Kiefer Sutherland ’s rear end - kicking fiber Jack Bauer was a former Green Beret and ex - CIA agentive role who outsmarted or outgunned piles of deadly terrorist during his nine seasons on " 24 . "
Sutherland ’s newfangled hero , Tom Kirkman , is no Jack Bauer . In the upcoming ABC play " Designated Survivor " , Sutherland plays Kirkman , a modest - mannered U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development who is swept into the Oval Office as a wildly unprepared commandant in chief after thepresident , vice presidentand most of Congress are kill in a monumental terrorist attack .
As crazy and scary as it sounds , this plotline is based in reality . Every January , when the President of the United States delivers the State of the Union speech , one appendage of the Cabinet is select by the White Housechief of Staffa the " designated survivor . " While the residual of the Cabinet members pay heed the words — delivered in front of a joint academic term of Congress that include all nine Supreme Court DoJ and most elected Union functionary — the subsister is fly to a secure location in the event that the Capitol is attacked and the entire politics is wiped out .
Morbid , yes . And more than a little surrealistic for the low - level Cabinet appointment who gets picked as the solitary survivor . One minute you ’re the semi - anon. Secretary of the Interior , the next you ’re ascribe a Secret Service particular and vanish to a dependable house where you nervously watch the State of the Union next to a guy who is handcuffed to " the Football , " the 45 - pound ( 20 - kg ) briefcase holding the nuclear codes . start the guacamole ?
Former Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman never forget his stint as the specify subsister in 1997 during one of President Bill Clinton ’s addresses . He was fly in an Air Force jet to New York City so he could view the State of the Union in his daughter ’s flat along with some ultra - serious Secret Service dudes and a doctor .
After the words was over , the Secret Service unceremoniously bequeath and Glickman and his daughter fit out for some late - night Japanese food . During their repast , a cruddy sleet storm blow in and the almost - United States President and the almost - first girl could n’t get a cab back home .
" So we had to take the air eight to 10 blocks back to her flat in the freeze cold and sleet,“Glickmantold the internet site Mic . " The irony was , here I was just a few minutes in the beginning , almost the most hefty person in the commonwealth , and now I could n’t even get a taxi . There ’s a dandy moral there in the impermanence of index . "
For the 2016 State of the Union , Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson was the designated survivor . He became the 34th Cabinet appendage to fill the military post since the first designated survivor names became public in 1984 during the Reagan administration . The name of the survivor is n’t expose until the day of the talking to , and the alternate viewing location is top undercover .
harmonise to thePresidential Succession Act of 1947 , Cabinet members are next in parentage for the presidency after the frailty president , the speaker of the house and the president pro tempore of the Senate . The designated survivor never holds one of those locating , nor is he / she a high - ranking cabinet extremity like the writing table of state or defending team .
The custom is believed to date back to at least the 1960s and the height of Cold War latent hostility with the Soviet Union . In the era of the Cuban Missile Crisis , it was n’t unthinkable that a Soviet nuclear warhead would be aimed at the Capitol .
The plot of " Designated Survivor " plays on fresher fears , the post-9/11 threat of another catastrophic terrorist blast on U.S. grunge . Sutherland ’s character is depone in while the Capitol still burns . Not only must he unify and calm the Carry Nation , but also seek out and penalize the culprit — a tall order for a low - spirit level official more habitual to regulatory agendas and palm cuttings .
According to theLos Angeles Times , the designated survivor is n’t quite so helpless . Apparently the potential presidential stand - in receives intensive grooming in the hebdomad before the State of the Union to alleviate some of the shock of an unexpected changeover of power . Not that anybody would look forward to such an instant " furtherance . "
" I ’d have been the first Jewish president , which would have been kind of corking , " Glickman told Mic . " But I liked President Clinton a lot , so I did n’t desire it to pass off . "
