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Trump Threatens to Jail Journalists Who Received Leak About US Pilot Downed in Iran
“We think we’ll be able to find it out because we’re going to go to the media company that released it and we’re going to say: ‘National security—give it up or go to jail,'" the president said.
Apr 06, 2026
President Donald Trump vowed Monday to find the "leaker" who disclosed that US forces could not locate the second pilot stranded in Iran after their F-15 fighter jet was shot down, threatening to jail unnamed journalists who received the information if they do not reveal its source.
Trump claimed that Iranian authorities did not know that a second pilot of the downed two-seat warplane was missing until after the news report, which made the US rescue mission "much more difficult."
“We’re looking very hard to find that leaker,” Trump said. “We think we’ll be able to find it out because we’re going to go to the media company that released it and we’re going to say: ‘National security—give it up or go to jail.'”
Trump: "They didn't know there was somebody missing until this leaker gave the information. Whoever it was, we think we'll be able to find out, because we're gonna go to the media company that released it and we're gonna say, 'National security. Give it up or go to jail.'"
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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) April 6, 2026 at 10:27 AM
“The country, Iran, put out a major notice... offering a very big award for anybody that captures the pilot," Trump continued. "We have to find that leaker, because that’s a sick person. Probably didn’t realize the extent of how bad it was."
"We’re going to find out," he added. "It’s national security, and the person that did the story will go to jail if he doesn’t say.”
While the president did not say which "media company" he was talking about, the first widely cited reporting about the missing second pilot was broadcast Friday by CNN, CBS News, and The New York Times.
Israel journalist Amit Segal—who has close high-level links to the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—claimed Monday on his Telegram channel that he was the first to publish information on the second pilot.
"We are about to see Trump’s promise to find and imprison whoever leaked the info about the second pilot vanish into the ether," US investigative journalist Ryan Grim said on social media Monday in response to Segal's post.
Both pilots were successfully rescued. Some critics mocked Trump for presuming that Iranians would not know that the two-seat F-15 is crewed by multiple pilots.
Since early in his first administration, Trump has discussed jailing journalists and political foes who leak or refuse to say who disclosed information. The president has also long denigrated journalists as the "fake news media" and the "enemy of the people," sowing distrust of an entire profession that culminated in physical attacks on reporters during the January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection.
Trump's threat comes as the president said he is "considering blowing everything up” in Iran if the country's leaders don't reopen the Strait of Hormuz by Tuesday night. This, after Trump said during a nationally televised address last week that he would bomb Iran "back to the Stone Ages" if the vital waterway is not reopened.
Responding to the president's remarks, Freedom of the Press Foundation advocacy chief Seth Stern said that “Donald Trump has long harbored bizarre fantasies about having journalists arrested and even sexually assaulted in prison for refusing to burn their sources."
"But journalists don’t work for the government and their right to publish government leaks is protected by the First Amendment which, despite Trump’s efforts, remains the law of the land," he continued. "It does not disappear whenever the words 'national security' are uttered. To the extent that the government is allowed to withhold information, it’s up to the government to keep its secrets, not journalists."
“Confidential sources are the lifeblood of investigative journalism," Stern contended. "Sources who come forward at great personal risk won’t do so if they don’t trust that their identities won’t be revealed, as Trump knows well from his days impersonating publicists to brag about himself to reporters."
"Some of the most important news stories in American history have come from confidential sources, including stories that have brought down corrupt presidents," he added. "That’s why Trump is so obsessed with leaks. It has nothing to do with national security."
Update: This article has been updated with reaction from Freedom of the Press Foundation advocacy chief Seth Stern.
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UN Human Rights Chief Calls Out Trump FCC for Threatening Media Over Iran War Coverage
"Full respect for media independence and freedoms is all the more important in such circumstances, as fundamental to holding governments to public account," said Volker Türk.
Apr 01, 2026
The United Nations' top human rights official on Tuesday accused a Trump administration agency of attempting to "limit media freedom" by publicly threatening outlets engaged in critical coverage of the Iran war.
Volker Türk, the UN human rights chief, specifically called out the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) over its chairman's threat last month to pull the broadcast licenses of broadcasters accused by the administration of "news distortions." FCC Chair Brendan Carr issued the threat in response to a March 14 tirade by US President Donald Trump, who baselessly condemned The Wall Street Journal and other media outlets for publishing "intentionally misleading" war coverage.
Türk's mention of the FCC came at the tail-end of a statement decrying the "deepening clampdown on freedom of expression" amid the US-Israeli war on Iran. The UN official pointed to mass arbitrary detentions in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, and Iran, as well as crackdowns on free assembly.
"There have also been attempts to limit media freedom, such as restrictions imposed by Israeli military censorship authorities, and a threat by the US Federal Communications Commission to revoke broadcast licenses for coverage deemed critical of the war," said Türk. "Full respect for media independence and freedoms is all the more important in such circumstances, as fundamental to holding governments to public account. The exercise of such rights must be protected, not threatened."
A day after the FCC chief threatened broadcasters, Trump floated "treason" charges against media outlets he accused of spreading "false information"—something the president does constantly.
Tom Jones, senior media writer at Poynter, wrote earlier this week that "perhaps the most dangerous figure in Trump’s aggression against the press is Brendan Carr," who "made his feelings abundantly clear at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Texas on Friday."
"He bragged about the damage Trump has done to the media," Jones wrote. "Carr told an approving crowd, 'Look at the results so far. PBS, defunded. NPR, defunded. Joy Reid, gone from MSNBC. Sleepy-eyes Chuck Todd, gone. Jim Acosta, gone. John Dickerson, gone. Stephen Colbert is leaving. CBS is under new ownership, and soon enough, CNN is going to have new ownership as well.'"
"Then," Jones added, "he chillingly said, 'So, we’re not at the point yet where we’re raising the mission accomplished flag, but President Trump is taking on the fake news media, and President Trump is winning.'"
Carr's attack on broadcasters over their Iran war coverage led Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) to reiterate his call for the FCC chair's resignation. In a letter to Carr, Markey wrote that the chairman's threat demonstrated his "continued effort to turn the FCC into Trump’s personal speech police."
Carr's threat to pull media outlets' broadcast licenses "follows that same logic but extends it to the coverage of an active military conflict, where the chilling effect on journalists and the damage to the public’s right to know are most severe."
Other Trump administration officials, most notably Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth, have vocally complained about press coverage of the illegal Iran war, describing American media outlets as insufficiently "patriotic."
Under Hegseth's leadership, the Pentagon recently ramped up its crackdown on journalists' access to the department following a court ruling against earlier press restrictions. As part of the new crackdown, the Pentagon closed a press area known as Correspondents' Corridor and moved reporters to an unfinished annex in a separate building.
“Closing the Correspondents’ Corridor and forcing escorted access undermines independent reporting at the Pentagon at a moment when the public needs clear, unfiltered information about the US military," said Mark Schoeff Jr., president of the National Press Club. "Independent reporting on the US military is not optional. It is essential to accountability, transparency, and public trust. Any policy that curtails that access should concern everyone who values a free and informed society.”
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Profiles in Cowardice: Our 4 Ex-Presidents Still Won't Speak Out Against Trump!
These former presidents should mobilize the citizenry from the grassroots to the Capitol and take on the unpopular Tyrant Trump; instead, they are living luxurious lives and are largely AWOL.
Mar 28, 2026
What should the American people, especially the hundreds of millions of their voters, expect Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden to do against the vicious, serial law-violating, violent, corrupt, agency-dismantling Donald Trump and the crony Trumpsters who are wrecking our government and our economy?
These former presidents should mobilize the citizenry from the grassroots to the Capitol and take on the unpopular Tyrant Trump. Having sworn to uphold the Constitution and “…take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” they should strongly uphold their patriotic duty to resist tyranny and save our Republic and our besieged democratic institutions, and stop the assault on our civil liberties and civil rights.
Our former presidents all get along with each other. They have the stature to:
- Get mass media;
- Raise immediately large amounts of funds for strong IMPEACH TRUMP citizen groups in every congressional district to increase and expand the present majority of Americans wanting to FIRE TRUMP;
- Stay the course as Trump keeps worsening his criminal dictatorship and destruction of our democracy; and
- Highlight the many programs they initiated that Trump has illegally destroyed or is dismantling.
Instead, they are living luxurious lives and are largely AWOL from connecting with the existing but overwhelmed civic opposition to Trump. Bush is painting landscapes as Trump has destroyed his AIDS program in Africa, and the Bush wing of the Republican Party. Obama has campaigned for Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill as governors of Virginia and New Jersey, satirizing Trump in some of his speeches. His present passion, however, is the March Madness basketball championships. Clinton has left it up to Hillary, who wrote a guarded New York Times op-ed back on March 28, 2025, taking Trump to task for jeopardizing our national security and not “preparing for real fights with America’s adversaries.”
Then there is Joe Biden, who received then President-elect Trump and Melania on the morning of January 20, 2025, with the gracious “welcome home.” In return, Biden got that afternoon and every day since hundreds of foul epithets from Trump, scapegoating him for almost everything he could fabricate, including solar energy and wind power projects. Delaware Joe managed a few critical replies at a Democratic Party dinner in Nebraska on November 7, 2025. “Trump has taken a wrecking ball not only to the people’s house but to the Constitution, to the rule of law, to our very democracy.” Unfortunately, Biden has mostly been silent.
Credit these retired presidents with knowing the historic dangers and existing damages of the TRUMP DUMP in Washington and around the country. They also know their supporters would be very receptive to their organized, persistent leadership from them to send Trump back to Mar-a-Lago. Why are they AWOL?
First, they fear Trump’s retaliation, upsetting their comfortable lives. Trump is now deep in the QUICKSAND of the Middle East. He is being pilloried by a million stickers at gas pumps picturing Trump pointing to the booming price per gallon and saying, “I did that.” He is openly declaring there should be no elections in November and continues to send or keep his storm troopers in America’s cities. An expanding police state is not exactly a credible perch for effective profanity. Show a modest bit of moxie!
A second excuse is that they have done some of what Trump is doing:
- Bush’s mass murder in the illegal war on Iraq.
- Clinton’s distracting raids abroad against innocents and his womanizing.
- Obama’s “signature strikes,” killing over 300 mostly young men in places like Yemen.
- Biden’s illegal co-belligerence with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s genocide in Gaza, which has taken over 600,000 civilian lives.
True enough. But people live in the present and are most worried about what Dangerous Donald is doing NOW to their livelihoods, freedoms, health and safety, and the consequences in casualties and their tax dollars of another endless war.
Our former presidents have no excuses. They simply lack a modicum of courage. Remember Aristotle declared, “Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.”
The current political climate demands the powerful emergence of the four previous presidents of our country. The federal district courts are ruling heavily against Trump’s “Injustice Department,” though Trump retains a slightly weakening claim on six Supreme Court Injustices. People of all backgrounds are marching and demonstrating in huge numbers. This weekend, the “No Kings” rallies (he’s already a dictator) anticipate 10 million people nationwide.
The business community, particularly small businesses, are feeling serious harm from Trump’s tariffs, wars, cancelled contracts, and inflationary policies. The labor unions have never been under such attack (notably the federal employees’ union members whose contracts he has torn up), and they are simmering with anger. The universities are also under His illegal shakedown attacks.
What explains the mainstream media’s virtual ignoring of this ABDICATION by these ex-presidents? The reporters mostly despise Trump, who has slandered them (calling them “deranged and demented” for starters) and has extortionately sued news organizations and journalists for millions of dollars and coerced settlements.
The media have reported that some ex-agency officials under the former presidents have excoriated Trump, such as Samantha Power, for closing the major lifesaving Agency for International Development. The formidable Rohit Chopra, who directed the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under Biden, is not reticent to verbally defend his nearly closed-down agency, which had saved consumers many billions of dollars.
However, they are not covering the abdication by BIG GUYS—our former presidents. I have tried in vain to find out why by calling reporters and editors. Maybe you’ll have better luck. Try calling these numbers: The Washington Post: 202-334-6000; The New York Times: 800-698-4637; Associated Press: 212-621-1500; NPR: 202-513-2000; The Wall Street Journal: 212-416-2000.
You may break through and help save our Republic!
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