Donald Trump told an Arizona rally crowd that government employees who leak sensitive information to reporters should face execution.
President Donald Trump told supporters at a campaign rally in Bullhead City, Arizona, on Wednesday that government personnel who leak inside information to news outlets should be executed, Al Jazeera reported. “In my opinion, leakers should be shot,” Trump said to the crowd as he campaigned ahead of the November 3 midterm elections.
Anger over military strike coverage
Trump centered his complaint on coverage surrounding Operation Midnight Hammer, an American strike against Iranian nuclear facilities in June 2025 during a Twelve-Day War with Israel. Trump accused reporters of endangering service members and singled out The New York Times and CNN. He claimed someone shared departure and arrival times, saying news organizations reported planes left Missouri at 12:07, and asserted he had to delay the operation by two days as a result, NBC News reported.
The strike still went forward. After the attack, news organizations published findings from an unreleased Defense Intelligence Agency preliminary report. That assessment showed Iran managed to shift some enriched uranium away from targeted sites, and it stated that damage to the nuclear facilities was more limited than Trump claimed. Trump accused Democratic lawmakers on social media of releasing the document, writing, “They should be prosecuted!” At the rally, he called leakers scum of the earth who should spend their lives in prison or face death, and he pointed at reporters in the room, claiming journalists who distribute false information act like leakers themselves.
History of targeting unauthorized disclosures
Trump has expressed anger over leaks since his first presidential term from 2017 to 2021. Former White House official Alyssa Farah Griffin said on a 2024 podcast that Trump demanded leakers be executed in 2020 after news reports revealed he had taken shelter in a White House bunker during racial justice demonstrations.
Since returning to office, his administration has pursued several measures to prevent leaks to journalists. The administration proposed requiring both current and newly hired federal workers to sign nondisclosure agreements. Last year, the Department of Defense told reporters they had to sign an agreement not to publish unauthorized material if they wanted access to the Pentagon. Members of the Pentagon press corps refused to sign, and a federal court struck down the rules.
Court fights and polygraph tests
The administration has also taken legal steps against reporters who published stories based on leaked government materials. Those articles covered sensitive national security topics, including a failed Navy SEALs raid in North Korea and Pentagon warnings advising Trump not to enter a war with Iran.
In January, Trump approved a search of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson’s home during an investigation into a government contractor accused of keeping classified records illegally. A federal magistrate judge ruled a month later that investigators could not review the material FBI agents took from her residence. A federal district court judge upheld that decision on appeal, and the administration chose not to file any further appeals.
Investigators have also used polygraph tests across the government. The administration directed White House personnel and military officers to undergo lie detector exams to trace disclosures. That effort included questioning roughly 50 members of the military’s Joint Staff last month about whether they had provided classified information to reporters. In June, the government attempted to force grand jury testimony from three Washington Post reporters and one Wall Street Journal reporter before dropping the subpoenas when the newspapers resisted.
