President Trump told a Bullhead City rally crowd on Wednesday that government leakers "should be shot," pointing to what he called a leak of the B-2 bombers' departure time before the strike on Iran's nuclear sites — then turned the same charge on the journalists covering him.
The remark came as Trump, campaigning for gubernatorial nominee Andy Biggs, walked the crowd through his account of the June 2025 strike on Iran's nuclear sites — Operation Midnight Hammer — and the disclosure he says nearly stopped it, NBC News reported.
In Trump's telling, somebody inside the government tipped off The New York Times and CNN, and the B-2 stealth bombers' departure time — 12:07 out of Missouri — ended up in print before the mission. He said he spoke with Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, about calling the raid off, and that the bombers went two days later.
"Leakers should be, in my opinion, leakers should be shot. In the old days we used to shoot leakers, you know, when they leak what time you're going to attack a country."
He called the source "some sleazebag" who "ought to go to jail or be shot," said leakers should be "dealt with very, very strongly," and called them "the scum of the earth."
Minutes later he pointed at the journalists covering the rally and folded them into the same charge: "They're almost as bad as a leaker, because they leak false information. That makes them a leaker."
Trump's account of the alleged leak and the mission decision has not been independently verified. What is on the record: news outlets reported B-2 movements the day before the June 2025 strike, and the strike went ahead against three Iranian nuclear sites.
The line lands amid a wider drive against unauthorized disclosures: proposed government-wide nondisclosure agreements for federal employees, polygraph tests given to roughly 50 members of the military's Joint Staff, and subpoenas aimed at reporters' sources.
Trump and his supporters argue that leaking an attack time is not whistleblowing but a national-security crime that can get American pilots killed. Critics answer that talk of shooting leakers, extended on the same stage to journalists, chills whistleblowers and reporting alike.
Wednesday's rally was part of a western midterm swing for Biggs, who is challenging Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, less than three weeks before the November 3 midterms — and the leak charge fit the night's theme: a commander-in-chief drawing a hard line between protecting the troops who fly the missions and those who would put their lives at risk for a headline.
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