Donald Trump was reportedly excluded from some key Situation Room discussions during the conflict with Iran, amid concerns that his temperament could disrupt a delicate operation to rescue a US service member.
New reporting has detailed the effort to recover a Weapon Systems Officer (WSO) after an F-15E Strike Eagle was brought down by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on April 3, with the aircraft coming down in Iran’s rugged Zagros Mountains.
The pilot was recovered within hours of ejecting, but the WSO remained unaccounted for far longer. As Iranian forces reportedly moved toward the area, the president was said to have become increasingly agitated about the risk of capture.
According to the Wall Street Journal, which cited anonymous senior administration officials familiar with the mission, Trump “screamed at aides for hours” after being briefed that the two airmen could fall into Iranian hands.
The report said his reaction was shaped in part by the legacy of the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, which became intertwined with the political fallout of a failed rescue attempt and Jimmy Carter’s declining approval ahead of the 1980 election.
“If you look at what happened with Jimmy Carter…with the helicopters and the hostages, it cost them the election,” Trump is reported as saying, adding: “What a mess.”
The Journal also claimed Trump pushed for a ground incursion into Iran to retrieve the downed crew, worried that Tehran could exploit captured Americans as propaganda at a critical moment in the war.
Such a move would have marked the first deployment of US troops on Iranian territory since the 1979 revolution and the subsequent seizure of American embassy personnel. Instead, the report said, senior officials sought to keep the focus on the unfolding rescue effort.
During the crucial 24-hour window on April 4, the Journal reported that figures including Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Vice President JD Vance were closely involved in Situation Room deliberations.
Trump, the report said, was limited to being briefed only “at meaningful moments,” rather than receiving continuous, minute-by-minute updates alongside the team managing the operation.
One unnamed official told the publication: “Aides kept the president out of the room as they got minute-by-minute updates because they believed his impatience wouldn’t be helpful.”
Even so, the Journal said fears about the consequences of Iran obtaining American captives weighed heavily on him through the night.
The report claimed that around 2am the CIA pinpointed the WSO’s location, allegedly with assistance from undisclosed advanced technology, after which the president finally went to sleep.
Following what was described as an extraordinary extraction from a remote mountainside—an operation involving more than 150 aircraft—Trump addressed the conflict publicly the next day, April 5, with his anger toward Iran undiminished.
In probably the most expletive public message by an American leader, following the stress of the rescue operation, Trump told Iran’s leaders: “Open the F***in’ Strait, you crazy b*stards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”