U.S. presidents have long complained about internal information about their administration being leaked to the media.
US President Donald Trump has suggested that anyone who leaks information to the press should be shot as punishment.
President Trump made the remarks at a campaign rally in Bullhead City, Arizona, where he urged his supporters to vote in the November 3 midterm elections.
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“In my opinion, the leakers should be shot,” Trump told the audience. “In the old days, we used to shoot down leakers who leaked information on when to attack a country.”
President Trump made this statement in an apparent reference to Operation Midnight Hammer, in which the United States launched 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 by the US Defense Intelligence Agency.
The report, which had not yet been released to the public, showed that Iran was able to move some of its enriched uranium away from the areas where the United States had bombed it.
He also suggested that the damage to Iran’s nuclear facilities was smaller than President Trump had claimed.
However, President Trump seemed to suggest that the leaked information also included the timing of the US attack. He accused news organizations of putting military personnel at risk, particularly the New York Times and CNN.
“They leaked our departure time and arrival time,” Trump said, claiming that as a result, the bombing mission had to be rescheduled for two days later.
“Someone leaked it. Those scumbags should go to jail or get shot. They should spend the rest of their lives in prison.”
President Trump has long had an adversarial relationship with the news media and has previously called for harsher punishments for officials who pass classified information to the media.
After parts of the Defense Intelligence Agency report were made public, he criticized Democratic lawmakers for their release.
“Democrats are the ones who leaked information about Perfect Flight to Iran’s nuclear facilities,” President Trump wrote on social media at the time. “They should be prosecuted!”
Under the Trump administration, the White House has taken aggressive action to determine the source of the breach.
Staff members of his administration, as well as military officers, have been required to undergo polygraph tests.
Journalists from multiple news organizations, including the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal, also received subpoenas aimed at determining the sources of published inside information.
Newspapers reported stories about a failed Navy SEAL raid on North Korea and how President Trump ignored warnings from within the Pentagon against starting a war with Iran.
Last year, the Pentagon required journalists seeking access to the Pentagon to sign an agreement not to publish unauthorized material.
Many in the Pentagon press corps refused to consent, and a federal court invalidated many of the department’s new demands on journalists.
President Trump has been furious with leakers for years, dating back to his first term as president from 2017 to 2021.
Former White House official Alyssa Farrah Griffin said in a 2024 podcast that Trump had called for the execution of leakers after media reported that Trump took refuge in the White House bunker during the 2020 racial justice protests.
President Trump appeared to reiterate that sentiment in a speech to voters in Arizona on Wednesday, less than three weeks until the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
President Trump said, “We must deal very strongly with those who leak information.” “To me they are the scum of the earth.”
