Trump Says Leakers ‘Should Be Shot’ and Rails Against Media at Rally

U.S.

President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at Laughlin/Bullhead International Airport in Bullhead City, Ariz., on Oct.

14, 2026. —Kent Nishimura—AFP/Getty Images President Donald Trump suggested on Wednesday that people who leak sensitive information about the government to the media “should be shot,” calling them the “scum of the earth.” “In my opinion, leakers should be shot,” Trump said Wednesday during a rally in Bullhead City, Arizona.

“In the old days, we used to shoot leakers, you know, when they leak what time you’re going to attack a country.” Trump’s remark came as he described a planned raid on Iran that he said had to be delayed after somebody “leaked the time we were leaving, the time we were arriving.” He appeared to be referring to Operation Midnight Hammer in June last year, when the U.S., in a surprise attack, struck three of Iran’s most critical nuclear sites as Tehran was in a 12-day war with Israel .

In the wake of the June attack, a leaked Defense Intelligence Agency preliminary report found that Iran’s nuclear sites had not been as damaged as the Trump Administration first claimed them to be and that Iran could still enrich uranium.

Reports also said Iran may have also moved enriched material from the facilities before the attack.

“Somebody leaked—some sleazebag,” the President said.

“They ought to go to jail and be shot.

For the rest of their life, They should be in jail.

But they leaked that we were leaving at 12:07 from Missouri, and it was in the New York Times , CNN.” Moments later, Trump pointed to the journalists covering his rally and said they were “almost as bad” as leakers.

“They leak false information,” the President said.

“That makes them a leaker, right?” Trump’s long-held view that leakers are bad—most of the time Leakers have incensed Trump even before he was President.

In a 2010 clip previewing the radio show of Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade, Trump assailed WikiLeaks, which, at the time, had just released hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. military and diplomatic documents provided by Army private Chelsea Manning.

“I think it’s disgraceful,” he told Kilmeade.