The Trump administration has had a tough time keeping information, both classified and just plain embarrassing, out of the public eye. Part of this is due to its own incompetence—remember when The Atlantic’s editor in chief was added to a secret Signal chat?—but it has also been plagued with leaks. Trump has threatened leakers with various punishments (except when they’re leaking information about Democrats, of course) multiple times. His latest threat, at a campaign event in Arizona, also featured the president calling the media “almost as bad as a leaker,” just after calling for leakers to be shot.
The New York Times has the story:
“In my opinion, leakers should be shot,” Mr. Trump said, prompting applause from the gathered crowd in Bullhead City. “In the old days we used to shoot leakers, you know?” Even for a president known for his lack of tolerance for those willing to express dissent or question his power, Mr. Trump’s endorsement of having government sources shot marked an extraordinary escalation of his attacks on news gathering and those willing to speak to the press. ... It was not the first time Mr. Trump has railed against government sources. When he first entered office, he promised to catch the “low-life leakers” who provided the news media with information about his administration’s ties to Russia. Alyssa Farah Griffin, a White House official in Mr. Trump’s first term, told a Mediaite podcast that she had heard Mr. Trump talk about how a staff member who leaked should be executed.
As for how journalists qualify, Trump explained that reporters “leak false information. That makes them a leaker, right?” By that standard, the category of people Trump would like to see facing a firing squad now includes much of the press corps and, plausibly, his own vice president, who has reportedly been briefing reporters anonymously as he distances himself from Trump’s more unpopular policies ahead of 2028. That would make Trump two-for-two on endorsing violence against his own vice presidents.
The Executive Watch is a project of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, and its flagship publication The UnPopulist, to track in an ongoing way the abuses of the power of the American presidency. It sorts these abuses into five categories: Personal Grift, Political Corruption, Presidential Retribution, Power Consolidation, and Policy Illegality. Click the category of interest to get an overview of all the abuses under it.
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