Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas:

Well, first and foremost, let me get very specific to my district.

I represent the Eagle Ford and the Permian Basin. These are fueling the energy renaissance in the United States. And it's allowing — is going to ultimately allow the United States to be a net exporter of energy.

This was — should have been a topic that got brought up, because we know the Russians are trying to hack in energy companies. That's going to have an impact on our economy. That's going to have an impact on the European economy.

But, broader, a lot of people don't necessarily understand, why is NATO important. NATO is important is because it's created 70 years of peace and prosperity in Europe. And Europe has never had 70 years of peace and prosperity.

Why is that important to us? Because that grew their economy. That grew — you know, the people in Europe wanting to buy product from America, that allowed us to grow our economy by having such a large trading partner.

And NATO has been very important to that. What Vladimir Putin is trying to do is, he's trying to reestablish the territorial integrity of the USSR. And what's preventing him from doing that is NATO, and what's preventing him from doing that is the United States.

He knows he can't win a direct military conflict with us. He knows his economy is not strong enough to go toe to toe with the United States, so he has to resort to asymmetrical warfare. That means getting involved in our elections, creating discord, causing Americans to distrust their democratic institutions and foment discord.

And that's what he's been able to do. And now he's continuing to drive a wedge — and I mean Vladimir Putin is driving a wedge between the United States and our allies in Europe, particularly the allies that are the backbone of NATO.

So, this is his angle, because he wants to be able to have diplomatic veto and economic veto, political veto over those countries in Eastern Europe.

Putin is — people think of him as a global player. I think of him as a regional spoiler, trying to impact those economies and those countries in their orbit.

So all of this is going to have an impact on us because it's going to potentially impact our economy, and then also it's a national security concern.