On the day that Donald Trump *gulp* becomes our actual president in late January, the newly-minted POTUS will gain the ability to send emergency messages directly to each and every Americans’ cell phones.
Of course, any sane president would only use this annoying and alarming power for extreme situations, but knowing Trump and his lack of impulse control, we will all be alerted to 3 a.m. “emergency messages” about how unfair the New York Times is being.
You have likely already seen the emergency system in place, in particular the amber alerts or severe weather alerts that are occasionally sent to cell numbers in the affected area.
Consumers are able to block weather and amber alert messages through their carriers, but presidential messages are unable to be blocked. So no matter if you are sick of Trump sending his twentieth “emergency” message in the evening, you can’t do a thing about it besides launching your phone across the room.
And though I never thought I would say this, FEMA might be our only hope in this horrible situation. That’s because before the president can send his emergency broadcast to the nation’s phones, it has to pass through FEMA’s Integrated Public Alert & Warning System first.
Whether FEMA would block a message from the president is a mystery we will all have to wait to discover.
And you thought his tweeting was bad.
