How Elderly Dementia Patients Are Unwittingly Fueling Political Campaigns

A stunning investigation reveals how deceptive political fundraising—urgent appeals in texts and emails that seem to come directly from candidates, pre-checked boxes for recurring donations, promises of inclusion at non-existent VIP events—has misled elderly Americans into giving away millions of dollars. More than 1,000 reports have been filed with federal authorities about the matter. One of them concerned Richard Benjamin, 81, who believed he was in personal communication with Donald Trump:

At one point, he told his children the former president invited him to a luxurious reception at Mar-a-Lago. He had grown up on a farm and worried he would feel out of his element at such a fancy venue. But when he received what he described to his children as an invitation to be a VIP at a rally in Arizona, he was thrilled he would finally meet the former president himself. He started making travel plans and asking his sister-in-law if she would like to accompany him, since his wife had passed away in 2018.

Later, he told his son how angry he was that Donald Trump Jr. wouldn’t call him back even though the former president’s son had sent Benjamin so many nice messages.

“He was old, lonely and isolated,” his son, Jason Benjamin, told CNN, saying the pandemic only compounded that isolation. “’Save America, help save America,’ that was the constant message. He would get thanked for helping to save America.”

Richard Benjamin, who now lives in a memory care unit at an assisted living facility, would look forward to the emails and texts, and especially to the ones thanking him for being a true American and patriot when he donated his money. This eventually led him to give about $80,000, leaving him tens of thousands of dollars in debt and his children angry at the campaigns who they say tricked their dad and took advantage of his compromised state of mind. “He really, in his heart, believed that Donald Trump and Donald Trump Jr. and other politicians were personally reaching out to him,” Jason Benjamin said.

Richard Benjamin and his family showed CNN that he continues to be inundated with text messages and phone calls from politicians to this day. Yet he often couldn’t identify the politicians he financially supported.

“There’s no excuse for them to allow something like this to happen,” Jason Benjamin said of the campaigns behind the many solicitations. An employee from Richard Benjamin’s bank even lodged a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission about deceptive practices, saying Benjamin had never intended to donate close to the amount he did, according to FTC records