Joaquin Castro

The policy of the White House and the State Department has not been completely aligned over the last several months.

But in all of it, it is very unsettling for Americans to try to understand where our Government is headed.

Your efforts to assure our European and Asian allies have our commitment to alliances have similarly been undercut by the White House and the President.

I am concerned over what looks like a lack of cooperation within the Executive.

And, of course, we have been dealing in our Nation with the prowess of Russia's cyber capabilities and their abilities for cyber malfeasance.

Amendment to the amendment in the nature of a substitute offered by the Honorable Joaquin Castro.

Absolutely. I will give Mr. Sires the last word. I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.

Congressman Engel, you mentioned Ebola, for example. Dallas, Texas, was the first American city to confront the challenge and the problem of Ebola. So I couldn't agree with you more. It should also be said that if you take away this aid…

The gentleman mentioned the Northern Triangle countries of Central America. Especially over the last few years, thousands of women and children who are fleeing very desperate situations there, not only extreme poverty, but the threats of…

No, absolutely. And Congressman Sires, you recall that during those months, then-Candidate Trump talked about backing away from NATO; about allowing Germany, for example, to handle the issues between Russia and the Baltic States; about…

I thank Congressman Engel for all of his years of work on behalf of the Nation on the Foreign Affairs Committee. I know you may have a busy schedule this evening. We have got about 12 minutes left, so I thought we would just have a…

It has been a very thorny issue, as you can imagine, especially in Texas. Both Republicans and Democrats have expressed deep concern about building a wall and spending $20 billion to $30 billion to do it, and that concern, I think, has…

The president says Russia is a ruse. Democratic Congressman Joaquin Castro says he thinks some people will go to jail for it.

I guess I would say this. That my impression is I wouldn't be surprised after all of this is said and done that some people end up in jail.

I would hate to see the work of this Congress and, you know, the chairman, I know, has worked on these issues a lot--I would hate to see your work and the work of this Congress undone by a lack of commitment, going forward.

Sure. And, you know, and of course we want the aid to get there regardless of where it comes from, right? You want people to be helped when they need help.

But like many folks today, I believe that for the good of the country, he should resign.

There seems to be much more that the committee doesn't know that we feel is vitally important for this oversight committee to have an understanding about.

Well, certainly, if all those reports are true, then this becomes more and more disturbing and most especially why the president and the administration have not been more honest and open about the extent of their meetings and interactions…

Thank you so much for being with us.

He's doing it to strengthen his own hand so that people will be more reluctant to question his authority and his decisions, and for our American democracy, that's not a good thing.

That kind of talk is dangerous. What we've seen from President Trump and when he was a candidate also, is this eagerness to delegitimize major institutions in society.

I absolutely want to see the transcript. And just like any other piece of evidence, I think as much as possible this stuff should be declassified because the American people should be able to see as much as possible.

No matter how high up the chain it goes.

I hope whatever was discussed, will also be discussed with the House Intelligence Committee. It's important to have a full and fair investigation into what happened with the Russians and the 2016 presidential election.