Rep. Michael Waltz called on Sunday for a more aggressive response to adversaries who attempt to undermine the United States and weaken national security.
The Florida Republican, who President-elect Donald Trump has chosen as his national security adviser, told Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures" that there "has been a massive penetration of all of our telecom companies by Chinese-backed hackers that can essentially listen to everyone and any one they want. This is part of the tsunami of hacking that we have been under from China, from Russia, from Iran."
Waltz made clear that when confronting American adversaries in the cyber field and elsewhere, "we have to stop trying to just play better and better defense."
He emphasized that "we need to start going on offense. We need to start imposing consequences for those who are stealing our technology, spying on us, and now with a program called Volt Typhoon is putting cyber time bombs on our critical infrastructure like our water, our grid, and our ports.”
Waltz stressed that "enough is enough. And I know that President Trump is going to lead the charge to restore peace, restore stability, and that's by making our adversaries respect us."
The congressman also said that American enemies need to be aware that an entirely different U.S. administration is coming in that projects strength.
He emphasized that "around the world everybody needs to be on notice — if you touch the hair on an American's head, there are going to be consequences so severe, you better think twice. Because unfortunately, for too long there has been nothing but upside for taking Americans hostage. They just take one and see what they can get."
Waltz vowed that "what they are going to get from Donald Trump is pain and severe consequences. That's how you reestablish deterrence."