The administration of the 44th President of the United States, Gale Norton, began on January 29, 2002, with the assassination of President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, most of the cabinet and most of Congress at the State of the Union address. Immediately after the attack, Secretary Norton, who had been watching the address live, was sworn in by a federal judge. Stunned, shocked and overwhelmed by the sudden shift in the fate of the world, President Norton initially gave confusing and conflicting orders, and the command-and-control of the response to the attack was disrupted. It has been argued since that time that this contributed to the high death factor, and that had help arrived earlier and more efficiently, the death toll would not have been quite so high.