In a rare historical occurrence, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will be the highest-ranking government official on U.S. soil for several hours next week while the president and vice president are traveling abroad.
Thanks to the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, if an unimaginable tragedy were to occur during this time, Pelosi would become the next president of the United States.
Designated Survivor
While Pelosi stays in Washington to oversee her party’s increasingly socialist agenda, President Donald Trump will be in Vietnam on Monday negotiating the details of nuclear disarmament with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. Meanwhile, Vice President Mike Pence will land in Columbia to address the leaders of 14 nations and demand the resignation of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
It is uncommon for the top two American heads of state to schedule overlapping foreign engagements. “It’s rare and unusual, and usually they [the White House] try to avoid it,” presidential historian Michael Beschloss told Axios.
For a handful of hours next week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will be the top-ranked government official on U.S. soil. https://t.co/39Gsifc9qe
— Jonathan Swan (@jonathanvswan) February 22, 2019
On Monday, Pelosi is scheduled to spend the first half of the day in New York before heading to Washington D.C. later that afternoon. The House majority leader’s duties will remain the same, despite her temporary status as the highest-ranking U.S. official on American soil.
Line of succession
The Presidential Succession Act was established in 1772 and later codified in 1947. It established a clear line of succession, starting with the president and his immediate successor, the vice president. Eight times in U.S. history, the vice president has assumed the highest government office due to the death of president, while Gerald Ford became the 38th POTUS after Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974.
If a vice president is incapacitated or otherwise unable to discharge his duties, the House speaker would not automatically assume the position. The president would nominate a replacement pending majority approval from both congressional chambers.
After the House speaker, the president pro tempore, or the longest-serving senator from the Senate majority, is third in line to the presidency. Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley (R) currently holds this position.
Risky business
Although the two senior-most U.S. government officials typically avoid taking hazardous overseas trips at the same time, it happens occasionally. On Nov. 11, 2018, Trump was flying home from France while his number two was headed to Asia.
Likewise, former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Joe Biden left the country separately, albeit briefly, in March 2013. The Democratic duo were both overseas for about 20 minutes, with Obama jet-setting off to Israel while Biden was returning home from Italy.
Pelosi has worked tirelessly to undermine White House authority with Trump in office. During an official state visit to Brussels this week, Pelosi reminded her European hosts that Trump could be constrained by the legislature.
“We’re not a parliamentary government even though we’re parliamentarians,” Pelosi declared at a press conference. “We have Article 1, the legislative branch, the first branch of government, coequal to the other branches, and we have asserted ourselves in that way.”
She also referenced Congress’s “power of the purse,” a Constitutional power which Democrats exercised recently by opposing Trump’s proposed $5.7 billion barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Unwilling to cede any ground to Trump, Pelosi refuses to acknowledge that illegal immigration and the illicit drug trade is an urgent matter requiring immediate action. This is just one of many reasons why the California Democrat doesn’t belong anywhere near the Oval Office, and explains why many Republicans won’t sleep easily until both Trump and Pence are safely back on U.S. soil.
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