Some military and national security experts were stunned that President Donald Trump publicly revealed so many operational details from America’s rescue mission of two pilots downed in Iran, expressing concern that doing so could put lives at risk.

“How many men did you send altogether, approximately? To the operation?” Trump at one point asked General Dan “Razin” Caine, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during Monday’s White House briefing.

“I’d love to keep that a secret,” Caine responded.

“I’ll keep it a secret, but it was hundreds and hundreds of these people,” Trump said, before elaborating further. “But hundreds of people went into this journey. Hundreds of people could have been killed.”

He also acknowledged that “people that were within the military” said it was not a “wise” decision. “I understood that, but I decided to do it.”

General Caine told reporters that he needed to keep some information classified. “I will retain what I must in the event that we have to go do this again sometime,” he said.

Some experts blasted the president.

“Trump and his team are disclosing a LOT of detail about this rescue mission – how they found the US pilots, how they tricked the Iranians, CIA capabilities – when we are still at war, pilots are flying over Iran daily, and this could happen again. Seems like a bad idea!” warned Tommy Vietor, former National Security Council spokesperson under President Barack Obama.

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“SO much detail about the CIA drone that found the pilot,” Vietor added.

“CIA Director and the Chairman scold the media about not disclosing details of the Iran rescue operation, and then Trump blurts out it was a CIA ‘camera’ – presumably a drone but maybe a satellite – that could see the pilot at night from 40 miles away. Lot of detail!” Vietor noted.

“In the interest of our national security, there is so much operational detail out there now that we’d be better off not knowing. Including from Trump in this briefing. Per usual,” lamented Paul Rieckhoff, an Iraq War veteran, founder of a veterans’ nonprofit, and a political science lecturer.

“Members of the U.S. IC [Intelligence Community] and military are absolutely floored right now that Trump and Hegseth are publicly discussing specifics of how this past weekend’s successful CSAR [combat search and rescue] operation in Iran was accomplished,” wrote Travis Akers, a retired U.S. Navy Intelligence Officer. “They are directly endangering the lives of Americans.”

“I am not going to confirm or deny specifics of any operation or how it was executed, but the fact that Trump is even discussing specifics for this past weekend’s CSAR operation is gross negligence and WILL put more Americans in harm’s way. Unacceptable,” Akers also noted.

Q: “Was everyone on board with the operation or were there people trying to talk you out of the operation this weekend?”

Trump: “Not everybody was on board. There were military people, very professional, that preferred not doing it…How many men did you send altogether?”

Gen.… pic.twitter.com/0kiuMBUyHi

— The Bulwark (@BulwarkOnline) April 6, 2026

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Image via Reuters 

President Donald Trump, who has threatened to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Ages” and destroy its bridges and power plants, signaled Monday that another option may be on the table for what critics are warning is becoming the quagmire of his Iran war.

Repeating himself at the White House Easter Egg Roll, Trump told reporters he wants to take Iran’s oil — but he “unfortunately” may have to choose a different path.

“If I had my choice, what would I like to do? Take the oil, because it’s there for the taking,” Trump said. “There’s not a thing they can do about it.”

“Unfortunately,” he continued, “the American people would like to see us come home.”

“If it were up to me,” he added, “I’d take the oil. I’d keep the oil, I would make plenty of money.”

Politico reports that Trump called the Americans who do not support his war in Iran — current polling puts that number at about 60 percent of the country — “foolish.”

“The president referred to a CNN segment from last month that touted 100 percent support for the operation in Iran among MAGA voters and defended how he’s handled the war, now entering its sixth week,” Politico noted.

“Remember, wars last years. We’re in there for 34 days. And we’ve obliterated a very powerful country in 34 days,” Trump said.

On Monday afternoon during a White House briefing, Trump threatened, “The entire country can be taken out in one night, and that night might be tomorrow night.”

“They don’t want to cry, as the expression goes, ‘uncle.’ But they will. And if they don’t, they’ll have no bridges, they’ll have no power plants, they’ll have no anything. I won’t go further because there are other things that are worse than those two,” he said.

Trump also said he’s “not worried” about possible war crimes.

“You know what’s a war crime? Having a nuclear weapon. Allowing a sick country, with demented leadership, [to] have a nuclear weapon — that’s a war crime,” Trump said.

President Trump on Iran: "If I had my choice, what would I like to do, take the oil. Because it's there for the taking. There's not a thing they can do about it. Unfortunately, the American people would like to see us to come home. If it were up to me, I'd take the oil. I'd keep… pic.twitter.com/2fEYt3TQ2H

— CSPAN (@cspan) April 6, 2026

Image via Reuters

America may not make it over the next 33 months if “Mad King Donald” Trump is not impeached, argues conservative columnist Bill Kristol, who is also calling for resistance from executive branch officials.

“The simple fact is that we have a president who is irresponsible, reckless, and indeed unhinged,” Kristol writes at The Bulwark. “And he’s all the more dangerous because he is unconstrained by both his subordinates in the executive branch or by Congress.”

Acknowledging that Trump was impeached twice before but never convicted, Kristol knows that impeachment and conviction may not be “in the cards” right now, while suggesting that perhaps the third time is the charm.

“The misconduct of Trump, in terms of his corruption and that of his associates, is unparalleled in our history. His abuses of power leave Nixon in the dust. A trial of impeachment would allow all the evidence of his offenses to be presented coherently in one time and place. Even if conviction doesn’t follow, an unequivocal alarm would have been sounded.”

He argues America must start laying the groundwork for impeachment, saying it’s time to discuss both impeachment and resistance by executive branch officials seriously.

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“When the head of the executive branch shows a repeated willingness to enrich himself, to lie to the public, to break the law, senior officials can appropriately recall that the oath they take is to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. They can remind themselves that they are obliged to obey the law rather than the illegal wishes of their boss or their boss’s boss.”

They can slow-walk issues or actions, he suggests, and “make life more difficult for their political masters who are seeking to engage in misconduct or abuses of power.”

He also calls for officials who resist to force their superiors to “fire them for standing up against impropriety,” and then, “speak up about what they have seen inside.”

And he says it is “sober realism” to doubt that “we can make it safely through the next thirty-three months” without considering these measures.

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