The President of the United States, Donald Trump, stated this Wednesday that those who leak classified information "should be shot," during a campaign rally held in Bullhead City, Arizona, in support of Republican candidates ahead of the November 3rd congressional elections.
"In my opinion, those who leak information should be shot," Trump stated to the attendees.
The Republican leader labeled the leakers as "scum of the earth" and demanded that they be punished "with a great, great firmness."
The statements came as Trump recalled a military operation that he initially suspended after the departure and arrival times of U.S. bombers from Missouri were leaked to media outlets such as The New York Times and CNN. The president claimed that two days later, he decided to carry out the attack using the exact same schedule, as he believed the enemy would no longer be anticipating it.
The comments seem to refer to the so-called Operation Midnight Hammer, the U.S. attack on Iranian nuclear facilities carried out in June 2025, although Trump did not specify the name of the mission.
"When you leak the time you're going to attack a country and the reason for the attack is truly for defense, because you don't want them to have a weapon that could take millions of lives in a single shot," the president argued.
Trump extended his criticism to journalists, whom he directly equated with the leakers.
"They're almost as bad as a leak, since they spread false information," he stated, adding, "That makes them a leaker."
Trump's words come amid a sustained escalation by his administration against leaks to the press. In July 2026, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the creation of a joint task force between the Pentagon and the Justice Department to identify and prosecute leakers, and in August the Pentagon subjected around 50 members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to polygraph tests related to leaks about the reduction of U.S. ammunition reserves during the conflict with Iran.
In April 2026, Trump had already threatened to send to prison the journalist who reported on a second missing U.S. aviator in Iranian territory if he refused to reveal the source of the leak, and the FBI arrested that same month Courtney Williams, a former U.S. Army employee who worked in a special operations unit, accused of transmitting classified information to a journalist.
The statements made this Wednesday also coincided with a recent judicial setback for the administration: federal judge Timothy Kelly issued a preliminary injunction protecting the access of 78 journalists from CNN, MS NOW, and Politico to the White House, as the ongoing litigation continues following the ban imposed by the administration on those three outlets in September, accusing them of publishing "fiction and lies."
The rally in Arizona, a state considered pivotal, is part of Trump's campaign to strengthen the Republican majority in Congress ahead of the elections on November 3rd.
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