Meet Anthony Foxx, Designated Survivor For 2015 SOTU: Ernest Moniz Gets Twitter Attention

All of the cabinet members -- except one -- attended President Obama’s 2015 State of the Union address on Capitol Hill Tuesday night. Why? Shudder to think, but if a catastrophic event occurred and the highest members of the government -- vice president, speaker of the House, Cabinet secretaries, Supreme Court justices, Congress -- were killed, there would need to be someone to run the country: a designated survivor.

That person Tuesday was U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. His job as designated survivor meant Foxx did not attend the 2015 SOTU, just in case a calamity occurred. Foxx, the former mayor of Charlotte, would become the president of the United States if a disaster ensued. He was protected by the U.S. Secret Service at a secret address while the speech took place, the Charlotte Observer wrote.

On his official Twitter account, Foxx did not say he would be the designated survivor. Instead, he just shared a link so followers would have all the information they needed to watch the SOTU.

It’s common practice to select a designated survivor and last year it was Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Attorney General Eric Holder have also served previously as designated survivors.

Moniz received some Twitter attention as the “funny face” guy after Funny or Die, the Emmy-winning comedy video website that has nearly 9 million followers, tweeted a screenshot of his face. The post was retweeted and shared more than 2,000 times after Funny or Die asked, “Please show this guy again.”

While some said he looked like one of our four founding fathers, others joked he looked like “Quaker Oats guy.”

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