This has been a rough week for the U.S. President. As questions pile up, I checked in on the line of succession. I cast no political aspersions. Instead, I just follow the rule of law, and check bios on government sites and in Wikipedia.
If the current president remains in office for his full term, then there is no presidential succession.
If, somehow, Vice President Mike Pence was involved with the misadventures that caused the current president to leave office early, what happens next?
Every schoolchild seems to know that The Speaker of the House would become President of the United States. Certainly, this fact adds spice to Nancy Pelosi’s current effort to fill that role. At 70 years old, Mr. Trump wins the prize as the nation’s oldest man to take office. If there is a President Pelosi, two notable notes would accompany her way to the Oval Office. First, she would be the first non-male human to become President of the United States, notable because the U.S. would remain among the few rich nations that has never elected a female leader. Second, she would be 79 years old (by March 2019), taking the oldest incoming President from the the man currently in office. She would also become our second Catholic president (you’ll recall that John Kennedy was the first).
And here’s where we stump the school children. If, for some reason, Pelosi is unable to serve, who’s next? Here’s a quiz:
- Secretary of State
- Secretary of Defense
- Secretary of the Treasury
- Somebody else
- We hold a new election
The answer is Orrin Hatch (“somebody else”). He would win award for oldest incoming President. At 85 years old (his birthday is in March, and I assume none of this would happen before that time), our Senate president pro tempore is the next in line for the Oval. Presumably, the title is unfamiliar to just about everybody, so I checked senate.org for a definition. “The Constitution provides for a president pro tempore to preside over the Senate in the absence of the vice president. Except for the years from 1886 to 1947, the president pro tempore has been included in the presidential line of succession.” Orrin Hatch is the longest serving Republican Senator in the history of our nation. He would be our first Mormon President (not sure anybody cares about the religion of the President these days).
Next up would be Secretary of State, then Secretary of the Treasury, then Secretary of Defense (and then, Attorney General). Although it is theoretically possible that Pence may have been compromised if the Trump campaign was compromised, it’s likely that either of our 80+ year old legislators would serve out the term. Still, they are older than anyone who has served in that office before.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is only 54 years old, consistent with past presidents’ age on their start date, and also on religion (he’s Presbyterian, the presidents’ second most common religion). He is a former congressman and a former CIA Director.
Secretary of the Treasury Stephen Mnuchin is 55 years old, and he would be the nation’s first Jewish president. He’s a finance guy with a lot of motion picture producer credits on his resume, including The LEGO Movie, American Sniper, Mad Max: Fury Road, Wonder Woman, Sully, and about two dozen more.
Next in line would the Attorney General, but I haven’t done the research to figure out what might happen if the line of succession landed on the Acting Attorney General. I’m guessing that nobody knows that answer, but the quick and easy solution would be to drop down one more slot on the list to Secretary of the Interior, who is, of course, Ryan Zinke. He’s a former Navy Seal and a former congressman. That’s him fishing on the top of our succession report.
Digital Insider 
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