Trump Leakers ‘Should Be Shot,’ President Says at Rally
The trump leakers clash escalated Wednesday as President Donald Trump told supporters at a midterm campaign rally in Bullhead City, Arizona, that people in government who leak military plans to the press “should be shot.”
Trump said a planned U.S. military raid on Iran was compromised after details leaked to news outlets. He claimed Iranian forces were waiting for American troops because the New York Times and CNN had reported the timing of the operation, and said he pushed the strike back by two days.
“In My Opinion, Leakers Should Be Shot”
“In my opinion, leakers should be shot,” Trump told the crowd, adding that in earlier eras leaks were punished that way. “They ought to go to jail and be shot,” he said.
He framed the hard line as a matter of troop safety. Revealing when the U.S. will attack, he argued, endangers service members — particularly when the mission aims to stop a country from building a weapon capable of mass destruction. “Leakers should be dealt with very, very strongly,” he said.
The comments appeared to reference the June 2025 U.S. strike on Iranian nuclear sites, known as Operation Midnight Hammer, though Trump did not name the operation. He has previously blamed Democrats for leaking details of the mission and said those responsible should be prosecuted.
Trump also aimed at the press itself, arguing reporters are nearly as bad as leakers because they publish leaked material, which he accused of often being false and unsourced.
An Administration Hunting Leaks
The rally remarks fit a broader crackdown on unauthorized disclosures. Staff members and military officers have been asked to take polygraph tests, and reporters at The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal have received subpoenas aimed at identifying the sources behind stories such as a failed Navy SEAL raid in North Korea and reporting that Trump ignored internal Pentagon warnings against launching the Iran war.
Last year, the Pentagon required journalists seeking access to the building to sign an agreement not to publish unauthorized material. Most of the Pentagon press corps refused, and a federal court struck down many of the department’s new demands.
Trump has railed against leakers since his first term. A former White House official, Alyssa Farah Griffin, said on a 2024 podcast that Trump called for leakers to be executed after outlets reported he had sheltered in a White House bunker during the 2020 racial justice protests.
In 2025, Trump threatened to sue the New York Times and CNN over reporting on a preliminary intelligence assessment that undercut his claims about the destruction of Iran’s uranium enrichment sites.
The Bullhead City rally, held less than three weeks before the November 3 midterms, came as the president campaigns across battleground states to protect the GOP’s narrow congressional majorities.
Source: The Washington Post