At least one high-level member of US President Donald Trump's administration will not be attending his State of the Union address on Tuesday, March 4.
The role of “designated survivor” is part of a hypothetical scenario in which a catastrophic event would occur during the US leader's annual address to Congress, resulting in the deaths of the president, vice president, and several other elected officials in the line of presidential succession.
The role is given to a member of the US cabinet.
Right before Mr Trump begins speaking, the designated survivor will be whisked away to a secure location, to be placed under enhanced Secret Service and military protection for the duration of the speech.
That person will also be given what's known as the “nuclear football”, a leather briefcase that contains the nuclear launch codes.
In 2025, US Secretary of Veteran Affairs, Doug Collins was selected as designated survivor. The year before, Miguel Cardona who was a Biden administration education secretary, had the responsibility. Marty Walsh, at the time labour secretary, was the man in charge in 2023.
A designated survivor is also selected for inaugurations of US presidents.
Several years before his death in 2022, Republican senator Orrin Hatch told C-Span about his experience as the designated survivor for Barack Obama's final State of the Union address in 2016.
“They asked me to do it and I said 'I'd be privileged to do it',” he said. That year, he was among two people selected as designated survivors, a rare but not unheard of circumstance.
Jeh Johnson, at the time secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, was the other official selected.
“I don't fully understand why … but they were very concerned there could be a terrorist incident or something where a large number of people could be killed,” Mr Hatch said.
The late senator, who was also picked for the role during Mr Trump's 2016 inauguration, said that while he was honoured to be asked again, there were some bittersweet aspects to doing the role on inauguration day.
“I really like to be there for the inauguration. I don't think I've missed one except for that, but I told them I'd do it and I did,” he said.
Timothy Kneeland, a professor of history, politics and law at Nazareth University in upstate New York, said that it is often underappreciated how many high-level people are in the Capitol chambers when a US president delivers the State of the Union address.
“The event is both ceremonial and political and nearly every member of the Congress, the Cabinet, and most Supreme Court Justices are in attendance,” he said.
Prof Kneeland said that, although the idea of a designated survivor is not mentioned in the US Constitution, fears during the Cold War of an atom bomb or large-scale attack gave birth to the idea of having a back-up plan when it comes to governance and high-profile events attended by many officials.
“President [Dwight D] Eisenhower began requiring one cabinet member to refrain from attending the State of the Union speech to ensure the continuity of the federal government,” he said, adding that not only is the designated survivor not in attendance during the address, but he or she is also most likely moved outside of Washington.
He said there are some limits to who the president can selected to be designated survivor.
“The cabinet member must be eligible to be president so cannot have been born elsewhere and become a US citizen by naturalisation,” he said, referring to stipulations of the US Constitution related to the presidential line of succession.
