United States, or aggressive acts of imperial dominion by use of military force, will be out of the question. I will commit myself, however, to bolstering the strength and technological capacity of America’s military services.
I will spend the monies Congress appropriates and administer the laws already on the books. My administration will propose reforms of those sectors of federal spending most responsible for our runaway deficits and national debt—namely, the entitlement programs of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The first two of these are not (despite their names) true pension funds or insurance programs into which American taxpayers have paid for a return on investment in retirement. Like the third, they are transfer programs in current accounts, spending contemporary revenues on contemporary beneficiaries. I will urge Congress to consider means-testing their expenditures, just as is done with Medicaid. But fiscal policy is Congress’s right and responsibility to make.
My administration will do what it can, consistent with the law and basic decency, to secure America’s borders and reduce illegal entry into the United States. This great country benefits, in the main, from immigration, and should welcome more immigrants legally. It is for Congress, however, to decide our immigration policy, and for the president to execute that policy.
I urge both houses of Congress to work toward the restoration of regular order in the preparation of budgets and appropriations. Legislation presented to me will be signed or vetoed according to my judgment of its constitutionality and its contribution to the blessings of liberty or the general welfare. I will not promulgate signing statements identifying any parts of congressional enactments that I decline to execute.
I have my own views of what justice for all consists of, and of how law and policy should be crafted to achieve it. In communications between my administration and the Congress, I will be happy to enlarge on such views in appropriate policymaking contexts. This should result in settled expectations regarding what I shall sign and what I shall veto. But Congress is the deliberative branch of government, and should not forget it.
There is little about my personal life that will be of interest to most people. I will say here that I have spent almost half a century studying the constitutional order of the United States, and most of that time teaching college courses on that and related subjects. I have written a little on the subject as well. I have not held any public office previously, but such inexperience seems not to have troubled American voters very much of late.
I am in pretty good health for my age (66), and can think of better things to do with my time than run the country. If elected president, I will not in fact think it my job to run the country. My job will be to administer the executive branch of government, to fill vacancies in that branch and the judiciary, to execute the laws of the United States, to conduct American diplomacy, and if need be to direct American military forces at the level of strategy in the event of war.
I expect to be able to catch the odd afternoon nap now and then. If I do my job well, my fellow Americans should be able to pay little or no attention to me most of the time. On these understandings, I am ready and willing to serve the American people. Thank you, and God bless America.
