committee and the oversight role its had for decades, the idea that a memo like this i haven t found any evidence of a memo like this at this stage being put out. it is an extraordinary step. i think that s why it has been carefully vetted and gone through the process it s gone through. it s up to the white house now, to the president, to make the final decision. and it s my hope that the american people will see it and see it shortly. you say it s been carefully vetted. republicans kept saying on monday and on tuesday, and speaker ryan said this as well, look christopher wray, the fbi director had a chance to look at it, he didn t ask for any factual changes, implying the fbi was fine with it. we now clearly know the fbi was not fine with it. the fbi wanted the opportunity to come and testify before the committee and explain their concerns, and the republicans on the committee said no. does that seem like careful vetting? i definitely believe it does. there are thousands of pa
i don t know everything to know about that. but in all the history you do know of the house intelligence committee and the oversight role its had for decades i haven t found any evidence of a memo like this at this stage being put out. it is an extraordinary step. i think that s why it has been carefully vetted and gone through the process it s gone through. it s up to the white house now, to the president to make the final decision. and it s my hope that the american people will see it and see it shortly. you say it s been carefully vetted. republicans kept saying monday and tuesday, and speaker ryan said, look, christopher ray, the director had a chance to look at it, he didn t ask for any changes, implying the fbi was fine with it. we now clearly know the fbi was not fine with it. the fbi wanted the opportunity to come and testify before the committee and explain their concerns and the republicans on had committee said no.
candidates stand and look at each other and confront each other. and that s what this was. right. and that s exactly what happened. more of a lincoln douglas-style debate than where we re going in debates. absolutely. because the theory of the commission and i agreed with this enthusiastically is that if you don t have an open if you don t have open presidential debates, what you have is a presidential campaign that is governed by canned stuff, canned speeches, canned commercials. and here for the first time in american political history, you had an incumbent president of the united states on a stage being confronted by his opponent and the idea and they were talking about things that mattered and yes, there was some and we went into it. i went into it at least fully prepared to just let it run. see if it would work. as long as they didn t start talking about baseball or something that was way off the mark. as long as they were talking about things that mattered. an