Fresh footage from the Oval Office shows President Trump taking direct aim at the UK's handling of the RAF Fairford case, making clear he thinks British authorities made the wrong call. He said flatly that he would not have released the men, expressing surprise that suspects tied to an explosives and terrorism investigation were let out on bail so quickly. The five men, all Londoners between 23 and 25, were arrested early Sunday after a report of suspicious vans near the Gloucestershire airbase, a site US forces have used to launch strikes against Iran. British police freed them Monday under strict conditions, saying no viable explosives had been found, though the investigation remains active.

Trump leaned on the closeness of US-UK intelligence cooperation to make his case, pointing to prior surveillance of the suspects as a reason the decision to release them struck him as premature. He also went further than UK officials have publicly gone, suggesting the plot might be linked to Iran without offering specifics to back up the claim. Iran has firmly denied any involvement, and British investigators have said only that they are examining every possible angle, including whether the men acted as proxies for a foreign state. With the suspects now free but still under investigation, Trump's blunt public disagreement with London's approach adds a new layer of friction to an already tense transatlantic security story.