With Republicans holding the majority in the U.S. Senate, Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley is again serving as senate president pro tem — making the 91-year-old senator third in the line of succession to become the nation’s commander-in-chief.
“When the subject comes up, I kind of smile, and this doesn’t mean I don’t take my job very seriously,” Grassley says. “If this happened, I would be acting president.”
Grassley says he understands his responsibilities if something drastic were to happen. “But I’d be ready to serve,” Grassley says, “and it doesn’t weigh on me a whole lot.”
The Republican emphasizes it’s highly unlikely he’d wind up as president.
“The issue always comes — well, if something happened to the president, the vice president and the speaker of the house, it’d almost have to happen at the same time for me to kick in,” Grassley says. “I always say: ‘Well, who would want to be president under those circumstances?'”
The title of senate president pro tem goes to the longest-serving senator from the party that has a majority of seats in the Senate. Grassley’s been in the role before, in 2019 and 2020.
“I’m glad to make Iowans, being president pro tem of the United States Senate, number one in the Senate,” Grassley said. “It puts Iowa in a good position to get what we want.”
Before heading to Washington, Grassley served in the Iowa legislature. He was first elected to the Iowa House in 1958 and served 16 years. He won election the U.S. House in 1974 and served for six years, and has been a U.S. Senator since 1981.