Nearly all of DC shut down for Trump's inauguration. So why was there no designated survivor?

President Donald Trump's swearing-in ceremonial Monday featured the largest, astir analyzable information footprint of immoderate inauguration successful U.S. history. 

The nation's superior was transformed seemingly overnight from a pedestrian-friendly metropolis into a daunting and impenetrable fortress – the effect of a multi-agency task unit that erected 30 miles of anti-scale fencing, coordinated aerial surveillance and drones, and saw the deployment of tens of thousands of instrumentality enforcement, subject personnel, undercover agents, and nationalist defender trucks crossed D.C.

The impressive, whole-of-government information effort connected Inauguration Day was unprecedented, and not without reason: Trump was the unfortunate of 2 assassination attempts during the 2024 run — including a shooter who came truthful adjacent to him arsenic to nick his receptor — and a home menace scenery that was heightened further by the terrorist-inspired onslaught successful New Orleans and the execution-style sidesplitting of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson successful Midtown Manhattan precocious past year.

It's notable, then, that this year’s sprawling information footprint did not expressly see 1 cardinal constituent considered cardinal to U.S. tradition: The naming of a designated survivor.

Fencing stands successful beforehand of the U.S. Capitol. (Eric Thayer/Getty Images)

In D.C., the tightly coordinated national extortion efforts were cautiously planned agelong up of Trump's inauguration ceremonial by the Secret Service and galore different national agencies. 

It's some a motion to caller information concerns, and much mostly an effort to support the U.S. assemblage politic, overseas dignitaries, donors, and thousands of attendees from immoderate wide catastrophe oregon threat. 

The designated survivor, who successful a catastrophic lawsuit would carnivore the work of starring the U.S. successful the aftermath of a crisis, is typically a Cabinet serviceman erstwhile large information events enactment elected officials each successful 1 spot, specified arsenic inaugurations and State of the Union addresses.

WORLD LEADERS REACT AS TRUMP RE-ENTERS WHITE HOUSE

President Donald Trump and archetypal woman Melania Trump be the Commander In Chief Ball astatine the Walter E. Washington Convention Center successful Washington, D.C., connected Jan. 20, 2025. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)

Previous designated survivors person included erstwhile DHS caput Jeh Johnson, erstwhile Energy Secretary Rick Perry, and erstwhile Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who was tapped for the relation during President Barack Obama's inauguration successful 2009. 

Gates, a George W. Bush appointee, was kept connected by Obama and served successful his Pentagon relation until July 2011, according to his authoritative Defense Department biography.

The survivor's location, and sometimes identity, remains confidential until aft the lawsuit disperses and its attendees person safely returned home. In high-profile events, a broader contingency program is successful place.

As Garrett Graff reported successful 2016, Gates's relation arsenic designated subsister during Obama's inauguration besides included the enactment of different authorities heavyweight — James Clapper, past the undersecretary of quality — who stowed distant during the ceremonial heavy successful an underground authorities bunker successful Pennsylvania, a backup to the backup, if you will, and a motion astatine the elaborate succession program cautiously crafted by a radical defense, intelligence, and different national agencies implicit the span of immoderate 40-plus years.

So it was notable that nary designated subsister was named during the 47th statesmanlike inauguration.

TRUMP INAUGURATION GUEST LIST INCLUDES TECH TITANS MARK ZUCKERBERG, JEFF BEZOS, ELON MUSK
 

President Donald Trump attends the Commander successful Chief Ball successful grant of his inauguration successful Washington connected Jan. 20, 2025. (Reuters/Daniel Cole)

No crushed was fixed for the lack of the designated survivor, which was archetypal reported by NBC News.

It's imaginable that the sprawling information beingness coordinated successful the run-up to Jan. 20 was deemed capable to support against immoderate threats.

DEMS PROMISE TO 'STAND UP TO' TRUMP BUT LAUD 'PEACEFUL TRANSFER OF POWER' AFTER SPEECH

President Donald Trump reviews the troops during his inauguration ceremonial successful Emancipation Hall of the U.S. Capitol connected Jan. 20, 2025. (Greg Nash/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

It's besides imaginable the event, which was held indoors and frankincense restricted to the nationalist and to members of the quality media, was constricted capable arsenic not to warrant the designated survivor. 

Ahead of the event, FBI and Secret Service unit stressed the stringent information measures successful spot and the choky vetting of immoderate ticketed attendees.

David Sundberg of the FBI's Washington Field Office told Fox News earlier this week that the bureau was not tracking "any circumstantial oregon credible threats" for Inauguration Day.

"All attendees volition acquisition screening," said Matt McCool, peculiar cause successful complaint of the Secret Service's Washington Field Office. 

These individuals told Fox News that the fencing unsocial is much than immoderate different designated National Special Security Event successful the past.

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"Designated checkpoints volition beryllium acceptable up for members of the nationalist funny successful attending the inauguration," McCool said up of the inauguration — a protocol besides applied to attendees of the modified Capital One festivities, which were moved wrong owed to frigid temperatures.

Neither the White House, DHS nor the FBI instantly responded to Fox News Digital's petition for remark connected the lack of a designated survivor.

Fox News Digital's Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report.