Up on the screens, veteran NBC journalist and anchorman Lester Holt appeared doing a standup on the steps of the U.S. Senate.
“Is Samuel Larkin the legitimate president of the United States?” Holt asked. “Or, according to the arcane rules of Congress and presidential succession, should someone else be in the Oval Office with a finger on the cyber and nuclear buttons?”
The broadcaster asked us to recall that, prior to the attacks, the late President Hobbs had been in office less than two weeks and had not yet nominated a new vice president.
“That’s important to understand,” Holt said. “The president nominates his vice president, who must then be confirmed by two-thirds of both houses of Congress.”
The anchorman said this was different from the Speaker of the House, normally third in line to the presidency, in that the most powerful person in the House of Representatives had to be elected by the members of the majority party.
Like the vice president, members of the president’s cabinet, including the secretaries of treasury, state, and defense and the attorney general, were nominated to their posts by the president. The Senate had to confirm their nominations.
“We nominate and congressionally confirm a vice president,” Holt said, ticking off points on his gloved fingers. “We elect a Speaker. And we nominate and confirm cabinet members at the Senate.”
Holt started to walk up the Senate steps. “Only one position in the immediate order of succession to the Oval Office is automatic. The person fourth in line to the presidency, the Senate president pro tempore, is always the most senior member of the majority party. When that senator dies, the next in seniority automatically and immediately inherits the position and title.”
The scene jumped to inside the Senate, with Holt standing outside the chambers.
“In the chaos of the hours that have passed since the attacks, a single fact seems to have been forgotten, or perhaps ignored,” he said. “When the Senate president pro tempore, West Virginia senator Arthur Jones, had a heart attack and was pronounced dead, the next senator in line automatically and with zero fanfare became Senate president pro tempore.”
The anchorman paused for effect. “This all happened a good four hours before the assassinations. In light of this obscure but very real rule, should Samuel Larkin be running the country? Launching attacks against the power grids of other nations? Provoking nuclear war? Or should the new Senate president pro tempore—Bryce Talbot of Nevada—be president of the United States?”
The screen cut to show archival footage of Senator Talbot, a slick, smart, silver-haired former prosecutor from Reno in his late sixties. I knew Talbot, or knew of his reputation, anyway, and it made me slightly unsettled.
The senator from Nevada was one of the top fund-raisers on Capitol Hill, and he held the power of the purse strings as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Talbot was reputed to be in the back pocket of, among other special-interest groups, the gambling industry. Then again, what senator from Nevada wouldn’t be?
The screen cut to Senator Talbot in his office. Talbot looked genuinely stunned when Holt said that according to the Constitution and rules of the Senate, he should be the president of the United States.
“Is that true, Lester?” he asked, shocked.
“I believe it is, Senator,” Holt said. “Will you seek to remove Mr. Larkin and take his place in the Oval Office?”
Talbot looked deeply conflicted but said, “Well, I’ll have to talk to people smarter than me about this before I make any firm decisions. But if what you’re saying is true, Lester, then it is my solemn duty to take office, regardless of the high esteem in which I hold Sam Larkin.”