by Sharon Rondeau
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(Apr. 6, 2026) — At 1:09 p.m. EDT Monday, President Trump began a briefing from the White House Press Room, focusing on the rescue of a U.S. weapons system officer and colonel approximately 200 miles into Iranian territory on Sunday.
Trump was flanked by CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan “Raizin” Caine.”
“This is a rescue that is very historic,” Trump said, referencing the F-15E Strike Eagle that was brought down by Iranian forces on Friday morning.
“Both members ejected from the aircraft,” he said, “in broad daylight,” and for whom U.S. forces then took “extraordinary” risks to rescue.
The pilot of the aircraft and weapons officer landed miles apart, Trump said. “He was injured, quite badly, and stranded in an area teeming with terrorists,” he revealed. “The people of Iran were given a tremendous incentive to find” him, who “used his training” to go “as far away” from the landing site as possible.
He was “bleeding profusely” and “treated his own wounds,” Trump detailed.
“We immediately mobilized a massive operation to retrieve him from the mountain holdout,” he said, involving “155 aircraft” and “subterfuge” to imply to the enemy that the missing officer’s location was other than where he was.
Seven different locations became decoys, Trump said. “I listened to the whole thing; it was pretty amazing,” he added.
No injuries were sustained to the forces who conducted the rescue, Trump said. “It was wet sand, so we thought there may be a problem taking off…and we had a contingency plan which was unbelievable…we blew up the old planes…and we had faster, lighter planes come in, and they were able to land on the sand…”
“They came off the plane, and these guys…rebuilt these helicopters in less than ten minutes,” he said, which are “small” and “unbelievably powerful.”
He marveled at the “genius” of the military members acting quickly to make an exit from enemy territory. “This was central casting if you were doing a movie on location,” he said.
“I want to thank every member of the U.S. Armed Forces” involved in the rescue, Trump said. “When you go into these areas, you don’t come out the way they came out…God was watching us.”
“These two extraordinary rescues…we didn’t talk about the first one…,” he said, referring to the pilot’s retrieval which was left unconfirmed by the Pentagon. “We will find that leaker…we think we’ll be able to find it out because we’ll go to the media company that released it…and you know who we’re talking about…,” Trump said.
The leak and media’s divulging of the pilot’s rescue, Trump said, revealed to Iran that one person was missing. “Actually, the country — Iran — put out a major notice offering a very big award for anybody who captures” the missing airman, he said. “We have to find that leaker because that’s a sick person.”
“It’s national security, and that person who did the story will go to jail if he doesn’t say,” he warned. “They put that man at risk” as well as the rescuers, he said of the leaker.
Ratcliffe, Hegseth and Caine provided additional details about and praise for the mission. Following Caine’s remarks, Trump took questions from the press.