State of the Union 2023: Who is the designated survivor? – BBC

When US President Joe Biden takes to the dais of the US Capitol for his State of the Union address on Tuesday, a “who’s who” of Washington’s power players – lawmakers, Supreme Court justices and senior military brass – will be a few steps away.

But one player will notably be absent – the so-called “designated survivor” tasked with taking charge in the event that an unforeseen tragedy wipes out or incapacitates the rest of the government officials assembled for the speech.

The identity of the designated survivor of the night is a closely guarded secret until after the event. Last year it was Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.

According to the nonprofit National Constitution Center, the tradition began in the 1950s, when the specter of a possible nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union loomed at the start of the Cold War.

It was not until 1981 that the US government first publicly identified the designated survivor. That year it was Terrel Bell, then President Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of Education.

Since then, designated survivors have been chosen from a range of government agencies, including the Justice Department’s attorney general and a number of cabinet-level secretaries.

Under former President Donald Trump, the State of the Union designated survivors were the Agriculture, Energy and Interior Secretaries.

For the traditional presidential address to a joint session of Congress following his election, Mr Trump’s designated survivor was Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin.

Nominated Survivors must be eligible for the Presidency to be appointed to the position and will only assume the role of Commander-in-Chief if every senior official in the line of succession is incapacitated.

Eligibility requirements require the person to be a born U.S. citizen, which means naturalized citizens like current Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm cannot hold the position.

The role was also thrust into the public consciousness in part by Hollywood.

Designated Survivor, a TV show, has actor Kiefer Sunderland playing the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and taking over as head of the US government after an explosion destroys the Capitol during the State of the Union.

The reality, however, is much more mundane. Last year, Ms Raimondo watched the speech from a safe location but otherwise had a normal day.

In a 2017 Politico essay, one of Bill Clinton’s designated survivors, former Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman, recalled spending State of the Union at his daughter’s apartment in New York City, alongside a military officer carrying the codes needed to launch America’s nuclear arsenal.

“I sometimes wonder if I would have had the courage to give the order,” he wrote.