# John Larson

> **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou.
>
> Cite as: "John Larson," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-larson/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*The twenty-eight-year congressman from Connecticut's first district whose primary defeat John Kiriakou reads as a verdict on both the Democratic Party's campaign theory and the age of its incumbents.*

- **Office:** United States representative, Connecticut's first district
- **Time in Congress:** 28 years
- **Defeated by:** Luke Bronin, in the party primary
- **Margin:** 54.4 to 32.8 per cent
- **Turnout:** Fewer than 48,000 votes cast in a district of 1.2 million people
- **The earlier episode:** An on-camera freeze his office attributed to dehydration

**John Larson** was the United States representative for Connecticut's first district for twenty-eight years, until he lost his party's primary to a challenger named Luke Bronin by 54.4 per cent to 32.8.[1]

[John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) treats the margin as less telling than the turnout. Fewer than 48,000 votes were cast — he restates the figure moments later as 38,000 — in a district of 1.2 million people. The lesson he draws is aimed at the party rather than the man: the Democratic election theory of *"vote for me because I'm not the other guy"* does not bring anyone to the polls, and *"if you don't stand for anything, people aren't going to go to the polls to vote for you."*[2][3]

## The clip

Kiriakou pairs the defeat with footage of Larson from an earlier appearance, speaking about protecting Americans' privacy and their social security, in which the congressman appears to freeze mid-sentence. The conventional wisdom at the time was that he had suffered a stroke; his office said he was a little dehydrated and had not slept well the night before. Kiriakou's own conclusion is generational rather than medical — that when a member is in his seventies, eighties or in some cases nineties, it may be time to step aside and let a younger generation come in, and that the voters of the first district made that decision for him.[4][5][6]

He places the result in a wider count: ten members of the House of Representatives have now lost their primaries, the most since 1970 — the electorate, in his reading, saying what the film *Network* said, that it is mad as hell and not going to take this anymore.[7]

## See also

- [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)
- [The Graham Senate succession](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-graham-senate-succession)

## Sources

1. They used WHAT to hide the President? | Ep. 10 (2026-08-13), at 40:44. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T7J-jzEo9Q&t=2444s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-08-13-na-they-used-what-to-hide-the-president-ep-10/
2. They used WHAT to hide the President? | Ep. 10 (2026-08-13), at 41:16. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T7J-jzEo9Q&t=2476s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-08-13-na-they-used-what-to-hide-the-president-ep-10/
3. They used WHAT to hide the President? | Ep. 10 (2026-08-13), at 41:47. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T7J-jzEo9Q&t=2507s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-08-13-na-they-used-what-to-hide-the-president-ep-10/
4. They used WHAT to hide the President? | Ep. 10 (2026-08-13), at 42:17. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T7J-jzEo9Q&t=2537s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-08-13-na-they-used-what-to-hide-the-president-ep-10/
5. They used WHAT to hide the President? | Ep. 10 (2026-08-13), at 42:57. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T7J-jzEo9Q&t=2577s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-08-13-na-they-used-what-to-hide-the-president-ep-10/
6. They used WHAT to hide the President? | Ep. 10 (2026-08-13), at 43:29. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T7J-jzEo9Q&t=2609s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-08-13-na-they-used-what-to-hide-the-president-ep-10/
7. They used WHAT to hide the President? | Ep. 10 (2026-08-13), at 45:39. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T7J-jzEo9Q&t=2739s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-08-13-na-they-used-what-to-hide-the-president-ep-10/

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From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-larson/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt