92-Year-Old Sen. Chuck Grassley Would Be President Right Now if Catastrophe Struck at White House Correspondents' Dinner

NEED TO KNOW

• Following the shooting at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, some quickly noted that 92-year-old Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley was the highest-ranking official in the presidential line of succession not in attendance

• Had catastrophe struck, Grassley — born in 1933 and serving in his eighth Senate term — would be the next man up to serve as acting president and take authority of the United States’ nuclear arsenal

• Grassley was at home in New Hartford, Iowa, on Saturday following surgery to remove gallstones last week, his office told PEOPLE

The thwarted attack by a gunman on the White House Correspondents’ Dinner over the weekend called attention to the fact that 92-year-old Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley was the highest-ranking official in the presidential line of succession not in attendance and — had catastrophe struck — he would be in the Oval Office right now.

President Donald Trump , Vice President JD Vance and House Speaker Mike Johnson were all at the dinner and whisked away by their security details when the shooting started — as were many Cabinet officials who are also in the line of succession.

In other words, had the worst occurred, Grassley — born in 1933 and serving in his eighth Senate term — would be the next man up to serve as acting president and take authority of the United States’ nuclear arsenal .

Grassley is the current Senate president pro tempore, or president pro tem, which places him third in line for the presidency after Vance and Johnson. Typically, the pro tem role is given to the longest-serving member of the majority party in the Senate.

“Just to remind everyone. This was almost the entirety of the president's Cabinet, the president and vice president himself, and 2,000 members of the media,” said FBI director Kash Patel , who was also at the dinner , on Fox News on Monday, April 27. “This is something the movies don't even write about, this kind of scenario, this kind of tragedy.”

No one was killed and a Secret Service agent who was shot was saved by his bulletproof vest , Trump and other officials said. The apprehended suspect, 31-year-old Cole Allen , was expected in federal court on Monday.

According to a New York Post report, a manifesto allegedly written by Allen said that he intended to target officials in the room from "highest-ranking to lowest."

Grassley was at home in New Hartford, Iowa, on Saturday, communications director Clare Slatterly told PEOPLE. On April 20, Grassley wrote on X that he had “a procedure to remove gallstones” and was recovering at home in Iowa. He pledged to “be back to capitol ASAP,” but it was not clear on Monday if he had returned to Washington yet.

His office did not comment on whether he had been informed that Trump, Vance and Johnson would be in the same room that evening or when he would be returning to Washington.

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Grassley, a Republican, was last year said he was open to running for a ninth, six-year term in 2028 at the age of 95. The youngest senator currently serving, Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff , was born six weeks after Grassley began his second Senate term in 1987.

Other senior Cabinet officials in the presidential line of succession who attended on Saturday night included Secretary of State Marco Rubio , Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth , Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent , acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and multiple others.

In a post to X on Sunday, April 26, Grassley expressed gratitude to the “Secret Service last night for quick action” and said he organized a bipartisan Senate briefing with Secret Service leadership “regarding security protocols & related law enforcement matters involving” the shooting.

Texas Rep. Michael McCaul , a Republican who attended the dinner on Saturday, said on CNN on Sunday that the Secret Service and the White House should “reconsider having both the president vice president” together at an event like that.

“You had the president and the vice president at the head table, both of them together, and the Speaker of the House,” McCaul said , after recounting how Capitol Police escorted him and other lawmakers out. “Had an explosive device gone off, you would have knocked out the president, vice president, speaker. The three in line of succession.”

“I think the Secret Service needs to reconsider having both the president and vice president together at something like that. Chuck Grassley would be the president had they all been taken out,” he added.

After Franklin Delano Roosevelt died in office during his fourth term, President Harry Truman — who had served as vice president — urged Congress to update the presidential line of succession to add congressional leaders after the vice president and before Cabinet members, who are appointed by the president and not elected.

At State of the Union addresses — the president’s annual speech at the U.S. Capitol where the vice president, the entirety of Congress, much of the Cabinet and even Supreme Court justices are all in the same room — it is tradition for one member of the Cabinet to not attend as a potential “designated survivor” who would become acting president in the case of a mass casualty event.

At the last two addresses to a joint session of Congress by Trump, Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins drew the short straw .

Unlike the House, where every member gets to vote for speaker, the Senate is led in practice by the leader of the majority party, currently South Dakota Sen. John Thune , and formally by the vice president, who the Constitution names as the president of the Senate.

In the vice president’s absence — they mostly show up to break tie votes and attend State of the Union addresses — the majority party names a president pro tempore, which means “for the time being” in Latin .

When Republicans retook the Senate after the 2024 elections, they selected Grassley, who first took office in 1981 after six years in the U.S. House. He launched his career in politics with a 1958 election to the Iowa House of Representatives .

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