Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL), who is the incoming White House national security adviser, said over the weekend that the incoming Trump administration is planning to start imposing much tougher consequences on hackers that target the United States.

Waltz made the remarks during a Sunday interview on CBS News’ “Face The Nation” when asked about communist China’s recent unprecedented hack against the U.S., which officials have called the largest breach in U.S. history.

“We have been over the years trying to play better and better defense when it comes to cyber,” he said. “We need to start going on offense and start imposing, I think, higher costs and consequences to private actors and nation-state actors that continue to steal our data, that continue to spy on us, and that, even worse, with the [Chinese hack], they are literally putting cyber time bombs on our infrastructure, our water systems, our grids, even our ports.”

“That is wholly unacceptable, and I think we need to take a much stronger stance,” he continued. “We need to start changing behaviors on the other side, rather than just constantly having this kind of escalation of their offense and our defense.”

WATCH:

WATCH: Incoming national security adviser Mike Waltz says that the @realDonaldTrump admin is going to get significantly tougher when it comes to dealing with cyberattacks on the U.S., including by going on offense and imposing “higher costs and consequences on private actors and… pic.twitter.com/pQjOmuMT5m

— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) December 15, 2024