Why is the White House degrading U.S. cybersecurity as unprecedented threats keep rising? Judging by its rhetoric, the second Trump administration is committed to protecting Americans online from foreign spies and criminals. In her recent statement to the Senate Intelligence Committee, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard blamed China for “multiple high-profile breaches” of U.S. IT networks, while citing Russia and Iran as other top-rank cyber threats. Gabbard fingered that “non-state cybercriminals are also targeting our economic interests, critical infrastructure and advanced commercial capability for extortion, other coercive pursuits and financial gain.” President Donald Trump recently signed executive orders promoting America’s resilience against cyberattacks.
However, Trump 2.0’s actions tell a different story. Last week’s unprecedented firing of the director of the National Security Agency, Air Force Gen. Timothy Haugh (who was dual-hatted as the Commander of U.S. Cyber Command), and his deputy, Wendy Noble, raises awkward questions about the White House’s true agenda here. The administration has offered no explanation for the dual termination, in which controversial MAGA activist Laura Loomer played a prominent role, accusing Haugh and Noble of undefined disloyalty to Trump.
That mysterious NSA purge, which has no parallel in our Intelligence Community’s history, earned criticism from many sides. Democrats predictably castigated the firings. Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, pointedly accused the White House, as we face “cyber threats from foreign adversaries…Given the dangers facing the United States, it is inexplicable that the Administration would remove the senior leaders of NSA-CYBERCOM without cause or warning, and risk disrupting critical ongoing intelligence operations.” Yet Republican Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska sounded similar, asserting that “Russia and China are laughing at us today” over the inexplicable purge.
CYBERCOM is the Pentagon’s point of the spear in worldwide cyber operations, while NSA is responsible for protecting classified U.S. IT networks from foreign espionage and hacking. Weakening them by purging their leadership without clear cause is difficult to explain in normal political terms. Cybersecurity has traditionally been a subject enjoying broad bipartisan agreement in our nation’s capital regarding objectives and funding them. But not anymore.
Neither is this just a government problem. NSA and CYBERCOM protect our national security, but Trump’s offensive against American cybersecurity will soon impact average citizens in their daily lives. Now, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency finds itself in the White House’s crosshairs too. While little known outside tech-savvy circles, CISA has the important mission of bolstering online security and resilience not just in Washington, D.C., but across the country. Since its creation in 2018, by expanding an office that had resided in the Department of Homeland Security for a decade already, CISA serves as the public face of cybersecurity.
As such, CISA offers a wide range of services to American businesses to improve their security against hacking and related cyberattacks. A high percentage of the U.S. economy is deemed to be “critical infrastructure” by CISA, ranging from energy to finance to healthcare, and that agency stands ready to help American firms defend themselves against global bad actors online.
Inexplicably, the Trump administration wants to cut CISA’s workforce by up to one-third, without delay. Such a reduction would functionally cripple CISA cyber defense activities in most sectors, while posing serious risks to U.S. election integrity.
Team Trump seems to possess animus towards cybersecurity, and some of it appears personal. This week, the White House announced an executive order that targets Chris Krebs, who was the founding CISA director during Trump’s first term. This is a plain vendetta, with the president publicly terming Krebs a “traitor” while stripping him of his security clearances and opening an investigation into Krebs’ conduct as CISA boss. Krebs was appointed by Trump himself, yet his unpardonable sin was his refusal to endorse Team Trump’s discredited claim that the 2020 election was “stolen” by Democrats.
The White House’s taking revenge against Krebs sends a chilling message to anyone seeking to work in cybersecurity in the federal government. CISA and NSA already have a difficult time hiring and retaining top cyber talent, since gifted young IT experts can always earn more money in the private sector than working for Uncle Sam. The Krebs witch-hunt will only make this challenging predicament worse.
Above all, the Trump administration is playing caustic politics with our cybersecurity as threats rise to unprecedented levels. Recently, retired Army Gen. Paul Nakasone, who headed NSA and CYBERCOM from 2018 to 2024, broke his customary discretion and stated plainly that China represents the standout threat to U.S. cybersecurity. Beijing’s aggressive Salt Typhoon and Volt Typhoon cyber intrusions, not just of the U.S. government but wide swaths of our civilian infrastructure too, represent an existential threat to American security and prosperity. Nakasone minced no words: “There is absolutely no intelligence to be gathered by putting malicious code in [critical infrastructure] networks…It’s not espionage. This is not intended for espionage. This is intended to provide a capability at some point in the future that allows the Chinese to wreak havoc or spark a crisis [if they] enter a period of tension with the United States.”
China’s alarming ability to shut down U.S. critical infrastructure through online attacks has reached such a level that Beijing privately doesn’t bother to deny it. The Wall Street Journal just reported that in meetings with American representatives in Geneva last December, Chinese interlocutors tacitly admitted that their hackers were behind the audacious Volt Typhoon operation.
The Trump administration wants to play politics with American cybersecurity while our adversaries are preparing for war. The “Cyber Pearl Harbor” that experts have warned against for the last quarter-century may arrive sooner than we think.
John R. Schindler served with the National Security Agency as a senior intelligence analyst and counterintelligence officer
