The US president has long been unhappy with insider information about his administration being leaked to the media.
US President Donald Trump has suggested that those who leak information to the media should be shot as punishment.
Trump made the remarks at a campaign rally in Bullhead City, Arizona, as he urged his supporters to vote in the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
Recommended Stories
list of 3 itemsend of list
“In my opinion, the leakers should be shot,” Trump told the crowd. “Before, we used to shoot the fugitives, you know, when they leak the time you’re going to attack a country.”
Trump made the statement in an apparent reference to Operation Midnight Hammer, which saw the United States launch a surprise attack on Iran in June 2025 during the 12-day war between Israel and Iran.
In the aftermath of the attack, several media outlets published the findings of a preliminary report from the United States Defense Intelligence Agency.
This report – which had not yet been made public – indicated that Iran was able to move some of its enriched uranium out of sites bombed by the United States.
It also suggests that the extent of the damage to Iran’s nuclear facilities is more modest than Trump had claimed.
Trump, however, appeared to point out that the timing of the U.S. attacks was among the leaked information. He accused the media of putting the military in danger, particularly attacking the New York Times and CNN.
“They leaked the time we were leaving, the time we were arriving,” Trump said, saying he had to reschedule the bombing campaign two days later as a result.
“Someone went on the run. A sleazeball, he should go to jail or be shot. For the rest of his life, he should be in jail.”
Trump has long had a contentious relationship with the media and has previously called for harsh sanctions against any officials who pass classified information to the media.
After parts of the Defense Intelligence Agency report were made public, he blamed Democratic Party lawmakers for its release.
“It was the Democrats who leaked the information about the PERFECT FLIGHT to the nuclear sites in Iran,” Trump wrote on social media at the time. “They should be prosecuted!”
Under Trump, the White House has taken aggressive steps to track down the source of leaks.
Staff in his administration, as well as army officers, were also asked to take polygraph tests.
Journalists from several media outlets, including the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, have also received subpoenas seeking to determine the sources of the internal information made public.
Newspapers had reported stories such as a botched Navy SEAL raid in North Korea and how Trump ignored internal Pentagon warnings against launching war in Iran.
Last year, the Defense Department required journalists seeking access to the Pentagon to sign an agreement prohibiting the publication of unauthorized documents.
Much of the Pentagon press corps refused to agree, and a federal court rejected many of the new demands on the department’s journalists.
Trump has a long history of going after leakers, dating back to his first term as president from 2017 to 2021.
Former White House official Alyssa Farah Griffin said in a 2024 podcast that Trump called for the escapees to be executed, after media reports he took refuge in a White House bunker during protests for racial justice in 2020.
Trump appeared to echo that sentiment in his speech to Arizona voters on Wednesday, less than three weeks before the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
“Leaks must be fought very, very strongly,” Trump said. “To me, they are the scum of the earth.”
Gn usa
