Watch live: Trump holds news conference on Iran war

President Donald Trump is holding a news conference at the White House after announcing the rescue of a second crew member from a downed F-15 fighter jet in Iran. The president also spoke about the rescue operation and the war with Iran at the White House Easter Egg Roll.

Trump provided intricate details of the rescue over the weekend of the second airman in Iran.

“This is a rescue that’s very historic,” he said.

Trump explained that the airman, a colonel, had landed in Iran a “significant distance away from the pilot” who had been rescued on Friday.

Speaking about the second airman, Trump said, “He was injured quite badly and stranded in an area teeming with terrorists from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — rough group — as well as besieged military, militia and local authorities.”

Trump said Iranians were “given a tremendous incentive to find this pilot.”

“Despite the peril, the officer followed his training and climbed into the treacherous mountain terrain and started climbing toward a higher altitude, something they were trained to do in order to evade capture,” he said.

Trump said the airman scaled cliffs and was “bleeding rather profusely,” and treated his own wounds. The airman, he continued, “contacted American forces to transmit his location” using what Trump said is a “very sophisticated beeper-type apparatus” that he said “saved his life.”

“We immediately mobilized a massive operation to retrieve him from the mountain hold-out,” Trump said.

He said the rescue operation involved 155 aircraft, including four bombers, 64 fighters, 48 refueling tankers and 13 rescue aircraft.

“The heroic F-15 weapons system officer had evaded capture on the ground in Iran for almost 48 hours,” he said.

“In a breathtaking show of skill and precision, lethality and force, America’s military descended on the area,” Trump said, saying that the U.S. “engaged the enemy” and “rescued the stranded officer, destroyed all threats and exited Iranian territory while taking no casualties of any kind.”

Trump said that eventually there was a problem leaving Iran because of the “wet sand” and the “weight of the plane.”

“Then we also had all the men jumping back onto the planes, and they got pretty well bogged down. And we had a continued contingency plan which was unbelievable,” he said.

Trump said that “lighter, faster aircraft” flew in to take the Americans out of Iran with the airman. The U.S. destroyed the aircraft that were stuck in the sand, he said.

Trump’s deadline to reopen Strait of Hormuz looms

Also in his initial remarks Trump threatened to take out the “entire country” of Iran.

“The entire country can be taken out in one night, and that night might be tomorrow night,” Trump said.

He had given tomorrow at 8 p.m. ET as the deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a major shipping route for oil, or suffer the widespread destruction of its infrastructure.

It comes as Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency said Tehran rejected the latest ceasefire proposal and wants a permanent end to the war. The agency said it has conveyed its response to the U.S. through Pakistan, a key mediator.

“We only accept an end of the war with guarantees that we won’t be attacked again,” Mojtaba Ferdousi Pour, head of the Iranian diplomatic mission in Cairo, told The Associated Press on Monday.

Trump responded with a new harsh warning to Iran.

“They just don’t want to say ‘uncle,'” Trump told reporters as he and first lady Melania Trump hosted the White House Easter Egg Roll. “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.”

He added another ominous warning, “I won’t go further because there are other things that are worse than those two.”

Iran has warned of a “more severe and expansive” response if Trump follows through on his expletive-laden threat to strike energy infrastructure and bridges.

Meanwhile, Israel and the United States carried out a wave of attacks on Iran, killing more than 25 people. Iran responded with missile fire on Israel and its Gulf Arab neighbors.

Attacks on Israel have intensified recently, with Yemen’s Houthis targeting the south of the country and announcing their participation alongside Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

There have been more strikes and attempted strikes on central and northern Israel, causing a lot of damage to the areas.

The north especially has been impacted by what has been described by locals as non-stop barrages, especially since Hezbollah joined the war.

There has been growing public discourse and criticism in Israel surrounding a lack of media coverage when the north is attacked as opposed to central Israel.

Trump alleges information about rescue was leaked

In his speech Monday Trump said that someone leaked information about the rescue of the first service member before the second one had been brought to safety, adding, “we’re looking very hard to find that leaker.”

Trump said Iran did not know that a second service member was missing until the leaker shared information.

“All of a sudden, they know that there’s somebody out there,” he said of the Iranians. “They see all these planes coming in. It became a much more difficult operation because a leaker leaked that we have one, we’ve rescued one, but there’s another one out there that we’re trying to get.

“So actually, the country Iran, put out a major notice — you all saw it — offering a very big award for anybody that captures the pilot,” Trump said. “So in addition to a hostile, very talented, very good, very evil military, we had millions of people trying to get an award, so when you add that to it, but we have to find that leaker, because that’s a sick person.”

“We think we’ll be able to find it out,” Trump said of the leaker’s identity. “Because we’re going to go to the media company that released it, and we’re going to say, ‘National security, give it up or go to jail.'”

Trump did not specify which media company he was referring to. Any attempt to jail reporters over not giving up the identities of sources would almost certainly face immediate legal pushback.