The main cybersecurity adviser to President Donald Trump is asking business leaders for “help” in overcoming Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) block of a cyber law’s renewal.
National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross told the audience of the Meridian Summit Friday he needed their help to get the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, which lapsed on Sept. 30, reauthorized. Cairncross made it “abundantly clear” that the administration supports a clean, 10-year CISA reauthorization.
“To the extent that folks in this audience can convey that message and do some work to help in that regard, we’d love it,” Cairncross said, without naming Paul. “It’s important for national security, it’s vital for our threat assessment and response and we want to see it done.”
CISA is a law from 2015 that gives companies liability protections if they share cyber threat data with the government. It expired at the end of the 2025 fiscal year, suspending those protections under the law.
Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) has been trying to pass a bill that would codify the 10-year clean reauthorization. Peters had said the administration supported his effort and other officials had indicated their endorsement, but Cairncross’ remarks truly are as clear as it gets.
But Paul, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security Committee, has been blocking that effort on the floor as he has his own proposal for a CISA reauthorization. Paul told us this week his block remains. This is despite Peters working with Senate Majority Leader John Thune to circumvent Paul’s committee and place the bill on the Senate calendar.
We just want to emphasize the unusual nature of the moment we’re in – a top Trump administration official is begging for industry help as a GOP White House and Republican leadership work with a Democratic senator to bypass a GOP committee chair. And all of this during a government shutdown!
Thune could theoretically put the CISA reauthorization on the floor at any moment. But Paul’s commitment to block unanimous consent requests means it’d take hours of floor time to get the bill passed. It’d be remarkable if Thune chose to burn that time during the shutdown.
Getting CISA done in whatever compromise the parties’ leadership reaches to open the government is more likely. But as readers are well aware, we’re not getting out of the shutdown anytime soon.
Cyber Strategy. Cairncross said Trump’s national cybersecurity strategy is coming soon.
“It is not going to be a 100-page document that has charts and every, every detail is spelled out,” Cairncross said, adding that it’d put “America first.”
