The United States elects its first female President, Leslie Harrison McCloud. She and her husband Thad, move into the White House with their daughter Gloria and son Peter. Immediately, the new President is too busy for her husband and family as she deals with a powerful opposition Senator Walsh, and a Central American dictator Raphael Valdez Jr.. Thad attempts to find something meaningful to do as the "first lady". Much time is given to the husband's chagrin at being assigned an ultra-feminine bedroom and office within the White House. It is clear that no one, especially Thad McCloud, has given any thought to how a President's husband might fit into the scheme of things. Enter Doris Reid Weaver, Thad's former flame and now an international business woman. She wants Thad back—and during a seductive visit, offers to make him Vice-President of her cosmetics company as bait. Leslie smells Doris's perfume on her husband that night, and confronts him. Leslie has asked him to show visiting dictator Valdez around Washington, with disastrous results, as Thad brawls with a male diner at a burlesque show they are all attending. To further complicate things, the first daughter is running around town with a very unsuitable boyfriend and using her position to get out of scrapes with the police. Her son Peter has become a bully, using his Secret Service men for protection as he terrorizes everyone in his school—including the principal. The President's husband ultimately finds an important role in a Cold War subplot that resembles the rise and fall of Senator McCarthy, when Thad proves that Senator Walsh blindly supports the Latin American dictator for reasons that are not patriotic. Senator Walsh aggressively portrays the lady President as weak in resisting Communism because she has the humanitarian integrity to refuse to give dictator Valdez more "foreign aid" money for his personal enrichment while he does nothing to alleviate poverty in his country. The Soviets are also co-funding Valdez to prevent him from being influenced exclusively by the United States. As soon as the President drops her support for the dictator, the Soviets do so as well. Leslie then discovers that she is pregnant, and resigns the presidency to devote herself full-time to her family.
of The New York Times panned the movie on account of corniness. He commented, "...All that one can say is that we hope the first woman to become President brings along a more amusing husband than Mr. MacMurray and a more imaginative team of writers than Mr. Binyon and Mr. Kane." He also criticized Bernhardt for taking "a dim view of the prospect of a woman as President. It wouldn't be funny! That's what his picture says."
