Trump will not hand over US Nuclear Strike Authority to Biden

US President Donald Trump will leave the White House on his way to his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida during the countdown to the beginning of Joe Biden’s inauguration.

For the first time in modern US history, Donald Trump will not hand over the so-called digital nuclear suitcase to Joe Biden because the outgoing US president will be in Florida when the president-elect is sworn in.

This means that the handover will take place differently, according to the American news network NBC. The nuclear “authority”, in fact, looks like an oddly shaped 45-pound (20 kg) leather briefcase that is typically carried by a special military aide.

It contains the mechanism for a US president to authorize the nuclear codes – rather than a big red button to launch a strike, as many think.

A military attache will accompany Trump to Florida with one of the briefcases and that the outgoing president will retain sole authority to launch a nuclear strike until 11:59:59 PM on Wednesday.

Another military aide with a second nuclear suitcase will hand over the authority to Biden once he is sworn in, and the military aide with Trump will bring ‘the suitcase’ back to Washington”, according to NBC News.

Earlier this month, Trump confirmed via Twitter that he would not attend Joe Biden’s inauguration on 20 January, a decision that was then described by the president-elect as “a good thing, because he doesn’t want to a complicit to his reign.

Trump released a short address to the nation in which he formally acknowledged that a “new administration would be inaugurated” this Wednesday, also promising to commit himself to “a smooth, orderly and seamless transition of power”.

Sputnik / ABC Flash Point Political News 2021.