Trump and his allies scrambling to rebuild agency they once tried to destroy

After once trying to gut the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Politico reports that President Donald Trump and his allies are now desperate to rebuild it amid their mounting fears surrounding the midterms.

"The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has been castigated by the Trump administration over its past efforts to call out election-related disinformation," the Wednesday report detailed. "But new fears about artificial intelligence-powered hacking and the security of the upcoming midterm elections have lifted the agency from exile."

Since Trump's return to the White House, CISA has suffered a "torrent of punitive measures" from Republicans, largely stemming from the president's personal vendetta against its past leadership. Former CISA Director Christopher Krebs famously called the 2020 presidential election the "most secure in American history," directly refuting Trump's "Big Lie" about widespread election fraud costing him the race.

Now, however, "a growing number of Republicans are advocating for rehiring staff and restoring funding to the nation’s cyber agency," with GOP Reps. Andrew Garbarino of New York and Don Bacon of Nebraska, both of whom head up "key House panels with oversight of federal cyber policy." In recent months, the pair have been working quietly "to convince Republican colleagues that CISA urgently needs more resources because of the critical role it plays in securing the nation’s electoral process and critical systems, including water treatment plants and energy grids." There are mounting fears that the agency has been cut back so badly that it would not be able to respond to new AI-driven cyberattacks against U.S. elections.

“Unfortunately, I have colleagues that focus on the mis- and disinformation part of CISA, and that has turned them off to the entire agency,” Garbarino said at the recent Homeland Security and Defense Forum, further noting China's AI capabilities are “starting to show other members” how vital CISA actually is.

Bacon, meanwhile, argued that the initial GOP backlash against CISA had gone about things the wrong way.

"I’m a big proponent of CISA. If you don’t like what it’s doing, get new leadership; don’t fire a third of its people ... because they’re the ones who defend our private sector, our energy grid and our elections,” Bacon said.

"While the Trump administration initially requested around $2 billion for CISA in fiscal 2027, House lawmakers have boosted that number to $2.4 billion — and it could still increase as the appropriations process continues in the Senate," Politico explained. "This number, though, is still less than CISA received under the Biden administration, when the agency was given close to $3 billion annually. These funds will likely place CISA in a better position to help lead the administration’s response to securing frontier AI models and fortifying the federal government against AI-powered cyberattacks — an issue that has overtaken Washington in recent months."