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Narativ with Zev Shalev

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America Is Under Attack at Home. Trump Blames Minnesota.

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Zev Shalev
Aug 01, 2026
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City of South St. Paul water tower, Minnesota — one of the towns hit. Photo: Tony Webster (CC BY 2.0).

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Hackers hit water utilities in at least seven states, the FBI and EPA said Thursday, and some of the attacks degraded water operations. President Donald Trump told Americans it wasn't Iran. "I think the governor's behind it. I don't think there was an Iranian cyberattack," he said at Friday's Cabinet meeting, naming Tim Walz and offering no evidence. His own agencies had warned, four days before the first breach, that Iranian-affiliated hackers were targeting water systems.

The attackers seized controls at close to 36 Minnesota water plants overnight on 26–27 July; a state memo said the likely goal was contamination. It failed — no water was contaminated, and Braham's town crew had its plant back in 90 minutes. Wisconsin detected intrusions in the same window, CNN reported. US intelligence preliminarily assesses Iran as the likely actor; investigators are still testing whether the intruder worked to look Iranian, and no agency has ruled.

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