Why is there a designated survivor for the State of the Union and who is it for 2026?
One chair inside the U.S. Capitol will be empty on Tuesday night at President Donald Trump delivers his State of the Union address.
The cabinet member who typically occupies it will be nowhere near the building or its surrounding area when the rest of the government is gathered together for Trump’s big speech to the nation. He or she will watch the speech from afar, representing the doomsday president-in-waiting, a title informally known as the “designated survivor.”
Why is there is a designated survivor for the State of the Union?
A designated survivor is selected to ensure that someone in the line of leadership succession stays alive in case of a cataclysmic event that wipes out everyone else. The idea dates back to the Cold War and was formalized by the Carter and Reagan administrations amid fears that Soviet subs just off the Atlantic coast could fire nuclear missiles and wipe out Washington with barely 10 minutes’ warning, according to historian and journalist Garrett M. Graff.
Who is the designated survivor?
One of the 15 cabinet secretaries is selected to sit out high-profile events like the State of the Union, inaugurations, and presidential speeches to joint sessions of Congress to preserve the Constitutional line of succession to the presidency in the event of a disaster, attack or unforeseen event.
This person would assume control if the president, vice president, speaker of the House and all other cabinet officers in the presidential line of succession were incapacitated.
The president’s pick to sit out this time hasn’t yet been announced.
What is the presidential order of succession?
Below is the presidential order of succession in the event the president of the United States becomes incapacitated, dies, resigns, is unable to hold office or is removed from office, per the Constitution and the Presidential Succession Act of 1947.
- Vice President
- Speaker of the House
- President Pro Tempore of the Senate
- Secretary of State
- Secretary of the Treasury
- Secretary of Defense
- Attorney General
- Secretary of the Interior
- Secretary of Agriculture
- Secretary of Commerce
- Secretary of Labor
- Secretary of Health and Human Services
- Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
- Secretary of Transportation
- Secretary of Energy
- Secretary of Education
- Secretary of Veterans Affairs
- Secretary of Homeland Security
Who picks the designated survivor?
There is no official protocol outlining how the administration is to select a designated survivor.
Beginning in April 1980, the White House Military Office tasked the Federal Emergency Management Agency with ensuring succession. An aide was directed to recommend to the president who should skip events when all possible successors were together outside the White House.
In recent decades, the president usually chooses a cabinet member with input from their Chief of Staff or White House counsel. The person must meet two basic eligibility requirements: they must be a native-born American citizen and at least 35 years old, both Constitutional requirements for president.
Not all Cabinet members are eligible to be president. In the Biden administration, for example, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas were both naturalized U.S. citizens and therefore not eligible to be president.
Chris Lu, who served as White House Cabinet Secretary for President Barack Obama and helped select seven designated survivors, discussed other factors that were considered in a 2023 social media thread. They included selecting someone who is already traveling outside of the Washington D.C. area during the speech; someone who is not directly associated to the topics of the issues mentioned in the speech; someone who has not already been asked to serve as designated survivor; someone who has not served in Congress.
When is the designated survivor chosen?
Previous designated survivors have said they were informed of their role days or weeks before the event was to take place. They are not revealed publicly until during or after the event.
Nowadays, TV images from the House chamber allow political junkies to spot the missing Cabinet member within minutes.
Where is the designated survivor?
The designated survivor watches the speech from a secure location, which prior to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks was occasionally of their own choosing.
John Block, Ronald Reagan’s agricultural secretary, carried out his role as designated survivor in 1986 from a villa in Jamaica.
Dan Glickman, Bill Clinton’s agriculture secretary, served as designated survivor in 1997 at his daughter’s New York City apartment alongside Secret Service members.
Bill Richardson, Clinton’s energy secretary, moved up a planned 2000 weekend trip with his wife to Oxford, Maryland, so he’d be there as designated survivor during the State of the Union.
James Nicholson, who was President George W. Bush’s veterans affairs secretary and designated survivor during the 2006 State of the Union flew by helicopter to a destination that was only divulged to him once he was in the air and later sat in a command center, where he underwent briefings before watching Bush’s speech.
Who was the first designated survivor?
The first time that a Cabinet member was kept away from a presidential speech to Congress was publicly divulged was President Ronald Reagan’s Education Secretary Terrel Bell in 1981. But Bell wasn’t identified until afterward.
Who was the last designated survivor?
When Trump addressed a joint session of Congress last March, Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins was chosen as the designated survivor.
Which position is most commonly selected as designated survivor?
The most common secretary to serve as designated survivor since 1984 is the secretary of the interior, which was been selected seven times, according to The American Presidency Project by the University of California.
Who has been the designated survivor for Donald Trump?
Here are the designated survivors selected during Donald Trump’s first term, according to The American Presidency Project:
- 2017 — Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin
- 2018 — Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue
- 2019 — Secretary of Energy Rick Perry
- 2020 — Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt
- 2025 — Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins
Has a designated survivor ever become president?
Only Kiefer Sutherland, the actor whose character became president in the television series aptly named “Designated Survivor.”
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