[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 53 (Wednesday, March 27, 2019)]
[House]
[Pages H2834-H2835]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   JOE BIDEN: DECADES OF BEING WRONG

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Babin) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BABIN. Mr. Speaker, former Vice President Joe Biden has been in 
the news a lot lately, along with a predictable narrative from the 
Washington know-it-all chorus and their mainstream media partners that 
he has a distinguished record and reputation as an expert on foreign 
policy.
  How very ``Washington'' it is to assume that with his long Washington 
resume, especially his chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations 
Committee, that Joe Biden is a foreign policy genius.
  Nice guy that he is, let's look at the facts.
  Because America's national security depends on America's wise choice 
of our next President, I want to quote the great Charles Krauthammer, 
who more accurately described Mr. Biden's record back in 2012.

       The Vice President over the last 30 years holds the 
     American record for being wrong on the most issues in Foreign 
     Affairs ever. And the list starts with the nuclear freeze in 
     the early eighties against Thatcher and Reagan, which is one 
     of the follies of the era. He supported it.
       He was against aid to the Nicaraguan Contras, which in the 
     end brought democracy and ended the Sandinista rule at the 
     time.
       He was against Reagan's expansion of the defense budget, 
     which bankrupted the Soviet Union and led to the end of the 
     Soviet Empire.
       He was against Reagan on strategic defenses, which is the 
     big advantage that we have now in missile defense.
       And look at where he was on Iraq. He opposed the first Iraq 
     war, the Gulf war that liberated Kuwait, that everyone agrees 
     was a good thing.
       He supported the second Iraq war, which he, not I, say was 
     a terrible mistake. And then when the surge happened, he 
     opposed the surge in Iraq which rescued a losing war and 
     ended in our leaving with our heads held high and some 
     promise of the future.
       He seems to be the Herbert Hoover of American foreign 
     policy. And for him to be the spokesman for the Obama 
     Administration on these affairs, I think is quite ironic.

  It is not just conservative commentators who can see through the 
illusion of Vice President Biden's foreign policy judgment.
  Robert Gates, former CIA director and Defense Secretary for George W. 
Bush and Barack Obama, had this to say about Biden in his book, ``Duty: 
Memoirs of a Secretary at War'':
  ``I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and 
national security issue over the past four decades.''
  I rarely, if ever, agree with Barack Obama, and I am glad to see our 
country is now back on the road to a strong foreign policy. But I will 
give President Obama credit for wisely disregarding Vice President 
Biden's counsel on, arguably, the greatest achievement of Obama's 
presidency: his authorization in 2011 of the raid by America's SEAL 
Teams that killed Osama Bin Laden.
  As Vice President Biden, himself, recalled to a group of Democrats in 
2016, President Obama asked for a final recommendation from his 
national security team, and he asked, Joe, what do you think?

[[Page H2835]]

  His answer was, Mr. President, my suggestion is, don't go.
  Many agree that President Obama picked Biden as his Vice President in 
2008 to quell concerns about his youth and lack of experience in 
Foreign Affairs, but in retrospect, it has now become clear that the 
most useful role he played was for Mr. Obama to take whatever he 
recommended and advised and conclude that it was probably the wrong 
approach.
  Mr. Biden now believes that he is the right man to lead our Nation as 
President. America will choose a President in 2020, and I hope that 
Republicans and Democrats will conclude, as our 44th President and 
countless others have, that the opposite might just be true.

                          ____________________