Last week, Minnesota detected a cyberattack on roughly three dozen municipal water systems in the state, and a U.S. official with knowledge of the matter told MS NOW that it was probably the work of Iranian hackers.
On Friday, however, Donald Trump decided he had no use for the intelligence that blamed the U.S. adversary. The president instead blamed Americans.
“We heard in Minnesota there was a cyberattack, and they blame it on Iran — I don’t think so,” the Republican said during a Cabinet meeting at Camp David. “I blame it on Minnesota because they’re grossly incompetent.” He went on to say, “There was a cyberattack of 30 water plants, and I would blame it on Minnesota and the governor, the corrupt governor of Minnesota.”
Shortly thereafter, as the meeting started to wrap up, a reporter asked Trump whether he was prepared to rule out the possibility that Iran was responsible for the cyberattacks. “I think that Minnesota is behind it,” he said. “You know who is behind it? Minnesota. … I don’t think there was an Iranian cyberattack.”
Even for a president who increasingly treats Democratic-led states as undeserving of federal support and resources, Trump’s eagerness to blame Americans for cyberattacks that appear to have come from Iran was quite bonkers, even for him. To hear the president tell it, Minnesota hacked itself, which is every bit as absurd as it sounds.
It quickly became apparent, however, that Minnesota wasn’t the only target. The New York Times reported:
The scope of cyberattacks on U.S. water systems has grown to include at least seven states and may be far wider, officials and experts warned, as the authorities raced to safeguard the nation’s water supply against an assault that increasingly appeared to be the work of Iran.
While there were no indications that any water supply had been altered or made unsafe to drink, state and local officials throughout the country were on high alert for potential problems in vulnerable computers that are commonly used to monitor and adjust water quality, including chemical-treatment levels and water pressure. Minnesota first publicly reported the attacks, and now Michigan says its systems have also been targeted.
The report added that while U.S. officials have not definitively determined that Iran was responsible, Iran has “stepped up cyberattacks since the U.S. and Israel launched a war against the country five months ago, and had previously targeted similar water systems and other critical infrastructure in the U.S. There seemed no financial motive, making a criminal attack less likely.”
Time will tell whether Trump continues to blame Americans for this, and again questions the existence of the cyberattacks, but as the story unfolds, several Democratic officials are increasingly raising difficult questions about the Republican administration and its record.
For example, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, whom the president appeared desperate to condemn on Friday, responded to the president by noting the Trump administration’s cybersecurity cuts.
“Trump knows exactly who is responsible for this attack, and knows that other states were hit, too,” Walz said. “This is what modern warfare looks like, and it further illustrates there’s no plan to win a war with Iran.”
“DOGE took an ax to CISA and left the U.S. exposed to cyberattacks,” Walz added, referring to the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer also responded to Trump’s efforts to blame Americans, arguing online, “No. This is a bald-faced lie.” The New York Democrat added, “Trump cut the agency that protects cybersecurity by $700 million and still hasn’t nominated a permanent director for it. Trump is grossly incompetent. He is responsible.”
The Democrats’ criticism is rooted in fact. The president who blamed Americans for the cyberattacks is the same president who, just a few months into his second term, fired a series of national security officials, including Air Force Gen. Timothy Haugh, who was both the head of U.S. Cyber Command and the director of the National Security Agency.
Six months later, Politico reported, “Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem promised to prioritize a ‘comprehensive, whole-of-government approach to cybersecurity.’ But over the last nine months, [the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency] has had its staffing slashed by more than a third, axed funding for election security programs and scaled back its support to state and local governments to protect against cyber threats.”
This is the same agency that, almost exactly a year before the cyberattacks on U.S. water systems began, issued a public warning about “Iranian-affiliated cyber actors” targeting — you guessed it — U.S. water systems.
The same week, The New York Times reported, “Cyberattacks by the nation’s adversaries have increasingly targeted broader swaths of American communications and public infrastructure. But even as more sophisticated threats emerge, the Trump administration’s cuts to federal programs have eroded U.S. cyberspace defenses, according to a senator and a nonprofit organization that advocates improved security.”
Referring to the Trump administration’s efforts, independent Sen. Angus King of Maine said, “I would call it almost an across-the-board retreat from the national security defenses that we built up over the past five years, at the same time that the threat is only increasing and accelerating.”
Ten months later, at least seven states are dealing with cyberattacks on domestic water systems.
Is the president trying to deflect blame out of petty partisanship, or he is trying to deflect attention away from his own record?
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