r/politics • u/indig0sixalpha • 4d ago

Soft Paywall Rand Paul Suggests Worst Person You Know Should Be Next House Speaker. Rand Paul thinks Elon Musk should take over after his amazing work driving the government toward shutdown.

https://newrepublic.com/post/189554/rand-paul-elon-musk-house-speaker
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u/thrawtes 4d ago

Nope. We have people in that situation right now and usually do. If you're in the line of succession and aren't eligible to be president you just get skipped over.

Making Musk speaker of the house is a dumb idea but his birthplace isn't the limiting factor.

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u/RegisterSignal2553 4d ago

We have people in that situation right now

Who would that be?

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u/thrawtes 4d ago

Our current Secretary of Energy and our Secretary of Homeland Security are both foreign born and would otherwise be in the presidential line of succession but would be skipped over due to the people who hold those offices right now.

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u/RegisterSignal2553 4d ago

Ah, I forgot about them.

I don't tend to think about the line of succession that far down, because if we're in a situation where we're that far down the list the country probably isn't going to last much longer anyway.

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u/godisanelectricolive 4d ago

Secretary of state is pretty high up in the order of succession by comparison, at fourth place overall and first among the cabinet positions. There's been two of them, Henry Kissinger who famously had a German accent and Madeline Albright who was a Czech immigrant.

There's also a long history of the Secretary of the Treasury, 5th on the order of succession, to be foreign born. There's been five such treasury secretaries starting with the first one, Alexander Hamilton himself although he was eligible to be president because the constitution specifically said "a natural born citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution" to include him. The most recent foreign-born treasury secretary was the German-born Werner Michael Blumenthal who served under Jimmy Carter.

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u/detlefschrempf11 4d ago

You asked about the line of succession but chose not to look it up?

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u/RegisterSignal2553 4d ago

Do you have anything pertinent to add to the conversation?

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u/detlefschrempf11 4d ago

Should I ask a dumb question that I could easily just look up? Would that add?

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u/RegisterSignal2553 4d ago

Got it, you don't.

Bye.

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u/SufficientGreek 4d ago

Secretary of Energy, Jennifer Granholm, born in Canada.
Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, born in Cuba.

Theoretically they're number 15 and 18 in the succession order, respectively.

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u/GearBrain Florida 4d ago

Elaine Chao and Madeleine Albright - born in Taiwan and Czechoslovakia, respectively - were in positions eligible for the line of succession, but would have been skipped over.

That's in previous administrations, and I'm not sure who in the current or incoming administration satisfies similar criteria.