Trump to become first president not to hand off the nuclear codes

Donald Trump is set to become the first US president in the nuclear age to not hand over the nuclear codes to his successor.

According to NBC News, Trump plans to be in Florida when Democrat and former Veep Joe Biden is sworn in at the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., as the 46th President of the United States.

Take a look at this news report on the handoff in the video below:

This means that he will not be physically present to hand Biden the colloquially-named "nuclear football" - a 45lb (20kg) black satchel case that contains the nuclear codes which the President can deploy to authorize a nuclear strike.

A US official told NBC that, instead, a military aide is to accompany Trump to Florida with one of the many footballs, so that he will still retain sole nuclear strike authority until exactly 11:59:59AM Wednesday, January 20.

At noon, another nuclear football will be handed to Biden, and the launch authority will then revert to him and him alone. The military aide with Trump will then return with his football to Washington, D.C.

Watch Donald Trump's farewell address below:

Per USA Today, in his 1980 book Breaking Cover, former Director of the White House Military Office Bill Gulley, who carried the nuclear football during President Gerald Ford's administration, described the contents of the case, writing that it contained:

"The Black Book containing the retaliatory options, a book listing classified site locations, a manila folder... giving a description of procedures for the Emergency Broadcast System, and a three-by-five-inch.. card with authentication codes.

"The Black Book was about 9 by 12 inches... and had 75 loose-leaf pages printed in black and red.

"The book with classified site locations was about the same size as the Black Book and was [also] black. It contained information on sites around the country where the president could be taken in an emergency."

Credit: PA Images

Although Vice President Mike Pence has confirmed that he will be attending Biden's swearing-in ceremony, Trump has declined to attend the inauguration in person, making him the first President in more than 150 years, and only the fourth American President ever, to do so.

In a post made on Twitter just before his permanent ban from the social media platform, Trump wrote: "To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th."