[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 120 (Tuesday, July 17, 2018)]
[House]
[Page H6267]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            BIZARRE BEHAVIOR

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, a year ago, I was on a congressional trip 
with the Judiciary Committee into the Balkan region. A number of the 
countries there, living in the shadow of Russia and, also, the 
aggression of the Serbian allies of the Russians were very concerned 
about their security and their future.
  Russia has, obviously, invaded Crimea, is supporting rebels in 
Ukraine, and is deeply involved in Syria to support the dictator there.
  Now, in this last week, our President went to Europe, and he went to 
a meeting of our closest allies and NATO, which these countries on the 
periphery of Russia feel is critical to their defense. And he seems 
to--or did--deliberately so dissent and insult our two longest and 
strongest allies in NATO: Germany and England.
  He seemed to be facilitating the Russian agenda there: Let's weaken 
NATO. Let's cause dissent in Europe.
  But that couldn't be. He is the President of the United States. Of 
course he wouldn't be doing that. No. He was just being a businessman 
and trying to extract bigger payments out of them. He didn't mean to 
weaken or threaten the future of the alliance.
  Then yesterday, in a sort of very bizarre moment, he meets alone with 
a professional KGB agent-dictator of Russia, Vladimir Putin. We don't 
know what went on in that room. Maybe they watched videotapes. I don't 
know. But the President came out again and, this time, directly 
attacked the United States of America.
  How could this be? He said that he does not believe that our 
intelligence agencies--his hand-picked head of the DNI, Dan Coats, told 
him the Russians had interfered and proved to him the Russians had 
interfered in our election. He said that once about a year ago.
  But then he comes out with Vladimir Putin and says: Well, I asked him 
about it. He says they didn't do it. You know, there's two sides to 
this. We did it. They did it. Who knows. Whatever. It doesn't matter.
  Our basic institutions, our democracy, has been attacked by Russia, 
and Dan Coats says they are going to do it again in this election year.
  What can explain this bizarre behavior on the part of the President 
of the United States?
  I couldn't figure it out, so I went to my bookshelf and I said: Hmm, 
I'll look around my bookshelf. Maybe I'll find something.
  I found two books. It is my recommended reading list to explain 
President Trump and some of what is going on in America today. The 
first would be ``The Manchurian Candidate.'' The second would be the 
dystopian novel, George Orwell's ``1984.'' Read them and weep.

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