Trump Threatens Journalists With Jail Over Reporting on Airman Rescue

On Monday, President Donald Trump threatened to jail reporters who spoke to a supposed “leaker” in the administration and reported on a missing U.S. airman in Iran over the past weekend.

The airman in question was one of two who were ejected from their aircraft after it was shot down by Iranian air defenses, just one day after Trump had claimed those defenses were essentially obliterated. Several news agencies reported on one airman being rescued immediately while a second was missing for two days before being found.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump demanded that whoever leaked the information out that an airman was missing should be punished for doing so. He also lashed out at the media in general, stating that, if news agencies did not release the leaker’s name, his administration would jail journalists who reported the story.

“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 said.

“We have to find that leaker, because that’s a sick person. … The person that did the story will go to jail if he doesn’t say,” Trump also said.

Trump: "We have to find that leaker, because that's a sick person. It's national security. And the person that did the story will go to jail if he doesn't say."

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-04-06T17:28:10.183Z

Trump didn’t make clear which media company or journalist he was referring to. Some observers have suggested the first report of the downed airman came from journalist Jack Murphy.

Murphy was quick to correct the record on Monday, after Trump made his threats to journalists.

“In the year of our lord, 2026, while America’s God-Emperor-King talks about throwing journalists in prison, I remind ye that I was the first person to report the F-15 WSO RESCUED, not the first that reported that he was MISSING,” Murphy said on social media.

Trump further claimed that the reports on the airman put the rescue mission at “great risk.” On the other hand, failing to report on the story at all would have deprived the American people of key information about the true extent of Iran’s anti-air defenses, not just Trump’s claims on them, as well as an important update on the status of the war itself.

Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) Chief of Advocacy Seth Stern lambasted Trump for attempting to deny journalists their press freedoms, which are protected by the Constitution.

“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,” Stern said.

Freedom of the Press “does not disappear whenever the words ‘national security’ are uttered,” Stern added, stipulating that “it’s up to the government to keep its secrets, not journalists.”

Stern defended the practice of journalists working with confidential sources while continuing his criticism of the president, stating that:

Some of the most important news stories in American history have come from confidential sources, including stories that have brought down corrupt presidents. That’s why Trump is so obsessed with leaks. It has nothing to do with national security.

Trump’s latest attacks on the press come weeks before he is set to attend the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington, D.C. Some attendees of the gathering are planning to wear pocket squares or pins with the First Amendment on them, as a silent protest against the president’s repeated attacks and censorship of the press.

Other voices are criticizing that type of protest as ineffective.

“Pocket squares. That’ll show him,” Press Watch editor Dan Froomkin said on Bluesky.

“What the living hell is anyone doing going to the correspondents’ dinner, in any other capacity than to loudly, [visibly], pointedly protest this administration to its face?” said Damien P. Williams, a philosophy professor at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte.