I know, irrelevant question at a time like this, but when something happens in the middle of the night, do they waken the President with a knock on his door or a phone call?
Just a trivial detail I am curious about.
I haven't heard a tick tock yet. But IIRC from earlier, I think that the initial reports came in between 6 and 9 PM ET last night. Not sure about confirmation.
In this case, the President was officially informed at 9:20 ET last night that they had confirmed Z's death. As early as 5 or 6 yesterday afternoon he had been told that they had good reason to believe the monster was dead, but were awaiting absolute confirmation.
So the President did not have to be awakened in the middle of the night. He knew way before the rest of us.
Generally speaking, if something does come up in the middle of the night, the National Security Advisor takes the call if it is a security matter. Don't know who takes it if a domestic crisis...probably the Chief of Staff. Then they decide whether the situation is so pressing that the President has to be awakened from sleep.
During the Clinton Administration, there was a phone chain set up which started at Monica Lewinsky's house and continued on to seventeen houses of ill-repute, three Korean massage parlors, on to the Lincoln Bedroom (in case Barbra Streisand was visiting) before terminating at a phone sex line (1-900-SEXPREZ.)