Are Acting Cabinet Members in the Presidential Line of Succession?

You recently wrote that if “Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, Mike Johnson and eight specific Cabinet officials” had been vaporized by aliens, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer (11th in the line of succession) could have become president at the very moment she was (allegedly) visiting a strip club. Shouldn’t it be fewer than eight officials, since some are only ACTING cabinet members? —Jade C.

Frankly, Jade, this is a completely inconsequential quibble that smacks of gratuitous pedantry. In other words, it’s right up my alley. In fact, the entire subject is well suited to inconsequential pedantry since in real life the presidency has never devolved past the vice president, much less all the way down to also-ran agencies like Labor or—God forbid—HHS.

Perhaps the closest we’ve come to employing the line of succession was Ronald Reagan’s hospitalization following a 1981 assassination attempt. With the vice president out of town, Secretary of State Al Haig famously asserted, “I’m in control here,” inadvertently or maliciously skipping over both the speaker of the House and the president pro tempore of the Senate. (These offices weren’t inserted into the line of succession until 1947, so maybe Haig, who graduated high school in 1942, was just going by what he learned in civics class.)

But you wanted to know whether I’m full of shit. It certainly seems possible—attorney general is before labor secretary in the line of presidential succession (it’s #7), and since that office is currently occupied by acting AG Todd Blanche, Chavez-DeRemer would seem to have been the de facto #10, not #11, at the time of her firing. Good catch.

However, I’m not willing to throw in the towel just yet. For starters, Chavez-DeRemer’s alleged visit to the club took place in April 2025. At that time, nonacting OG AG Pam Bondi was still on the job. But even if this had all happened post-Bondi, the statute requires only that successors be Senate-confirmed, not that they be confirmed in their current job. It’d go to court, but Blanche’s Senate confirmation as deputy AG might well be enough.

Even if Blanche is out, however, I would argue that my assertion was correct: The disintegration of those eight officials would indeed have made LCD commander-in-chief. Sure, in this scenario Todd Blanche’s disintegration wouldn’t actually be necessary—but if the aliens want to throw it in as a favor to humanity, who am I to argue?

Questions? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com.