Trump vows to find ‘leaker’ who publicized search for second downed airman in Iran

President Donald Trump said his administration is going after the news outlet that first reported a second Air Force officer was missing after an F-15E Strike Eagle went down over Iran, he said during a press conference Monday. The officer was rescued Saturday.

Trump said Iran wasn’t aware until the news report that the fighter jet’s weapons systems officer was still in hiding after U.S. special operations forces quickly recovered the pilot following a crash on Friday. He did not specify which outlet he was speaking of, though both Channel 12 news in Israel and The Associated Press reported Friday that one crew member had been recovered and another was missing. 

“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 said, suggesting the Justice Department will subpoena for the identity of a reporter’s source. “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 that was 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.”

The downed airman spent more than a day “scaling rugged ridges while hunted by the enemy,” before he was able to activate his emergency transponder to let his chain of command know he was still alive, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said at the briefing.

A team flew seven hours into Iranian air space to rescue the weapons system officer, Hegseth said, one day after an earlier mission rescued the pilot. 

“We control the sky,” the secretary said. “Iran did nothing about it.”

But during the pilot's rescue, Iran shot down one of the A-10 Warthogs that was supporting the mission, Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at the briefing. The A-10 pilot ejected over Kuwait, Caine said. 

“This pilot continued to fight, continued the mission, and then upon exit, flew his aircraft into another country and determined that the airplane was not landable,” Caine said. 

Hegseth said the U.S. on Monday launched the largest volume of strikes since day one of the war, back on Feb. 28.

“Tomorrow, even more than today,” he said. “And then Iran has a choice.”

The briefing took place one day after Trump threatened to target civilian infrastructure in Iran, via Truth Social post on Sunday, if the country doesn’t agree by Tuesday to stop firing on ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

Asked during the press conference whether he stands behind his recent statements that the war is winding down, or equally recent statements that he intends to escalate it, Trump left things up in the air.

“I can’t tell you. I don’t know,” he said. “Depends what they do.”

Trump then asserted that the Iranian people would be fine with the U.S. striking their bridges and power plants, even saying that he’s gotten “numerous intercepts” from Iranians begging the U.S. to continue bombing them. 

“They would be willing to suffer that in order to have freedom,” he said. He did not offer details of how the war would secure freedom for Iranians.