President Donald Trump apportioned responsibility to the “grossly incompetent” state government of Minnesota and its “corrupt” Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) for a suspected, but not confirmed, Iranian cyberattack on its water systems.
Trump made the comments during a televised Cabinet meeting at Camp David on Friday.
“I just want to mention that we heard in Minnesota there was a cyber attack, and they blame it on Iran,” Trump told reporters. “I don’t think so. I think I blame it on Minnesota because they’re grossly incompetent. There was a cyber attack of dirty water plants, and I would blame it on Minnesota and the governor, the corrupt governor of Minnesota. They like to say, ‘Oh, it’s Iran.’ Iran should be so lucky. Iran’s got bigger problems than worrying about Minnesota.”
State and federal authorities are investigating cyberattacks against remotely controlled water systems last weekend that prompted some utility providers to turn to manual operations, though they have not formally attributed responsibility for the malicious activity. The cyberattacks have hit at least seven states, including 30 sites in Minnesota alone.
Minnesota officials, however, have underscored that the state’s water is safe to drink, despite some other states issuing broader boil notices.
“We are not attributing this activity to a specific threat actor at this time. Federal partners are best positioned to assess this incident alongside broader national and international threat intelligence and determine whether it may be linked to a particular actor,” Minnesota IT Services told reporters. “We continue to support the investigation and do not want to speculate while that work remains underway. Federal partners should address questions about any potential attribution.”
To that end, the FBI, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and other federal and state agencies issued an advisory last week warning that Iranian hackers have been targeting water and wastewater systems with so-called “programmable logic controllers” that are routinely connected to the internet, in addition to other forms of critical infrastructure.
Iran’s interest in U.S. water systems is not new, with the Justice Department in 2016 charging a group of Iranian hackers over a cyberattack targeting a New York City-area small dam.
Trump made the comments before a Cabinet meeting at Camp David, the first time the press has been permitted to the presidential retreat to cover a Cabinet meeting.
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Trump and his administration’s relationship with Minnesota and Walz deteriorated during the 2024 election when the governor was former Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate, before further eroding after the DOJ alleged last December that half or more of the $18 billion in federal funds spent on 14 Minnesota-run programs for the likes of child nutrition, housing services, and autism since 2018 may have been stolen.