President Trump took to the podium at a little after 1 pm ET to discuss the search and rescue mission for the downed F-15E pilot and WSO who had to eject from their fighter within the heart of enemy territory. Just the narrative alone of this real, live event was as gripping as anything Hollywood has dared produce.

VG’s Nina wrote yesterday of the first reports after the miracle mission was completed. A heart-pumping exercise poised on the knife-edge of catastrophe. And today we learned a lot more.

The shot-down Air Force weapons officer, who was “injured quite seriously,” scaled a cliff more than a mile up and treated his own wounds while hiding in a crevice in an area “teeming with terrorists” — before US forces miraculously flew him to safety even after their aircraft nearly got disastrously stuck in wet sand, Trump said. (snip)

The pilot of the F-15E jet downed overnight Thursday into Friday had been quickly located and rescued south of Isfahan in Iran. But the colonel had landed a “significant distance” away from the pilot and could not be easily tracked, Trump said.

The seriously wounded airman had to remain alive while the US launched “one of the largest, most complex, most harrowing combat searches … ever attempted by the military,” the president said.

There were several surprises revealed by the President for us watching the presser … not just the CIA’s critical role in locating the men, but in helping to deceive and confuse the Iranian enemy. And that was aided by the tremendous military response by putting duplicate military rescue responses in several other locations in Iran to make them guess where the real rescue was happening.

In total, 155 military aircraft including four bombers, 64 fighters, 48 refueling tankers and 13 rescue aircraft were deployed for the mission, Trump said.

“A lot of it was subterfuge,” the president explained. “We wanted [Iranian forces] to think he was in another location.”

We heard from CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine. All added to the extraordinary story of the Leave No Man Behind miracle.

Not that any of that mattered to some of the reporters in the room.

🚨 JUST IN: President Trump just PUMMELED the fake news New York Times

REPORTER: Deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure violate the Geneva Convention and international law.

TRUMP: Who are you with?

REPORTER: I'm with the New York Times.

TRUMP: *Chuckles* FAILING. The… pic.twitter.com/vhc6x8YJyt

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) April 6, 2026

And that’s the underlying issue that has existed since the first strike on Iran on February 28th. Regardless of the devastation wrought by American and Israeli forces against the Iranian military — destruction of Navy, Airforce, the government leadership, — the drumbeat from the American Left has been that Trump has lost the war. We’ve gone from the Left-induced talking point that “Trump is a coward” to “Trump is a warmongering madman”. A 180 flip so rapid the energy produced could power Los Angeles for a month. We’re not getting mere pessimism from ostensible “anti-war” types, it is actually rooting for American (and Israeli) defeat.

This is not "defeatism," it's defeat. America Lost. Iran Won. Trump Shat the Bed. https://t.co/plaKQH2ntc

— Mona Charen (@monacharen) April 2, 2026

The European Swells have sneered at provincial America for decades, not the least of which due to a strange amalgamation of a sense of cultural superiority and moral inferiority. They demand the American taxpayer keep paying for their defense but won’t allow US military to even fly over their countries to Iran. And they are at a real loss at why we would ever send anyone to save a downed pilot when it means a loss of equipment.

When President Trump asked at his SOTU speech for those representatives who put the American citizen first to stand, Democrats showed conclusively they do not “love” America unless they are in charge. The response to the Easter weekend miracle rescue shows conclusively who is still committed to American and Western values of honor, duty and the worth of the individual.

Judge accordingly.

featured image of F-15E Strike Eagle, cropped, Adobe Stock, standard license, editorial use only