Trump says leakers should be shot

At a campaign rally in Bullhead City, Arizona, on Wednesday, President Donald Trump said government officials who leak to the media "should be shot," describing leakers as "the scum of the Earth" and demanding that federal workers who pass sensitive information to journalists face lifetime imprisonment or execution.

Trump recounted what he said was a compromised operation against Iran. "Somebody leaked, some sleazebag. They ought to go to jail or be shot," he told the crowd. "They leaked that we were leaving at 12:07 from Missouri, and it was in The New York Times, CNN." NBC News notes the account appeared to refer to the strike on Iran's nuclear facilities in June 2025 — an operation that took place and went ahead.

The threat is aimed at the other end of the pipeline from September's credential revocations, when Trump barred CNN, MS Now and Politico from the White House and promised further exclusions. Since returning to office, his administration has proposed directing federal agencies to have new and existing employees sign nondisclosure agreements. In September, federal investigators administered polygraph tests to roughly 50 members of the military's Joint Staff, pressing them on whether they had shared classified information with journalists, according to the New York Times.

The reporters' side of the exchange has received matching attention. In January, Trump authorized a search of the home of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson as part of an investigation into a government contractor accused of illegally retaining classified materials. A federal magistrate ruled a month later that the administration could not examine the data FBI agents had seized; a district court judge upheld the ruling on appeal, and there have been no further appeals. In June, the administration sought to compel testimony from four journalists — three from the Washington Post, one from the Wall Street Journal — before a grand jury, then dropped the subpoenas after the newspapers pushed back.

At the rally, Trump gestured toward the journalists covering him. "Those same people up there, they're almost as bad as a leaker, because they leak. Oh, they leak false information. That makes them a leaker, right?" He has previously called the news media "the true Enemy of the People."

The Iran raid Trump says a leak forced him to call off went ahead in June 2025.