President Trump says US Navy will begin blockade of Strait of Hormuz

ABC News' Mary Bruce asked President Donald Trump at a White House briefing about whether some in Iran might welcome U.S. attacks on the country's infrastructure.

“Why would they want you to blow up their infrastructure?" she asked.

Trump responded that the Iranians “would be willing to suffer that in order to have freedom.”

He said the Iranian people have asked the U.S. to “please keep bombing.”

“These are people that are living where the bombs are exploding,” Trump said. "And when we leave and we're not hitting those areas, they're saying, ‘Please come back, come back, come back.’”

“All I can tell you is they want freedom,” he said. “They have lived in a world that you know nothing about. It's a violent, horrible world where if you protest, you are shot.”

CIA Director John Ratcliffe said the U.S. deployed both human assets and "exquisite technologies that no other intelligence service in the world possesses" to locate the weapons system officer during a rescue operation in Iran this weekend.

Ratcliffe said some of the unique capabilities the CIA used are ones that only the president can deploy. He would not publicly divulge what they were.

"At the president's direction, we deployed both human assets and exquisite technologies that no other intelligence service in the world possesses to a daunting challenge comparable to hunting for a single ... grain of sand in the middle of a desert," Ratcliffe said.

"This was also a race against the clock, as it was critical that we locate the downed aviator as quickly as possible, while at the same time keeping our enemies misdirected," he said.

Ratcliffe also said U.S. “intelligence reflects that the Iranians were embarrassed and ultimately humiliated by the success of this audacious rescue mission.”

A U.S. fighter jet with two airmen on board was shot down over Iran on Friday, and the jet’s pilot was rescued the same day. The U.S. launched a search for the second missing airman, who was trapped in the "treacherous mountains of Iran" with the Iranian military closing in, President Donald Trump said. That airman was rescued on Sunday.

-ABC News’ Mariam Khan

During a briefing at the White House, President Donald Trump railed against an alleged leak to the media about the downed U.S. fighter jet, threatening to have the journalist jailed.

“They put this mission at great risk. They put that man at great risk, and they put the hundreds of people that went in looking for him, because everyone now knows that we're going in,” Trump claimed.

The president emphasized the need to uncover whomever “leaked” such information.

“We have to find that leaker because that's a sick person. Probably didn't realize the extent of how bad it was. I can't imagine that the person did. But we're going to find out. It's national security, and the person that did the story will go to jail if he doesn't say, and that doesn't last long,” Trump said.

-ABC News' Fritz Farrow, Allie Pecorin and Emily Chang

When the injured airman who was shot down “was finally able to activate his emergency transponder, his first message … [said] ‘God is good,’” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said during a briefing at the White House.

“In that moment of isolation and danger, his faith and fighting spirit shown through,” he said. “Shot down on a Friday, Good Friday, hidden in a cave, a crevice all of Saturday, and rescued on Sunday. Flown out of Iran as the sun was rising on Easter Sunday.”

A U.S. fighter jet with two airmen on board was shot down over Iran on Friday, and the jet’s pilot was rescued the same day. The U.S. launched a search for the second missing airman who was trapped in the "treacherous mountains of Iran" with the Iranian military closing in, President Donald Trump said. That airman was rescued on Sunday.

Trump said the rescued airman “was injured quite badly and stranded in an area teeming with terrorists.”

“Despite the peril, the officer followed his training and climbed into the treacherous mountain terrain and started climbing toward a higher altitude,” Trump said. “He scaled cliff faces, bleeding rather profusely, treated his own wounds, and contacted American forces to transmit his location.”