What happens to the ‘nuclear football’ if Trump skips Biden’s inauguration?

The White House

(REUTERS)

President-elect Joe Biden is due to assume the United States presidency and in the process, the power to activate the country’s nuclear arsenal, as have all presidents since the Cold War and the Cuban Missile crisis.

But with an inauguration ceremony already complicated by the coronavirus pandemic, the current president, Donald Trump, has also suggested he won’t participate.

The problem? All presidents and a military aide together carry the tools necessary to launch the country’s nuclear weapons: anywhere, anytime.

Those two tools, called the “nuclear football” (a briefcase) and the “nuclear biscuit” (the activation codes), are carried around with the US president at all times, and transferred to whoever assumes office on inauguration day, usually around noon.

But this time, with Mr Trump unable to say whether or not he will attend next month’s ceremony in Washington DC, could Mr Biden not receive the nuclear toolkit on time?

"That's a good question," nuclear weapons expert Hans Kristensen told Insider. "It is an unprecedented situation."

There are believed to be several “nuclear footballs”, said Stephen Schwartz, a nonresident senior fellow at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, who last week spoke to the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation (CACNP) on the matter.

That’s, at least, one briefcase for the president, one for the vice president, and one for the designated survivor, whose football always stays behind at the White House, said Mr Schwartz.

The Pentagon could, in that case, provide Mr Biden with a nuclear briefcase on the day he becomes president, and that process should occur the moment he is sworn-in, according to those with knowledge on the process.

His designated military aide will then start carrying the football, while Mr Trump’s command over his own would cease – wherever he and his military aide may be.

At the same time, the nuclear activation codes become validated for the new president and vice president, who are typically briefed hours before the inauguration on the biscuit, said Mr Schwartz.

He told CACP: “If Trump blows off the inauguration, then presumably he will have an aide with the ‘football’ with him until noon and an aide with another ‘football’ will be at the Capitol ready to start following Biden around after he is sworn in.”

“In that eventuality, if there is not already a fourth identical briefcase in the White House Military Office, one will presumably be prepared before the inauguration.”

Former Air Force Lt. Col. Buzz Patterson, who carried Bill Clinton’s football, adds that the process should be without delay, because “that's the way it has to be".

He told Insider that "For the process to work, you have to have this clear handing off of responsibilities," having previously revealed how on the morning after the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal broke, Mr Clinton could not find his nuclear biscuit.

“We started a search around the White House for the codes, and he finally confessed that he in fact misplaced them,” Mr Patterson wrote his memoir Dereliction of Duty: Eyewitness Account of How Bill Clinton Compromised America’s National Security.

President Trump, meanwhile, said that assuming control over the nuclear biscuit and nuclear football was "sobering" and "very scary”, in comments made to ABC News almost four years ago.

"When they explain what it represents and the kind of destruction that you're talking about, it is a very sobering moment,” said Mr Trump, who months later wrote on Twitter that he had “a much bigger” nuclear button than North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. “And my Button works!,” he added.

Still, according to Michael Dobbs, who once worked as The Washington Post’s Moscow correspondent, the leather-bound briefcase does not contain a so-called nuclear button.

“The ultimate power accessory, a doomsday machine that could destroy the entire world, as Mr Dobbs described it, instead holds four important items, which include an instructions booklet, a procedures manual, authentication codes on a card, and an Emergency Broadcast System – complete with an antenna.

Utah-based briefcase manufacturer, Zero Halliburton, have produced nuclear footballs for the US president since its inception, and could be called on to do so in the event Mr Trump does not attend Mr Biden’s inauguration.

"Hopefully President Trump will be there and it will be just a handoff, which is what it's been for decades," added Mr Patterson, who said to Insider that "it's not that big of a deal" because the military will make sure the handover takes place, no matter the situation.

A Pentagon spokesperson told Insider the Department of Defense did have a plan for the transfer of the nuclear toolkit on inauguration day, but did not provide any details.

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