President Donald Trump baselessly claimed Friday that Minnesota had committed a cyberattack against itself.Speaking at a Cabinet meeting at Camp David, Trump dismissed officials’ concerns that a cyberattack on municipal water systems in Minnesota was the work of Iranian hackers. “I don’t think so. I think I blame it on Minnesota, because they’re grossly incompetent,” Trump said.“I would blame it on Minnesota and the governor, the corrupt governor of Minnesota,” Trump continued, referring to Governor Tim Walz. “They like to say, ‘Oh, it’s Iran!’ Iran should be so lucky. Iran’s got bigger problems than worrying about Minnesota.”Trump: "We heard in Minnesota there was a cyberattack and they blame it on Iran. I don't think so. I blame it on Minnesota because they're grossly incompetent. Iran's got bigger problems than worrying about Minnesota." pic.twitter.com/y1Mr6jjgaY— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 31, 2026But Trump offered no evidence to support his claim, apparently motivated not by facts, but by sheer pettiness. Federal and state officials said earlier this week that the cyberattack was probably the work of Iranian hackers, but they have not definitively determined who is responsible. They also cautioned that the hackers could simply be posing as Iranians in order to escalate the conflict between the two countries, though former intelligence officials said this was unlikely. If the hackers were hoping to ratchet up the tensions between the U.S. and Iran, they failed by picking a state that Trump has designated as an outlet for his blatant Islamophobia. As reporters moved to exit the Cabinet meeting, Trump resumed his ranting about Minnesota. “I think that Minnesota is behind it!” he declared.“You know who’s behind it? Minnesota. Because they’re grossly incompetent. I think the governor’s behind it. I don’t think there was an Iranian cyberattack,” Trump continued. “I think that Minnesota ought to get its act together. It’s one of the worst-run states.”The president teased that his administration was planning “massive future things having to do with corruption” in Minnesota. The Trump administration has continued to pursue fraud allegations against Minnesota officials in a transparent effort to punish Democrats and antagonize immigrants.
The Trump administration is not making its case against Anthropic.A federal judge flamed the government during a hearing Thursday, noting that Justice Department attorneys had failed to provide evidence “justifying” the Defense Department’s decision to class the AI company as a national security risk, or Donald Trump’s subsequent order barring federal agencies from utilizing the company’s services.California-based U.S. District Judge Rita Lin literally spelled out the questions she would ask the government’s attorneys via a legal notice earlier this week, but the DOJ still failed to impress. Lin remarked at the outset of the hearing that, “if anything, it seems like the record in some ways has gotten worse for the government,” according to the Law & Crime network.In May, Lin blasted the government for the “Orwellian” way that Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth attempted to sever ties with the AI contractor after Anthropic refused to grant the Pentagon unrestricted use of its AI bot, Claude, for military purposes.At the time, the president and Hegseth claimed that Anthropic had gone “WOKE” for arguing that Claude could not safely or reliably be used for “autonomous lethal warfare and mass surveillance of Americans.”“Having reviewed the record that the parties have submitted on the cross motions for summary judgment, it appears to me to be largely the same as the record that I assessed at the preliminary injunction stage,” Lin said Thursday. “I don’t see additional evidence from the government really justifying what it did.”She added that she found it “really troubling” that the Trump administration was taking a position that “seems at odds to me with the First Amendment,” in “threatening to take away contracts from anyone who might do business with them” by “labeling them as subversive.”Lin even posed a hypothetical question: whether it would be unconstitutional for the government to terminate “every defense contract with anyone who’s ever publicly criticized President Trump.”When DOJ lawyers hedged, Lin said, “I’m surprised that you can’t give a yes to what seems to be an easy question.”
The State Department has set a $20,000 bond for some tourists and business visitors who seek a visa to enter the U.S.The finalized plan, published by the State Department on Friday, requires visitors from a select list of countries to put up a bond of $10,000, $15,000, or $20,000, which would be paid back when their B1 or B2 visa expires. The pilot program for the bonds was introduced last year, and affected 50 countries.Most of the affected visas last about three months, but some of them are for 10 years, meaning that visa holders wouldn’t get their money back for a decade, American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick noted. The move is guaranteed to further hurt the U.S. tourism industry at a time when it is already struggling thanks to Trump administration policies.During the World Cup this summer, the Trump administration suspended the bonds for anyone who had a ticket to one of the games. But many fans still were unable to attend, including the relatives of some of the players, thanks to a separate travel ban and other visa restrictions.Trump’s immigration policies have cost the country billions of dollars in tourism and also caused prices of goods and services to go up for Americans. U.S. visa policies have also hurt international student enrollment and in turn led to a big drop in revenue for universities and colleges. Now that this visa bond program is being finalized, the U.S. is set to only further suffer economically.
Zohran Mamdani’s tenure as New York City mayor has raised hopes of a more invigorated, deeper form of democracy and posed a question facing progressive mayors everywhere: how to translate the grassroots energy that brings them to office into a sustained movement for change. In our new book, The Power and Perils of Participatory Democracy: Participatory Budgeting and Democracy [...]