Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue will serve as this year's designated survivor, skipping the State of the Union address to watch the speech at an undisclosed location on Tuesday.
The president's Cabinet traditionally attends his annual address to a joint session of Congress. But one member is tapped to sit out the speech in the unlikely event of a disaster that wipes out the everyone else in the line of presidential succession, thus guaranteeing some continuity of government.
Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin acted as the designated survivor last year, when President Trump delivered his address to a joint session of Congress. This will be Trump’s first State of the Union speech.
