Designated survivor

In the United States, a designated survivor (or designated successor) is a person in the presidential line of succession who is kept distant from others in the line when they are gathered together, to reduce the chance that everyone in the line will be unable to take over the presidency in a catastrophic or mass-casualty event. The person is chosen to stay at an undisclosed secure location, away from such events such as State of the Union addresses and presidential inaugurations. The designation of a survivor is intended to prevent the decapitation of the government and to safeguard continuity in the presidency if the president, the vice president, and others in the presidential line of succession die. The procedure began in the 1950s, during the Cold War, with the idea that nuclear attack could kill government officials and the United States government would collapse.

In such an event, the surviving official highest in the line of succession in the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, who might be the designated survivor, would become Acting President of the United States. The designated survivor must be eligible to serve as president. The designated survivor usually is a member of the president's Cabinet and is chosen by the president.

Being the designated survivor does not guarantee that this official will be the person to assume the presidency in such a situation. For the 2010 State of the Union Address, Shaun Donovan, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, was the designated survivor, but Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also was absent from the address, for a conference in London; had a calamity occurred, Clinton, not Donovan, would have become Acting President, because her office was higher in the line of succession.

Congress also designates members of the Senate and House (one from each party) to become Congressional "designated survivors" to maintain the existence of Congress in a mass-casualty event.

Selection
In a 2016 interview, Jon Favreau, a speechwriter for President Barack Obama, said that the procedure for picking a designated survivor for a State of the Union address was "entirely random", but later clarified that the content of the speech played a role in who was permitted to be absent. Favreau said that for a State of the Union speech in which Obama's education policy was a major focus, for example, the Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, was not chosen as the designated survivor, because it was thought that he should attend and represent his department.