Kathrine Frich
The president said US used to do so “in the good old days”
Politicians love to talk about the good old days when they take the stage at a crowded rally.
Looking back at the past is an easy way to fire up voters who feel the country has lost its way.
On Wednesday, however, one version of American history shared at a campaign stop did not match the history books at all.
A bloody claim on stage
During a Wednesday rally in Arizona for Republican gubernatorial candidate Andy Biggs, President Donald Trump turned his anger toward government insiders who spill secrets to the press.
According to Irish Star, the 80-year-old leader told supporters that people who expose confidential plans deserve the death penalty, and he claimed America used to carry out that exact punishment.
“But they leak. Leakers should be, in my opinion, leakers should be shot,” Trump said, as reported by Irish Star. “They should be shot. In the old days, we used to shoot leakers, you know.”
Right after making that claim, Trump pointed at the journalists covering the event and called them “just as bad” because they publish leaked details. “They make it up. They’re like storytellers,” he added, according to the outlet.
What history actually shows
Despite the president’s nostalgia for executing leakers, historical records tell a very different story. America has no documented history of legally executing whistleblowers who simply gave classified information to journalists or the public.
According to the National Archives and the American Battlefield Trust, the United States has only executed people for spying for an enemy force. Confederate scout Samuel Davis was hanged during the Civil War in 1863, and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg died in the electric chair in 1953 after passing atomic secrets to the Soviet Union.
Famous whistleblowers who leaked secrets to the press faced courtrooms and prison cells, not firing squads. Daniel Ellsberg saw his charges dropped after leaking the Pentagon Papers in 1971, while Chelsea Manning served prison time for her 2010 disclosures and Edward Snowden was charged in 2013 without facing execution.
Online critics quickly called out Trump’s violent rhetoric on social media, according to Irish Star. One user mocked the president’s attack on “storytellers” by writing, “This coming from the man who sits there and tells stories for hours on end.”
