For the second year in a row, VA Secretary Doug Collins was apparently the “designated survivor” for Tuesday night’s State of the Union address by President Trump. That’s according to several media reports that surfaced Tuesday night and Wednesday.
The designated survivor is a member of the president’s Cabinet who doesn’t attend the speech. That person, instead, is placed in a secure location in case the worst-case scenario occurs: a calamity of such magnitude that the President, Vice-President and attending members of the cabinet don’t survive. That person would then become President.
Collins, a former member of Congress from Gainesville, is 17th in the line of succession among the 18 members of the Cabinet. Another Georgian was chosen in 2018 during Trump’s first term in office, then-Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue.
