When the Osama bin Laden and his Saudi crew attacked the World Trade Center, President George W. Bush didn’t attack Mayor Rudy Giuliani or Governor Pataki as incompetent.
But amidst warnings from federal agencies that hackers affiliated with Iran are targeting U.S. infrastructure, the current American President is blaming Minnesota Governor Tim Walz for what looks like a foreign cyberattack on that state’s water systems:
President Donald Trump on Friday blamed a spate of recent hacks impacting water utilities in Minnesota on Gov. Tim Walz — contradicting preliminary findings from U.S. and industry officials who suspect Iran is behind an expanding campaign of digital disruption.
“I blame it on Minnesota because they are grossly incompetent,” Trump said at a cabinet meeting at Camp David on Friday, adding that Walz is “corrupt” and “Iran has bigger problems than worrying about Minnesota.” Asked later if he could rule out Iranian responsibility, Trump said, “ I don’t think there was an Iranian cyberattack. I think Minnesota ought to get its act together.”
Trump’s dig at the Democratic-led state came just hours after the FBI and Environmental Protection Agency said they are responding to an unspecified number of cyberattacks at water and wastewater utilities in at least seven states. On Thursday, the government’s civilian cyber defense agency, CISA, warned of a “significant increase” in digital attacks on technology used broadly by U.S. water utilities.
While no U.S. agency has formally accused Iran of orchestrating the attacks, many federal, state and water industry officials suspect Tehran-linked cyber groups are responsible for the hacking campaign. CISA issued a report last week detailing a similar set of attacks it has tracked since April, which it linked to Iran [John Sakellariadis, “Trump Blames Minnesota Water Hacks on Walz, While Evidence Points to Iran,” Politico, 2026.07.31].
Notice that Trump isn’t saying Governor Walz and other Minnesota state officials didn’t do enough to harden their systems against possible foreign attacks; he’s denying the very logical and empirically backed possibility that Iran would respond to America’s military assault against its territory with cyberattacks aiming to disrupt vital services and economic activity on U.S. soil. Saying “Iran has bigger problems than worrying about Minnesota” suggests that Trump doesn’t view Minnesota as part of the America that he ought to be working really hard to defend from predictable counterattacks from a country on whom we are waging war.
Trump might as well say that the cyberattack that disrupted Pennington County services on July 5 resulted not from the foreign adversary that experts say were the likely source but from the incompetence of the Pennington County Commission and Governor Larry Rhoden. Ah, but those South Dakota officials are mostly Republicans, so we get no irrational diss in the middle of a Cabinet meeting.
Trump is also ignoring that Minnesota is just one of at least seven states that have experienced similar attacks on water systems. “Trump knows exactly who is responsible for this attack, and knows that other states were hit too,” Governor Walz said after Trump’s irrational insult Friday. “This is what modern warfare looks like, and it further illustrates there’s no plan to win a war with Iran.”
Governor Walz sounds like he has a clearer understanding of the state of national security than Trump does.
Trump’s partisan and personal pique at a political opponent is clouding his ability as Commander in Chief to recognize and respond appropriately to real foreign threats. If the President of the United States isn’t willing to protect the entire United States of America from Iran and other attackers, then the President should be relieved of duty and replaced with a leader who puts all of America first.