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A thread on the nuclear football and the transfer of power. (Photo courtesy @NSArchive.).
What’s gonna happen if Trump refuses to leave the White House or won’t attend the Ingush room? Does that complicate the transfer of power? No.
There are quite a few presidents’ emergency satchels. Each has the same contents. A sat phone, documents, war plan cheat sheets and some classified stuff. The President has on his body somewhere - maybe it’s with his military side - an NSA-produced authentication card.
This is known as the “biscuit.” That’s because it looks like a biscuit. It contains a series of challenge and response alphanumerics. NSA switches out these cards regularly. POTUS has one. VPOTUS has one.
There’s one in a safe inside the National Military Command Center at the Pentatonic and at least in two other places. Takes two people to open the safe.
Anyway, on Inauguration Day, Biden will be given a brand new biscuit. Yum. All the biscuits will be replaced. When Biden takes the oath, the Emergency Action controllers at the NMCC will discard the old biscuit and put the new one in the safe. The old biscuits won’t be valid.
Doesn’t matter where Trump is. The National Command Authority will have been transferred. His authentication codes will be useless.
