Rise In Dementia Among Congress Creates New National Security Threat

According to a military think tank, the rise in dementia cases for people with top security clearances is posing a clear threat to our country’s national security. As leadership gets older, the number of cases of mentally-declining people with access to top secret information continues to increase. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

According to a military think tank, the rise in dementia cases for people with top security clearances, is posing a clear threat to our country's security. As leadership gets older, the number of cases of mentally declining people that have access to the top, very top of our security are making decisions for us. And they're only screamed one time. That's what so ugly about it. Let's talk about it.

Yeah. A great story here from Ken Klippenstein, and he talks about this RAND study that actually came out a few months ago that says, listen, the Pentagon knows that you have people with top secret security clearances that have dementia. And they're talking about Dianne Feinstein, even though she's no longer here.

But she had huge clearance till the time she died.

She did. They mentioned Mitch McConnell, the man who just freezes up out of nowhere. And of course, other people that have been in Congress 30, 40 years, Nancy Pelosi, of course, in her eighties, President Biden and his cabinet. So what the worry is with the Pentagon, even though they're doing nothing about it, is, okay, we're giving these people the most sensitive intelligence on the planet and they can't even trust their own minds. So they may go out and say something because they forget.

At a bar, you know, at dinner or whatever.

It's terrifying.

Well, okay. So in 1981, only, only 4% of Congress, 4% were above the age of 70. Right now it's 23% of our Congress is above the age of 70. And the real question that you, what I thought Klippenstein did such a good job, is making us understand why it's so important. When these people say, ah, you're just being critical of Biden's age. Hell no. I'm talking about national security. I'm talking about the fact that this guy has to make critical decisions quickly. And it's the same way with everybody that's on a committee, the Senate Intelligence Committee, the House Intel, whatever it may be, they have to make important decisions. They only have to be tested one time. Okay. The testing is steep. They do polygraph tests. They do interviews. The FBI talks to old teachers and old friends and finds out everything they can, but that only happens once. And then as they get older, nobody says, what the hell's a matter with Mary? She's drooling on herself. Maybe we should test her again.

I mean, Bob Menendez another great example, right?

Yeah.

That's a guy that had access to all this information and he may not have dementia.

But he's a criminal.