Nuclear weapons control rests, constitutionally, with one person. In 1969 that person was drunk, incensed, and on the phone to the Joint Chiefs ordering a strike on North Korea.

Is a patriot someone who follows the law or someone who breaks it to protect the country? That question is not rhetorical. It is the specific calculation that a secretary of defense and a general both made, decades apart, when they quietly placed themselves between a president and the button. One had no constitutional authority. Neither did the other.

Next time a world leader’s mental fitness becomes a news story, the more important question is who is in the room. Not what the law allows. What the person standing there is actually willing to do.

Topics: nuclear weapons control, Nixon nuclear order, presidential mental fitness, nuclear launch authority, conspiracy theories

GUEST: Nathan Radke | https://www.amazon.ca/Uncover-Up-Think-Clearly-Conspiracies/dp/1770418873

Originally aired on2026-04-15