Leakers of government information should be shot: Trump

US President Donald Trump has remarked that those who leak classified government information to the media should be shot as punishment.

Trump made these comments during a campaign rally in Bullhead City, Arizona, on Wednesday, ahead of the midterm elections on November 3. This is according to a report by Al Jazeera.

Addressing the crowd at the rally, Trump said, "In my opinion, leakers should be shot. In the old days, that’s what happened to leakers—for instance, if someone leaked information about when an attack on another country was going to take place, they would be shot."

Trump was likely referring to "Operation Midnight Hammer"—a surprise US strike on Iran that took place in June 2025, during a 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran.

Following that strike, several media outlets published details from a preliminary report by the US Defense Intelligence Agency.

The report, which was not intended for public release, indicated that Iran had managed to remove some of its enriched uranium from the sites targeted by the US bombing. The damage inflicted on Iran’s nuclear facilities was significantly less than what Trump had claimed.

Trump suggested that the timing of the US attack was also among the leaked information. He accused the media—specifically *The New York Times* and CNN—of putting military personnel in danger.

Trump claimed that the leakers revealed the exact times of departure and arrival, which forced him to delay the bombing operation by two days.

"Someone leaked it—some despicable person," Trump said. "They should be sent to prison, or they should be shot. They should spend the rest of their lives in jail."

Trump has long had a hostile relationship with the media. He has previously called for severe punishment for any government official who leaks classified information to the press. After portions of a Defense Intelligence Agency report became public, he blamed Democratic lawmakers for the leak.

At the time, Trump wrote on social media, "The Democrats leaked information about a precise operation carried out against Iran’s nuclear facilities. They should be prosecuted!"

During his administration, the White House took stringent measures to identify the sources of such leaks. Staff members within his administration, as well as military officials, were even required to undergo polygraph (lie detector) tests.

Court subpoenas were issued to journalists from several news outlets—including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal—in an effort to uncover the sources behind the internal information that had reached the public domain.

Last year, the U.S. Department of Defense (the Pentagon) mandated that journalists seeking access to the Pentagon sign an agreement stipulating that they would not disclose any unauthorized information.

Most journalists covering the Pentagon refused to accept this condition, and a federal court subsequently struck down many of the new requirements imposed on the press.

Trump has long expressed intense hostility toward leakers—a stance he maintained throughout his first term, from 2017 to 2021.