Adam Boulton: As America declines into gerontocracy, who might step in to replace the president should the worst happen?
“Not worth a bucket of warm piss”. John Nance Garner’s words are the most famous assessment of the office of vice president of the United States.
“Cactus Jack” Garner’s words have often been bowdlerised to “warm spit” but there’s no denying he was in a position to know. He served Franklin Delano Roosevelt as VP for nine years up until Pearl Harbor in 1941.
Garner is alleged to have passed on his words of wisdom as an old man to Lyndon Baines Johnson when LBJ was considering the offer to be John F Kennedy’s running mate in 1960.
Johnson took the job regardless and three years later when JFK was assassinated, he lived out the other cliche about the vice presidency. He was indeed “a heartbeat away” from becoming president of the United States (POTUS).
On the day he was shot, Kennedy had phoned Garner to wish him a happy 92nd birthday. Hours later, LBJ was sworn in as 36th president.
Many US vice presidents have been deeply and loudly frustrated while in office but, in spite of Garner’s crude dismissal, the job is not worthless.
Of the 45 men who have been POTUS, a third of them, 15, previously served as vice president. Nine inherited the Oval Office when the incumbent died or resigned, including Johnson. The others, including Richard Nixon, George Bush senior and Joe Biden, were later elected president in their own right.
Beyond the common duty of representing the leader at important funerals, Britain’s occasional deputy prime ministers should not be likened to the US vice presidents. Deputy prime minister is an honorific title with no constitutional role.
None of the people who have held it officially have got into Number 10, even though there has been a rapid turnover of prime ministers taking place around them.
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As it happens, Garner, who died just before his 99th birthday, was the longest-surviving US president or vice president until Jimmy Carter, who is due to reach his century this October.
Compared to today’s frontrunners, Garner was a youthful 72 when he left public life. Carter was a mere 56 when he lost in 1980 to Ronald Reagan, who at 69 was then the oldest-ever president-elect.
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Aged 81 and 77 respectively, Biden and Donald Trump, the two people now vying to lead the United States until January 2029, are record-breakers.
They are set to be the oldest candidates ever to contest the presidency. As America declines into gerontocracy, there is exceptionally high interest in who might step in to replace them given the actuarial likelihood the worst – or something debilitating close to it – might happen.
Pic: AP
Pic: AP
Trump likes to play TV show-style games with his VP choice
This week on Fox News. Trump acknowledged the importance of picking a deputy “who is going to be a good president”, before teasing his interviewer, Maria Bartiromo, that he wouldn’t be making any announcement for “a little while”.
As a veteran star of The Apprentice, Trump likes to play TV show-style games with his choice.
In his first successful bid for the White House, he didn’t pick Mike Pence until 15 July 2016, ahead of the November election. To drum up excitement he could wait, as other nominees have done, until the Republican Convention which will take place in Milwaukee in mid-July.
One thing is certain: Trump will not pick Pence again, or anyone like him.
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Mike Pence on his role during Capitol riots
The right-wing governor of Indiana and former talk show host was widely derided as a faceless yes man when Trump put him on his ticket after some cosy chats.
But Pence turned out to have some backbone. The insurrectionists storming the US Capitol chanted “Hang Mike Pence!” and brought along a mock gallows. Pence later testified: “We’ll tell the truth, we’ll obey the law.”
He failed to get much support and pulled his bid for the 2024 Republican nomination before the primary contests started in January.
Tim Scott. Pic: Reuters
South Dakota governor Kristi Noem is ‘fantastic’, says Mr Trump. Pic: AP
Trump names two possibilities for first time
On the assumption that his various legal troubles will not prevent him from getting as far as the nomination, Trump used his interview to name two possible names for the first time.
Crucially both Senator Tim Scott and Governor Kristi Noem have already bowed down before Trump. They have not endorsed his big lie the 2020 election was stolen from him, but both claim it was not free and fair.
To Trump’s delight, Noem of South Dakota sucked up further, declining to run for the nomination herself because “I could never beat him”.
Scott did put his name forward but rushed to endorse Trump after he withdrew – further denting the chances of Nikki Haley, the only Trump challenger still standing, in next month’s primary in their home state of South Carolina.
Vivek Ramaswamy. Pic: Reuters
Of course Trump may not end up picking either of them but he does seem to be interested in broadening his appeal by considering running mates who are not white men like himself.
Other names speculated on include ethnic minority men such as Byron Donalds, a US congressman from Florida; former Trump cabinet member and surgeon Ben Carson; and 2024 Republican contender Vivek Ramaswamy.
The list of possible female candidates includes Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas; Kari Lake from Arizona and Representative Elise Stefanik of New York.
Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Pic: Reuters
Haley is still running for the nomination and ruled herself out on the campaign trail in New Hampshire last month declaring: “I don’t want to be anybody’s vice president. That is off the table.” Otherwise, she would be best qualified to be his running mate.
Trump could also revert to type with Ohio senator and Hillbilly Elegy author J D Vance and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis heading the list of conventional choices.
Nikki Haley. Pic: AP
US Vice President Kamala Harris. Pic: REuters
The most prominent woman certain to figure in a Trump v Biden battle is Kamala Harris. Biden is committed to keeping the first woman vice president and vice president of colour on his ticket for re-election.
She is campaigning energetically on his behalf in South Carolina and has been energised by the Trump-packed US Supreme Court’s decision overturning women’s abortion rights.
Harris is not popular with some Democratic insiders who have urged Biden to drop her. Were Biden to become unavailable as a candidate, she is unlikely to be the first preference to run in his place.
Gordon Brown and Tony Blair at the despatch box in 2007. Pic: PA
The UK farce of deputy prime ministers
The machinations in the US are high politics compared to the White Hall farce of deputy prime ministers.
Only seven people have been given the title, most of them recently: Clement Attlee, Michael Heseltine, John Prescott, Nick Clegg, Dominic Raab, Therese Coffey and Oliver Dowden.
Labour’s Attlee was the prime minister’s wartime deputy but Winston Churchill advised the King to appoint someone else if he should die. Subsequent, mostly Conservative, prime ministers were similarly offhand with so-called “deputy prime ministers in all but name” such as Willie Whitelaw, Damian Green and David Lidington.
There was never any doubt that Gordon Brown was Tony Blair’s real deputy, although Prescott had the title. There is still an important difference when Labour is in power. The party’s deputy leader is now directly elected. The precedent is set that they will be appointed deputy prime minister. Angela Rayner may be about to find out that being deputy prime minister is worth more than an ice-cold bucket of her favourite “Venom” cocktail.
US President Donald Trump says he has yet to decide whether the US will join Israel militarily in its campaign against Iran.
Asked whether the US was getting closer to striking Iran’s nuclear facilities, Mr Trump said: “I may do it. I may not do it.”
Speaking outside the White House on Wednesday, he added: “Nobody knows what I’m going to do…Iran’s got a lot of trouble, and they want to negotiate.
“And I said, ‘why didn’t you negotiate with me before all this death and destruction?'”
Mr Trump said Iran had reached out to Washington, a claim Tehran denied, with Iran’s mission to the UN responding: “No Iranian official has ever asked to grovel at the gates of the White House.”
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Iran would not surrender and warned “any US military intervention will undoubtedly cause irreparable damage” to US-Iranian relations.
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Why did Israel attack Iran?
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The families caught up in Iran-Israel attacks
Strikes continue
Hundreds have reportedly died since Iran and Israel began exchanging strikes last Friday, when Israel launched an air assault after saying it had concluded Iran was on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon, a claim Tehran denies.
Israel launched three waves of aerial attacks on Iran in the last 24 hours, military spokesman Brigadier General Effie Defrin has said.
Israel deployed dozens of warplanes to strike over 60 targets in Tehran and western Iran, including missile launchers and missile-production sites, he said.
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Can Iran’s leadership be toppled?
“The aim of the operation is to eliminate the existential threat to the State of Israel, significantly damage Iran’s nuclear programme in all its components, and severely impact its missile array,” he said.
Early on Thursday Israel issued an evacuation warning to residents of the Iranian Arak and Khandab regions where Iran has heavy water reactor facilities. Heavy water is important in controlling chain reactions in the production of weapons grade plutonium.
Meanwhile Iran says it has arrested 18 people it describes as “enemy agents” who it says were building drones for the Israelis in the northern city of Mashhad.
Iran also launched small barrages of missiles at Israel on Wednesday with no reports of casualties. Israel has now eased some restrictions for its civilians.
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The US is working to evacuate its citizens from Israel by arranging flights and cruise ship departures, the US ambassador to the country has said.
In the UK, Sir Keir Starmer chaired a COBRA emergency meeting on the situation in the Middle East, with a Downing Street spokesperson saying: “Ministers were updated on efforts to support British nationals in region and protect regional security, as well as ongoing diplomatic efforts”.
A senior US senator who supports Donald Trump has told Sky News why he believes the US would be right to intervene in Iran.
Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas who ran against Mr Trump in 2016 but now backs him, told US correspondent David Blevins that Iran is an “acute threat to the national security of the US”.
He went on to claim that because “Iran is also building ICBMs (intercontinental ballistc missiles)” and “You don’t need an ICBM to go to Israel”, it indicated Iran’s intention “to take a nuclear weapon to the United States to murder Americans”.
“Nobody is talking about invading Iran,” Mr Cruz added. “We’re not going to see boots on the ground.”
Middle East latest: Trump says he ‘may or may not’ strike Iran
It comes after the US president said he “may do it, I may not do it” when asked if he would launch a strike against Iranian nuclear facilities.
So far, Israel has been attacking Iran alone since it ramped up its military action last Friday, launching strikes against what it says are Tehran’s facilities for developing a nuclear weapon and also destroying its air defences.
Iran has always denied seeking the ability to make a nuclear weapon from its uranium enrichment programme.
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Blevins’s fellow US correspondent Mark Stone says that while figures like Mr Cruz back military action, “a whole host of other figures are saying ‘do not do it'”.
“The social media space is absolutely full of MAGA [Make America Great Again] figures from the right… saying ‘we absolutely must not go into Iran’.”
If the US were to decide to take military action against Iran, it could have implications for the UK, as America may ask to station refuelling aircraft at a British base in Cyprus and B-2 bombers, which could carry the bunker buster bombs required to attack Iran’s Fordow nuclear enrichment facility, could launch from the British base of Diego Garcia.
Mr Cruz told Sky News that while many of Mr Trump’s support base did not want to see the US involve itself in another war, “the overwhelming majority of Americans, nearly 80%, support President Trump, and support President Trump defending us against an Iranian nuclear weapon.”
America is deploying more fighter planes to the Middle East in a “demonstration of force” as tensions escalate and speculation about a possible US strike on Iran continues.
Pictures and flight tracking data show F-35 jets and tanker aircraft being moved towards the region, as well as the tasking of an aircraft carrier, providing options in case President Donald Trump decides to intervene in the conflict.
But one particular aircraft that has not been seen just yet – the B-2 stealth bomber – could reveal the most about America’s intentions towards Iran…
Why is America moving more aircraft to the Middle East?
“It’s giving them options,” says military analyst Michael Clarke. “They have got four types of aircraft – including fighters, interceptors and fighter-bombers – all in the right region.”
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Clarke: What could US involvement look like as Iran attacks ease
The new arrivals can be spread around several existing military bases that the US has in the region in Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
“More is better and also it’s a demonstration of force,” Prof Clarke added. “There’s a political element behind it, to show the Iranians what they can do, but also to other allies.
“The Americans want to be taken seriously in all of this.”
A Boeing KC-46A Pegasus, primarily used for aerial refueling, is seen on tracking in the eastern Mediterranean. Pic: Flightradar24
Analysis: What aircraft have moved to the region?
Sky News analysis of flight-tracking data shows more than 30 US military planes have been active over parts of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea over the past three days.
These include planes used for reconnaissance, refuelling in mid-air as well as carrying cargo.
Map of US military bases in the Middle East
An air-traffic control recording from the US suggests F-22 Raptors are being sent across the Atlantic. Two refuelling tankers are visible on flight tracking data leaving the US east coast, likely escorting the stealth fighter jets.
In images taken by photographer Glenn Lockett in Suffolk, three US air tankers were seen flying over England, each accompanied by four F-35 jets.
F-35s are one of the most advanced warplanes in the world, known for their ability to evade enemy radar.
A US air tanker seen flying over England, accompanied by F-35 jets. Credit: Instagram/g.lockaviation
Flight tracking data shows that the tankers travelled to the Mediterranean and then returned to the UK.
Most of the US military planes tracked by Sky News regularly turn off their locations and final destinations, according to the data from Flightradar24.
Some of the planes moved from the US to Europe, while others appeared to move closer to the Middle East. At least five of the US military aircraft landed at Chania Airport on the Greek island of Crete.
An air-traffic control recording from the US also suggests F-22 Raptors are being sent across the Atlantic. Two refuelling tankers are visible on flight tracking data leaving the US east coast, likely escorting the stealth fighter jets.
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US insists deployments are defensive
US defence secretary Pete Hegseth stressed that the deployment of more aircraft was defensive in nature, as Washington looks to safeguard its forces in the region.
Fighter aircraft have been used to shoot down drones and projectiles in the past.
America already has a substantial force in the Middle East, with nearly 40,000 troops as well as air defence systems, aircraft and warships.
But as the conflict between Israel and Iran carries on – and President Trump continues to make threats against Tehran – it’s possible that multiple options could be on the table for intervention.
B-2 bombers – the ones to watch?
Asked what he’s looking out for as speculation about whether the US will intervene directly continues, Prof Clarke pointed to one particular aircraft that hasn’t been seen moving towards the region yet: The B-2 stealth bomber.
Known for its iconic triangle shape and ability to penetrate deep air defences undetected, the B-2 has lesser-known capability that could be crucial for any action over Iran: it can carry ‘bunker buster’ bombs.
So far Israel has not been able to damage Iran’s secretive Fordow uranium enrichment plant, which is buried deep beneath a mountain.
A B-2 stealth bomber flies over Washington DC during a 4 July celebration. File pic: AP
The only bomb believed to be powerful enough to penetrate the facility is America’s GBU-57, a 14-ton bomb that is so heavy it can only be launched from the US fleet of heavy bomber aircraft.
Any movement of B-2 bombers to the joint UK-US base on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean could “indicate the likelihood that the Americans are going to use bunker busters in Iran,” Prof Clarke says.
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