‘Give It Up Or Go to Jail!’ Trump Threatens Media Company Over Alleged Rescue Leak

President Donald Trump threatened a “media company” on Monday to reveal who leaked details about the U.S. mission to rescue a downed airman in Iran last Friday.

Trump spoke at a presser from the White House and praised the military for bringing back the two airmen downed over Iran. He claimed that the rescue of the first airman was meant to remain a secret until both were found, but that news of the first rescue leaked – a violation of national security.

“I want to thank every member of the U.S. Armed Forces involved in these historic operations. They really were historic. It’s just not something that’s done. And you’d understand it. Not that they don’t want to do it, but when you’re going into areas — when you look at these helicopters, when you look at the amount of bullets and everything else that they took, when you go into these areas, you don’t come out like we came out,” Trump said, adding:

God was watching us. Well, it was Easter — we’re in Easter territory, I guess. But God was watching us. Amazing. Because when you look at the machinery, they took damage. The first thing I said is, these are unbelievable machines — how they flew back, and not even much of a problem.

But these two extraordinary rescues — because it was two — and as you probably know, we didn’t talk about the first one for an hour. And then somebody leaked something, which we’ll hopefully find — that leaker. We’re looking very hard to find that leaker. And talked about there’s somebody missing. They basically said that we have one and there’s someone missing. Well, they didn’t know there was somebody missing until this leaker gave the information. So whoever it was, 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 gonna say national security — give it up or go to jail. And we know who — and you know who we’re talking about.

There are some things you can’t do, because when they did that, all of a sudden the entire country of Iran knew that there was a pilot that was somewhere on their land, fighting for his life. And it also made it much more difficult for the pilots and for the people going in to search for him. All of a sudden they know that there’s somebody out there, they see all these planes coming in — it became a much more difficult operation. Because a leaker leaked that we have one, we’ve rescued one, but there’s another one out there that we’re trying to get.

So actually the country — Iran — put out a major notice, you all saw it, offering a very big reward for anybody that captures the pilot. So in addition to a hostile, very talented, very good, very evil military, we had millions of people trying to get a reward. So when you add that to it…

But we have to find that leaker, because that’s a sick person. Probably didn’t realize the extent of how bad it was — I can’t imagine that the person did. But we’re going to find out. It’s national security. And the person that did the story will go to jail if he doesn’t say. And that doesn’t last long. And I think everybody would understand that. They put this mission at great risk.

Trump’s threat and accusation quickly led to widespread speculation as to who and which media company he was referring to, which was not immediately clear. Notably, Israel’s Channel 12 appeared to be the first to report the news of the first rescue on Friday, which was later confirmed by U.S. outlets.

Watch the clip above via Fox News.

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