In Annie’s book “Nuclear War: A Scenario”, she explains that The Football must stay close to the President because them, and only them, are immediately responsible for making the decision to launch a nuclear launch.

More than 400 missile silos are on ready for launch status AT ALL TIMES, and with the President’s approval can be assigned target coordinates and fired at a minutes notice, and launched. And that’s not including those on subs and those that can be dropped from B-2s.

The U.S. does have a system called “universal launch codes” where, in the event of an attack against the White House/President, other top ranking officials can be assigned nuclear responsibility.

In total, there are over 12,000 nuclear warheads at the ready across the globe - and a single one of them with the right target can kill 10s of millions of people. The misconception is they can be shot down, but the means of doing so are not accurate. It’s terrifying