Ballotpedia's Daily Presidential News Briefing - December 16, 2015

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Ballotpedia's Daily Presidential Briefing was sponsored by the Leadership Project for America.

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Wednesday's Leading Stories

• According to a Ballotpedia Insider’s Poll, “31 percent judged Rubio to be the ‘biggest winner’ of the December 15 GOP presidential debate in Las Vegas conducted by CNN, while 21 percent awarded that title to Christie, and 21 percent gave the nod to Bush.” Ballotpedia will continue to update our post-debate commentary and analysis throughout the day. (Ballotpedia)
• On Tuesday, Hillary Clinton discussed her "360-degree strategy" to defeat ISIS during a speech at the University of Minnesota-Minneapolis. Her strategy includes: identifying the network of people who fund ISIS, cutting off online recruitment, “creating stricter screenings for visa applicants who had been to a country in Islamic State-controlled areas in the last five years,” reauthorizing the use of military force against ISIS and working with Muslim-American communities to combat homegrown radicalization. She also warned against using anti-Muslim rhetoric. She said, "We are in it for the long haul and we will stand taller and stronger than they could possibly imagine. Shallow slogans don't add up to a strategy. Promising to carpet bomb until the desert glows doesn't make you sound strong -- it makes you sound like you're in over your head. Bluster and bigotry are not credentials for becoming commander-in-chief." (NBC News)
• Poll: According to an ABC News/ Washington Post poll released on Tuesday, Donald Trump leads the Republican field for the nomination with 38 percent support. Ted Cruz follows with 15 percent. Marco Rubio and Ben Carson are tied at 12 percent. (ABC News/ Washington Post)
• Poll: Hillary Clinton is leading Bernie Sanders 51 percent to 40 percent in the Iowa Democratic Presidential Caucus, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released on Tuesday. Martin O'Malley follows with 6 percent. (Quinnipiac University)
• Poll: According to a Loras College poll released on Tuesday, Cruz is leading Trump 30 percent to 23 percent in the Iowa Republican Presidential Caucus. Rubio and Carson are tied with 11 percent. The poll also showed that Clinton is leading Sanders 59 percent to 27 percent in the Iowa Democratic Presidential Caucus. (Loras College)
• Poll: Clinton is leading Sanders 52 percent to 34 percent in the Democratic Presidential Caucus, according to a poll released by Public Policy Polling on Tuesday. On the Republicans side, Trump is leading Cruz 28 percent to 25 percent. Rubio and Carson follow the frontrunners with 14 percent and 10 percent, respectively. (Public Policy Polling)

Democrats

• On Tuesday, Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin announced the order in which the presidential candidates will appear on their parties' ballots in Massachusetts' March 1 presidential primary. Bernie Sanders will top the Democratic ballot, Martin O'Malley will appear second and Hillary Clinton will appear third. (Mass Live)

Hillary Clinton

• Rep. Brad Ashford of Omaha, Nebraska endorsed Hillary Clinton on Tuesday. In a statement, Ashford said, “Her decades of public service have prepared her to lead our nation during these turbulent times. We need more than rhetoric. We need a leader who will bring people together to grow our economy, keep promises to our veterans and protect our nation from terrorism.” (Journal Star)
• During a speech at the University of Minnesota-Minneapolis on Tuesday, Hillary Clinton proposed instituting gun control measures to keep potential terrorists from purchasing guns. She said, "Terrorists use guns to kill Americans. I think we should make it harder for them from to do that. ...It defies common sense that Republicans in Congress refuse to make it harder for potential terrorists to buy guns." (NBC News)
• On January 11, 2016, Chelsea Clinton will headline two campaign fundraisers in Boston for her mother. According to Time, “she will also begin a round of campaign events in Iowa, New Hampshire and other early primary states.” (Time)

Martin O’Malley

• On Tuesday, Martin O’Malley spoke with “two Bangladeshi men who were recently released from immigrant detention after taking part in a hunger strike that began on Thanksgiving” before speaking at the National Immigrant Integration Conference. During his speech, he said, “Let us not only end family detention, but all immigrant detention -- unless there is a grave risk to our national security. These men who were denied due process in the growing detention camps we have across the country.” (Huffington Post)
• During the same speech, O’Malley highlighted his record on immigration as governor of Maryland. Explaining Maryland’s effort to protect children fleeing violence in Central America, he said, “There were some governors around the country who spoke of these children as if they were a swarm of invading jackrabbits. We took a different approach in Maryland. I said that we would care for these refugee children.” (Huffington Post)

Bernie Sanders

• During a speech delivered to the National Immigrant Integration Conference via video on Tuesday, Bernie Sanders criticized Donald Trump’s recent comments about Muslim immigrants. He said, "Let me begin right off, by telling you that I intend, as a United States senator and as a candidate for president of the United States, to do everything I can, in every way, to combat the xenophobia and racist rhetoric coming from Donald Trump and others. … This country has struggled throughout its history with racism, but we have come too far to retreat into these ugly and horrific sentiments regarding Latinos, regarding Muslims and regarding other minorities. Trump has opened a door and we will shut that door closed." Sanders also said his immigration plan would help reunite the "millions of families" that "have been torn apart by our broken immigration system.” (Huffington Post)
• During a wide-ranging interview on Tuesday with Killer Mike, an Atlanta-based rapper and activist, Sanders addressed the criticism from Hillary Clinton and Martin O’Malley of his record on guns. He said, "I've been criticized by my opponents, that I'm a hack of the NRA. So I have gotten criticized as you may know, that I'm a hack of the NRA and all of that stuff." He also said that people who "have a criminal record or a record of beating up his wife" should not be able to own guns. (CNN)

Republicans

• The following selection of quotes come from the transcripts of Tuesday night’s undercard and main Republican presidential debates prepared by the Washington Post and CNN.

Jeb Bush

• On defeating ISIS and Trump’s plan to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the country: “Well, first of all, we need to destroy ISIS in the caliphate. That's - that should be our objective. The refugee issue will be solved if we destroy ISIS there, which means we need to have a no-fly zone, safe zones there for refugees and to build a military force. We need to embed our forces - our troops inside the Iraqi military. We need to arm directly the Kurds. And all of that has to be done in concert with the Arab nations. And if we're going to ban all Muslims, how are we going to get them to be part of a coalition to destroy ISIS? The Kurds are the greatest fighting force and our strongest allies. They're Muslim. Look, this is not a serious proposal. In fact, it will push the Muslim world, the Arab world away from us at a time when we need to reengage with them to be able to create a strategy to destroy ISIS. So Donald, you know, is great at - at the one-liners, but he's a chaos candidate. And he'd be a chaos president. He would not be the commander in chief we need to keep our country safe.”
• On leadership and defeating ISIS: “Leadership, leadership is not about attacking people and disparaging people. Leadership is about creating a serious strategy to deal with the threat of our time. And I laid out that strategy before the attacks in Paris and before the attacks in San Bernardino. And it is the way forward. We need to increase our military spending. We need to deal with a no- fly zone in Syria, a safe zone. We need to focus on building a military that is second-to-none...so that we can destroy Islamic terrorism.”
• On defending against cyber-attacks from China: “And this administration has been so lax. Think about it. Hillary Clinton is using a private server for - where classified information go by. This is a - this is a serious administration? The president receives an inspector general's report that the Office of Personnel Management could be hacked into; they had antiquated firewalls; 23 million files have been - are in the hands of the Chinese allegedly, including, by the way, members of the press, it turns out, last week. Maybe that's the only part that's good news, so that you guys can get a feel for what it's like now to see this type of attack. This is something - we have to have the best defensive capabilities. We need to coordinate all of our efforts with the private sector. We need to give them liability relief so that we can do that. And offensively, we need to have capabilities second to none. We need to create a situation where they know that there will be adverse impacts if they continue to do what they're doing. They'll respect that. They'll respect a United States that is serious about protecting our - our infrastructure. If we don't do it, we'll continue to see what's - exactly what's happening, not just from the Chinese, by the way. The Russians and rogue actors, including ISIS - this is a serious part of the 21st century security challenge that we face.”

Ben Carson

• On monitoring anti-American sentiment: “Now, as far as monitoring is concerned, what my point is, we need to make sure that any place – I don't care whether it's a mosque, a school, a supermarket, a theater, you know it doesn't matter. If there are a lot of people getting there and engaging in radicalizing activities then we need to be suspicious of it. We have to get rid of all this PC stuff. And people are worried about if somebody's going to say that I'm Islamophobic or what have you. This is craziness because we are at war. That's why I asked congress, go ahead and declare the war . We need to be on a war footing. We need to understand that our nation is in grave danger. You know, what the Muslim Brotherhood said in the explanatory memorandum that was discovered during the Holy Land Foundation Trial was that, ‘they will take advantage of our PC attitude to get us.’ We have to be better than this. We have to be smarter than they are.”
• On his strategy to defeat ISIS: “First of all, I've been talking about this for over a year. We have to destroy their caliphate because that gives them legitimacy to go ahead with the global Jihad. We have to take their energy because they are - ISIS is the richest terrorist organization there is. We have to take their oil, shut down all of the mechanisms whereby they can disperse money because they go after disaffected individuals from all over the place, and they're able to pay them. That makes a difference. As far as the command centers are concerned in Raqqa and to a lesser degree Mosul, cut those off. Do the same kind of thing that we did with Sinjar a few weeks ago, working with our embedded special forces with the Kurds, shut off the supply route, soften them up, then we go in with specials ops followed by our air force to take them over. Those are things that work. But also, you know, this whole concept of boots on the ground, you know, we've got a phobia about boots on the ground. If our military experts say, we need boots on the ground, we should put boots on the ground and recognize that there will be boots on the ground and they'll be over here, and they'll be their boots if we don't get out of there now.”
• On a long-term solution to the Syrian refugee problem: “Well, it was very interesting having an opportunity to talk to the Syrians themselves. And I asked them: What do you want? What is your supreme desire? Their supreme desire was to be settled back in their own country. I said, ‘What can Americans and other countries do?’ They said, ‘Support the efforts of those who are trying to provide safety for us, including the Jordanians.’ Of course, they had a brand new hospital, for instance, that was unstaffed because there wasn't enough money to do it. But here's what's really neat. If you go into Hasakah province in northeast Syria, that's an area that's as big as Lebanon. It's controlled by the Kurds, the Christians and the moderate Sunnis. And there are airstrips and hotels. You could settle a lot of people there. All we would have to do is be willing to provide them with some weaponry, some defensive weaponry. And we seem to be afraid to give the Kurds weaponry. We like to send it for some strange reason through Baghdad, and then they only get a tenth of it. And if we would support them, we'd have a perfect ideal there. We don't need to set this up as we either take a bunch of refugees who will be infiltrated with terrorists, I guarantee you. For them not to be would be terrorist malpractice. And we need to - to choose the right choice, not these false choices.”

Chris Christie

• On a strategy to protect Americans from terrorist attacks: “Wolf, unfortunately, it's the new normal under Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. The fact is that if you listen to Hillary Clinton the other day, what she said to the American people was, as regards to ISIS, my strategy would be just about the same as the president's. Just about the same as the president's? We have people across this country who are scared to death. Because I could tell you this, as a former federal prosecutor, if a center for the developmentally disabled in San Bernardino, California, is now a target for terrorists, that means everywhere in America is a target for these terrorists. Now, I spent seven years of my life in the immediate aftermath of September 11th doing this work, working with the Patriot Act, working with our law enforcement, working with the surveillance community to make sure that we keep America safe. What we need to do, Wolf, is restore those tools that have been taken away by the president and others, restore those tools to the NSA and to our entire surveillance and law enforcement community. We need a president who is going to understand what actionable intelligence looks like and act on it. And we need a president and a cabinet who understands that the first and most important priority of the president of the United States is to protect the safety and security of Americans.As someone who has done it, I will make sure it gets done again.”
• On the Iran nuclear deal and ISIS: “Well, I think we have to focus, Hugh, on exactly what the priorities are. And to me, what I've always said is that the president has set up an awful situation through his deal with Iran, because what his deal with Iran has done is empower them and enrich them. And that's the way ISIS has been created and formed here. ISIS is created and formed because of the abuse that Assad and his Iranian sponsors have rained down on the Sunnis in Syria. And so when we empower Iran, this is why this president - and when Hillary Clinton says her theory against ISIS will be just about the same as the president, then get ready for more unrest and more murder and more violence in the Middle East. We need to focus our attention on Iran, because if you miss Iran, you are not going to get ISIS. The two are inextricably connected because one causes the other.”
• On enforcing a no-fly zone over Syria and shooting down a Russian plane if one entered the zone: “Not only would I be prepared to do it, I would do it. A no-fly zone means a no-fly zone, Wolf. That's what it means. See, maybe - maybe because I'm from New Jersey, I just have this kind of plain language hangup. But I would make very clear - I would not talk to Vladimir Putin. In fact, I would talk to Vladimir Putin a lot. But I'd say to him, ‘Listen, Mr. President, there's a no-fly zone in Syria; you fly in, it applies to you.’ And yes, we would shoot down the planes of Russian pilots if in fact they were stupid enough to think that this president was the same feckless weakling that the president we have in the Oval Office is right now.”
• On his strategy for protecting against cyber-attacks from China: “Well, what it would like is, we have one of the great advantages of America being the open society that we are. It is, we are not hiding things from the American people, but China everyday is conducting business in a way that hides things from their people. So if they want to come in and attack all the personnel records in the federal government, which they've done, and which - they now have my Social Security number and my fingerprints, as well as maybe some other folks' who are on this stage. The fact is, they need to be fought back on. And what we need to do is go at the things that they are most sensitive and most embarrassing to them; that they're hiding; get that information and put it out in public. Let the Chinese people start to digest how corrupt the Chinese government is; how they steal from the Chinese people; and how they're enriching oligarchs all throughout China. They need to understand that. And we need to take those type of steps. This president has seen personnel records of people who have sacrificed for the American people and for the federal government stolen by the Chinese and he's done nothing in return. This is why - this is what I said at the beginning that this administration, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton through their foreign policy, have betrayed the American people, because the weakness they've displayed has led to Putin's incursions in the Middle East and in eastern Europe, and has led - has led to significant problems in the Middle East as well, and the death and murder of lots of folks.”

Ted Cruz

• On immigration: “Look, I understand Marco wants to raise confusion, it is not accurate what he just said that I supported legalization. Indeed, I led the fight against his legalization and amnesty. And you know, there was one commentator that put it this way that, for Marco to suggest our record's the same is like suggesting ‘the fireman and the arsonist because they are both at the scene of the fire.’ He was fighting to grant amnesty and not to secure the border, I was fighting to secure the border. And this also goes to trust, listening on to campaign trails. Candidates all the time make promises. You know, Marco said," he learned that the American people didn't trust the federal government."
• On the foreign policy failures of President Obama and Hillary Clinton: “Wolf, I believe in a America first foreign policy, that far too often President Obama and Hillary Clinton - and, unfortunately, more than a few Republicans - have gotten distracted from the central focus of keeping this country safe. So let's go back to the beginning of the Obama administration, when Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama led NATO in toppling the government in Libya. They did it because they wanted to promote democracy. A number of Republicans supported them. The result of that - and we were told then that there were these moderate rebels that would take over. Well, the result is, Libya is now a terrorist war zone run by jihadists. Move over to Egypt. Once again, the Obama administration, encouraged by Republicans, toppled Mubarak who had been a reliable ally of the United States, of Israel, and in its place, Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood came in, a terrorist organization. And we need to learn from history. These same leaders - Obama, Clinton, and far too many Republicans - want to topple Assad. Assad is a bad man. Gadhafi was a bad man. Mubarak had a terrible human rights record. But they were assisting us - at least Gadhafi and Mubarak - in fighting radical Islamic terrorists. And if we topple Assad, the result will be ISIS will take over Syria, and it will worsen U.S. national security interests. And the approach, instead of being a Woodrow Wilson democracy promoter...we ought to hunt down our enemies and kill ISIS rather than creating opportunities for ISIS to take control of new countries.”
• On the USA Freedom Act and government surveillance: “Well, Dana, the premise of your question is not accurate. I'm very proud to have joined with conservatives in both the Senate and the House to reform how we target bad guys. And what the USA Freedom Act did is it did two things. Number one, it ended the federal government's bulk collection of phone metadata of millions of law-abiding citizens. But number two in the second half of it that is critical. It strengthened the tools of national security and law enforcement to go after terrorists. It gave us greater tools and we are seeing those tools work right now in San Bernardino. And in particular, what it did is the prior program only covered a relatively narrow slice of phone calls. When you had a terrorist, you could only search a relatively narrow slice of numbers, primarily land lines. The USA Freedom Act expands that so now we have cell phones, now we have Internet phones, now we have the phones that terrorists are likely to use and the focus of law enforcement is on targeting the bad guys. You know what the Obama administration keeps getting wrong is whenever anything bad happens they focus on law-abiding citizens instead of focusing on the bad guys. We need to focus on radical Islamic terrorists and we need to stop them before they carry out acts of terror.”

Carly Fiorina

• On the role of the private sector in the fight against terrorism: “You know, listening to this conversation, let me just say, we have a lot of argument about laws but none of it solves the problem. Let's examine what happened, why did we miss the Tsarnaev brothers, why did we miss the San Bernardino couple? It wasn't because we had stopped collected metadata it was because, I think, as someone who comes from the technology world, we were using the wrong algorithms. This is a place where the private sector could be helpful because the government is woefully behind the technology curve. But secondly, the bureaucratic processes that have been in place since 9/11 are woefully inadequate as well. What do we now know? That DHS vets people by going into databases of known or suspected terrorists. And yet, we also know that ISIS is recruiting who are not in those databases. So of course, we're going to miss them. And then we now learn that DHS says, ‘No, we can't check their social media.’ For heaven's sakes, every parent in America is checking social media and every employer is as well, but our government can't do it. The bureaucratic procedures are so far behind. Our government has become incompetent, unresponsive, corrupt. And that incompetence, ineptitude, lack of accountability is now dangerous. It is why we need a different kind of leadership in the White House that understands how to get bureaucracies competent again.”
• On defeating ISIS: “Well, first I'll just point out that talking tough is not the same as being strong. And to wage war, we need a commander in chief who has made tough calls in tough times and stood up to be held accountable over and over, not first-term senators who've never made an executive decision in their life. One of the things I would immediately do, in addition to defeating them here at home, is bring back the warrior class - Petraeus, McChrystal, Mattis, Keane, Flynn. Every single one of these generals I know. Every one was retired early because they told President Obama things that he didn't want to hear. We must have Sunni-Arabs involved in this coalition. We must commit leadership, strength, support and resolve. I'll just add that Margaret Thatcher once said, ‘If you want something talked about, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman.’”
• On dealing with Russian President Vladimir Putin: “I didn't say I would cut off all communication with Putin. What I said was as president of the United States, now is not the time to talk with him. Reagan walked away at Reykjavik. There is a time and a place for everything. There is a time and a place for talk. And there is a time and a place for action. I know Vladimir Putin. He respects strength. He lied to our president's face; didn't both to tell him about warplanes and troops going into Syria. We need to speak to him from a position of strength. So as commander in chief, I will not speak to him until we've set up that no-fly zone; until we've gathered our Sunni-Arab allies and begun to deny ISIS territory; until I've called the supreme leader of Iran and told him new deal - new deal. We the United States of America are going to cut off the money flow, which we can do; which we don't need anyone's permission or collaboration to do. And I will not speak to him personally until we've rebuilt the 6th Fleet a little bit right under his nose; rebuilt the missile defense program in Poland right under his nose; and conducted a few military exercises in the Baltic states. And let us remember one other thing. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are responsible for the growth of ISIS because they precipitously withdrew from Iraq in 2011 against the advice of every single general and for political expediency. It's not these people up here. It's Hillary Clinton.”

Jim Gilmore

• Jim Gilmore did not participate in last night’s CNN debate because he did not meet the criteria to appear on stage.
• During an interview with PJ Media, Gilmore said that he would not declare war on ISIS because that would legitimize their claim that they are a state, rather than a “gang of terrorists.” He said, “I do believe in declarations of war but I am not willing to say that ISIS is a state, and usually declarations of war are against a state. You don’t declare war against an international guerrilla movement. We should not give them the credit of being a state. They’re an intentional gang of terrorists terrorizing people through force of arms, creating acts of barbarity, burning people up in cages, enslaving women, cutting people’s heads off, this is not a civilized nation within the modern day.” (PJ Media)

Lindsey Graham

• On ground troops in Iraq and Syria: “Well, here's what I'm here to tell you, when I first started this process of running for president., I said, ‘if you didn't realize we need more America boots on the ground in Iraq and eventually in Syria as a part of the regional army - not ready to be commander in chief.’ Like nobody said a word, now everybody's on board except Senator Paul.”
• On NSA data collection: “Senator Paul and Senator Cruz, are isolationists. They both want to restrict the ability of the NSA to do the following; find out if somebody overseas is calling into America and if somebody is on the other end of the phone, don't you want to know who their talking to? IF a terrorist is calling into America and we can match up phone numbers we get a get a court order to find out what the content is. We're at war folks, they're not trying to steal your car, they're trying to kills us all. So yes, I would re-institute this program. There's four things you need to understand about this war, it's a religious war, them against the world, if you don't fight them over there, they're coming here. If you don't hit them first, they're going to hit us. If you're not determined to fight it as a ware, you're going to lose it. So if you're worried about somebody having your phone in the government, don't be. The only thing you need to worry about is if you're talking to terrorist and a judge gives an order to listen to what you're saying. That's all you need to worry about.”
• On defeating ISIS: “The bottom line is you have to go after them everywhere. The key to winning this war is to provide the capacity to those in the faith who reject the ideology. The key to fighting this war is to fight it in their backyard, not ours. Two years ago I came up with a plan that requires more American boots on the ground in Iraq. The first thing out of my mouth running for President was, if you don't understand we need 10,000 troops in Iraq, rather than 3,500, you're not ready. What would I do in Syria? I'd form a regional army of Arabs and Turkey. Ninety percent them, 10 percent us. Up to 10,000 U.S. forces to go in on the ground and destroy the caliphate and its roots. Take Raqqah away from ISIL, kill every one of these bastards we could find. Then I would stay. I would hold the hands of those who are willing to live in peace with us. I would build small school houses in remote regions of the world to give a young woman a voice about her children, something that will end radical Islam more than the bomb. I'm all in. Whatever it takes, as long as it takes. To the isolationists in our party, you're no better than Obama. If you want to win this war, follow me. I am seeking victory, folks, not containment.”
• On Bashar Al-Assad: “It is absolutely imperative that Bashar Assad go. The biggest mistake Obama made was drawing a red line. Assad crossed it. He is still standing. If I'm president, Assad will not stand. He has murdered 240,000 of his own people. They're not going to accept him as their leader. The war never ends if he stays in power. You're giving Damascus to the Iranians.He's a puppet of the ayatollah, a proxy of Iran. He is the biggest benefactor of Hezbollah. Weapons flowing from Damascus to Lebanon will continue to flow if Assad stays. For our interests and the stability of the region, he must go.And if I'm president, he will go. And the Syrians will pick their leader, not the ayatollah.”
• On energy and negotiating with dictators: “Well, I agree with that. I would like to become -- you know, I'd like to stop sending $350 billion overseas to buy oil from people who hate our guts, wouldn't you? Wouldn't you like to export natural gas to cut Putin's legs out from under him? I'm not afraid of a guy riding around on a horse without his shirt. The guy has got a pair twos and we've got a full house, and he's walking all over Obama. Mike, the surge worked. It worked. George W. Bush made mistakes, but he did adjust. I blame Obama for ISIL, not Bush. I'm tired of beating on Bush. I miss George W. Bush. I wish he were president right now. We wouldn't be in this mess. I'm tired of dictators walking all over us. I'm tired of siding with the Iranians and the Russians.”

Mike Huckabee

• On monitoring mosques: “No, it does not violate their First Amendment rights to have someone go and listen to the sermons. You can go to any church in America, it's a public place, you can listen, and -- you know, if you go to my church, you'll probably get a real blessing. Heck, it'll be a wonderful experience. You go to some people's church, you may go to sleep, I don't know what happens in every church, but, the point is that these are public places, and folks are invited to come. So, if it's a public place, and people are invited to come, how does it violate anybody's First Amendment rights that somebody shows up because they might want to just listen in and see is there something that is a little nefarious? And, if there is, then you take the second step of getting a search warrant, you do whatever you have to do. That's all protected under the constitution. So, Huge, I hear people act like there's something that is terrible about going and sitting in and listening to the sermons of a mosque. If Islam is as wonderful, and peaceful as its adherents say, shouldn't they be begging us to all come in and listen to these peaceful sermons? Shouldn't they be begging us all to come, and listen, and bring the FBI so we'd all want to convert to Islam?”
• On strengthening the military: “Well, I would say that, if you want a college education, let's go back and reinstate the full-blown G.I. bill. You give something to your country; your country gives something back to you. We need to ask young people to step up and buy their own freedom because there's not going to be enough people left at less than one percent. And as my good friend Ken Howard, former Dean of the War College, has often said, we're fighting all the wars with other people's kids. And that's one of the things that's making us much less safe, is because we don't have enough Americans truly invested in the process of defeating our enemies. Therefore, I do think without a draft we do need to ask people to recognize we are at war.”
• On defeating ISIS ideologically: “The way we defeat them ideologically is that we remind people that what their intent is is to kill us, and that it is our intent to use every means possible to get to them before they get to us. We are pretending that this is a war that is not that significant. We have a president who called it the JV team, said we had contained it. Nine hours after he said we contained it, there was a massacre in Paris. We've got to make it so untenable for somebody to join ISIS. Rather than making it so that teenagers from around the world want to go and be to be a part of this, we need to go after it with significant ground troops, air campaign. The president boasted we had 9,000 flown sorties, air missions over 18 months. What he failed to tell the American people, we were flying 3,000 air missions per day during Desert Storm. And the rules of engagement have got to be loosened, because we have to make sure that we are not just going over and setting off some fireworks. We have to kill some terrorists and kill every one of them we can to make it very clear that to take action or threaten action against the United States, and you've just signed your death warrant. We're coming to get you. And you won't be coming to our shores. You're going to be going to your funeral. That's what we need to do to begin to defeat it ideologically.”

John Kasich

• On protecting against terrorist attacks and defeating ISIS: “Well, first of all, Wolf, I said last February that we needed to have people on the ground, troops on the ground in a coalition similar to what we had in the first Gulf War. I remember when the Egyptian ambassador to the United States stood in the Rose Garden and pledged Arab commitment to removing Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. Before we came out here tonight, I am told that the Saudis have organized 34 countries who want to join in the battle against terrorism. First and foremost, we need to go and destroy ISIS. And we need to do this with our Arab friends and our friends in Europe. And when I see they have a climate conference over in Paris, they should have been talking about destroying ISIS because they are involved in virtually every country, you know, across this world. Now, you destroy ISIS in a coalition. You get joint intelligence with our European friends. And then here at home, there are things called the Joint Terrorism Task Force, headed by the FBI, and made up of local law enforcement, including state police. They need the tools. And the tools involve encryption where we cannot hear what they're even planning. And when we see red flags, a father, a mother, a neighbor who says we have got a problem here, then we have to give law enforcement the ability to listen so they can disrupt these terrorist attacks before they occur. We can do this, but we've got to get moving. Pay me now or pay me a lot more later. This is the direction we need to go.”
• On collecting metadata: “One is the metadata. We know we have to hold this data for a longer period of time. And, you know, in a lot of ways, Chris is right. Look, what a president has to do is take a position. We don't want to err on the side of having less. We want to err on the side of having more. That's good for our families. In addition to that, Wolf, there is a big problem. It's called encryption. And the people in San Bernardino were communicating with people who the FBI had been watching. But because their phone was encrypted, because the intelligence officials could not see who they were talking to, it was lost. We have to solve the encryption problem. It is not easy. A president of the United States, again, has to bring people together, have a position. We need to be able to penetrate these people when they are involved in these plots and these plans. And we have to give the local authorities the ability to penetrate to disrupt. That's what we need to do. Encryption is a major problem, and Congress has got to deal with this and so does the president to keep us safe.”
• On Bashar Al-Assad: “I don't understand this thing about Assad. He has to go. Assad is aligned with Iran and Russia. The one thing we want to prevent is we want to prevent Iran being able to extend a Shia crescent all across the Middle East. Assad has got to go.”

George Pataki

• On surveillance programs: “You know, I think it's very important that we do everything in our power to prevent radicalization of Americans right here. And it is happening, not just overseas, but it's happening here from Mosques on social media. And truth -- interaction and community meetings. ...New York police department had a very active group, aggressively monitoring and using intelligence to -- in certain Muslim communities, consistent with our constitution, consistent of our civil rights, so they could have the intelligence as to where these sermons are being given, and who is being radicalized. And, they stopped and prevented dozens, and dozens of attacks in New York. You know, I'm a great believer in the First Amendment, of Freedom of Speech. I wish we had more of it on our college campuses, but you can't shout fire in a crowded theater. Calling on Americans to engage in violence against their fellow Americans in the name of jihad is crying fire in a crowded theater. It is not constitutionally protected speech, it should be shut down. And, by the way, the two murders who went to Garland, Texas to massacre many Americans before the Texas police officer courageously killed them, had been radicalized here. Getting to that metadata question, one of those terrorists, the day before the attacks, had sent...109 message to a known terrorist overseas. We could not read those messages, we can not read those today...We have got to do far better.”
• On sending ground troops to Syria: “Wolf, I think the answer is we have to send troops with allies and supporters. Wherever it is necessary to destroy the training centers, recruitment centers, planning hubs of ISIS. Two points though. First of all today, Saudi Arabia announced a coalition of 34 states, mostly Arab, but other Muslim states to engage actively in a war against radical Islam. We have to work with them. Not just step back. Let them take the lead but work with them to destroy ISIS. And the second point, Wolf, I want to make, is this is on the armed forces network. And thank you for doing that. Because I'm sure watching this debate this evening are some of our soldiers deployed all over the world. As the proud father of a son who was a Marine officer in Iraq and another son that was a 10th Mountain Division officer in Afghanistan, I know we produce no finer people than the men and women who put on their uniform to defend our freedom. They are watching overseas now. God bless you. This isn't about us. This is about you. Thank you for your service.”
• On working with Iran to fight ISIS: “Not at all. Iran is our enemy. They are the number one sponsor of state terror. The Iranian Deal is a disaster. And by the way, I don't think the next president has to aggregate it. It was never ratified by the Iranians. They have tested long-range ballistic missiles in violation of U.N. resolutions. They have broken the agreement. It is void. They can never have a nuclear weapon and should not get relief. With respect to the other groups, like Hezbollah, of course we should not work with them. I'll tell you who we should work with in Syria. There are two groups. One are the PYD, the -- the Kurds in Syria who led the defense of Kobani, and are in northern and eastern Syria and anti-ISIS and anti-Assad. The second thing I'd do is three years ago, Turkey called for a no-fly zone along the Turkish border. Obama said no. We need to work with the Turks, create that no-fly zone so that Syrian refugees don't have to flock to Europe or try to get to the United States. They will have a safe haven. Anti-Assad Syrians can group there, train, organize there and let them fight the fight to protect our allies.”

Rand Paul

• On government surveillance and immigration: “You know, I think Marco gets it completely wrong. We are not any safer through the bulk collection of all Americans' records. In fact, I think we're less safe. We get so distracted by all of the information, we're not spending enough time getting specific immigration - specific information on terrorists. The other thing is, is the one thing that might have stopped San Bernardino, that might have stopped 9/11 would have been stricter controls on those who came here. And Marco has opposed at every point increased security - border security for those who come to our country. On his Gang of Eight bill, he would have liberalized immigration, but he did not - and he steadfastly opposed any new border security requirements for refugees or students. Last week, I introduced another bill saying we need more security, we need more scrutiny. Once again, Marco opposed this. So Marco can't have it both ways. He thinks he wants to be this, "Oh, I'm great and strong on national defense." But he's the weakest of all the candidates on immigration. He is the one for an open border that is leaving us defenseless. If we want to defend the country, we have to defend against who's coming in, and Marco is - has more of an allegiance to Chuck Schumer and to the liberals than he does to conservative policy.”
• On the rise of ISIS: “I think that by arming the allies of ISIS, the Islamic rebels against Assad, that we created a safe space or made that space bigger for ISIS to grow. I think those who have wanted regime change have made a mistake. When we toppled Gadhafi in Libya, I think that was a mistake. I think ISIS grew stronger, we had a failed state, and we were more at risk.”
• On Bashar Al-Assad and regime change: “I think regime change in Syria, and this is what - I've been saying this for several years now. In 2013 when we first went in, I said, you are going to give arms to the allies of al Qaida, to radical jihadists? That's crazy. But the other thing I said is the great irony is you will be back fighting against your own weapons. Had Assad been bombed when he used chemical weapons two years ago, ISIS would be in charge of all of Syria now. We have to have a more realistic foreign policy and not a utopian one where we say, oh, we're going to spread freedom and democracy, and everybody in the Middle East is going to love us. They are not going to love us.”

Marco Rubio

• On the USA Freedom Act: “Here's the world we live in. This is a radical jihadist group that is increasingly sophisticated in its ability, for example, to radicalize American citizens, in its inability to exploit loopholes in our legal immigration system, in its ability to capture and hold territory in the Middle East, as I outlined earlier, in multiple countries. This is not just the most capable, it is the most sophisticated terror threat we have ever faced. We are now at a time when we need more tools, not less tools. And that took we lost, the metadata program, was a valuable tool that we no longer have at our disposal. ... There is nothing that we are allowed to do under this bill that we could not do before. This bill did, however, take away a valuable tool that allowed the National Security Agency and other law - and other intelligence agencies to quickly and rapidly access phone records and match them up with other phone records to see who terrorists have been calling. Because I promise you, the next time there is attack on - an attack on this country, the first thing people are going to want to know is, why didn't we know about it and why didn't we stop it? And the answer better not be because we didn't have access to records or information that would have allowed us to identify these killers before they attacked.”
• On defeating ISIS: “Well, let me begin by saying that we have to understand who ISIS is. ISIS is a radical Sunni group. They cannot just be defeated through air strikes. Air strikes are a key component of defeating them, but they must be defeated on the ground by a ground force. And that ground force must be primarily made up of Sunni Arabs themselves, Sunni Arabs that reject them ideologically and confront them militarily. We will have to embed additional American special operators alongside them to help them with training, to help them conduct special missions, and to help improve the air strikes. The air strikes are important, but we need to have an air force capable of it. And because of the budget cuts we are facing in this country, we are going to be left with the oldest and the smallest Air Force we have ever had. We have to reverse those cuts, in addition to the cuts to our Navy and in addition to the cuts to our Army, as well. And beyond that, I would say we must win the information war against ISIS. Every war we have ever been involved in has had a propaganda informational aspect to it. ISIS is winning the propaganda war. They are recruiting people, including Americans, to join them, with the promise that they are joining this great apocalyptic movement that is going to defeat the West. We have to show what life is really like in ISIS territory, and we have to show them why ISIS is not invincible, by going out and conducting these attacks and publicizing them to those who they recruit.”
• On immigration: “Immigration is not an issue that I read about in the newspaper or watch a documentary on PBS or CNN. It's an issues I've lived around my whole life. My family are immigrants. My wife's family are immigrants. All of my neighbors are immigrants. I see every aspect of this problem. The good, the bad, and the ugly. And here's what we learned in 2013. The American people don't trust the Federal Government to enforce our immigration laws, and we will not be able to do anything on immigration until we first prove to the American people that illegal immigration is under control. And we can do that. We know what it takes to do that. It takes at least 20,000 more additional border agents. It takes completing those 700 miles of fencing. It takes a mandatory e-verify system and a mandatory entry/exit tracking system to prevent overstays. After we have done that, the second thing we have to do is reform and modernize the legal immigration system. And after we have done those two things, I think the American people are gonna be reasonable with what do you do with someone who has been in this country for 10 or 12 years who hasn't otherwise violated our laws - because if they're a criminal they can't stay. They'll have to undergo a background check, pay a fine, start paying taxes. And ultimately, they'll given a work permit and that's all they're gonna be allowed to have for at least 10 years. But you can't get to that third step until you have done the other two things, and that was the lesson we learned in 2013. There is no trust that the Federal Government will enforce the law. They will not support you until you see it done first.”

Rick Santorum

• On collecting phone data: “Just because it couldn't have prevented San Bernardino doesn't mean that we shouldn't have all tools available to us that doesn't impinge upon people's privacy. This sort of data collection is not collecting people's phones calls, their voices; they're not collecting information that's personal. There's no names attached to these numbers. They're simply numbers and times and relationships that throughout algorithms that computer technology can be able to sort through relationship about what numbers are calling what numbers and be able to track those down to see if there's any leakage's between someone who's potentially a terrorist. That is to me just fundamental that we have to have this type of data to be able to not impinge upon people's privacy. In fact, I would make the argument that the more data we can collect that's anonymous that we can through, through using algorithms, the less we need to involve people in and imposing themselves in people's privacy.”
• On guns and the terror watchlist: “I don't think we should be able to deny someone's constitutional rights based on a list kept by the government that nobody knows how they get on it, or how they get off of it. If you're going to make that list public, if you're going to put criteria out there as to how you're going to get on it, if you're going to deny someone's constitutional right, than I think there has to be more transparency. Let's just be honest, when someone applies for a gun, you do a background check. And, if you're on the terrorist watch list, guess what very well may happen? You may get denied that. That's a discretion of the people -- of the ATF in making that kind of decision. I want to leave that discretion -- as long as this list is not well known, as long as it's not transparent, we have to leave that discretion.”
• On defeating ISIS: “Well, there's all sorts of theological reasons why we may not want to go into Syria right now to take ISIS. But let me set that aside for a moment and say this. ISIS is a caliphate. They've established a caliphate, the first Sunni caliphate since 1924, when Ataturk disbanded the Ottoman Empire. They've established a caliphate and, under Islamic law, good Muslims who see them as a legitimate caliphate are required to follow them. That's why we have people in this country who see them as a legitimate caliphate, which is the leader of the Sunni Muslim world, they are required under their law to follow them. How do we defeat their caliphate? Well, it's very clear in Islamic law how you do so. You take their land. You have to take land back from the caliphate and in the Islamic world that delegitimizes, that delegitimizes the caliphate. It makes the caliphate unsuccessful. Therefore not blessed by Allah. Therefore, you should not follow it. We need to take back the land in Iraq and we need to use Sunni, not Shiites, not Iranian troops, not Shiite Iraqis, but Sunni Muslims in Iraq and the Kurds, the Peshmerga, and take back Iraqi land. I believe if we did that, you would see ISIS begin to collapse. And then we can look at other ways in which we're going to deal with it. I have great hesitancy, based on ISIS' desire to draw us into Syria, and a particular town in Syria, for their own, again, apocalyptic version, to go in with ground troops in Syria at this point.”
• On the Pentagon opening up combat positions to women: “I would use the studies that were done that were ignored by this military that there were certain positions that frankly were not suitable. And they pushed a political agenda above what is in the best interest of the safety, security, and effective of our, of our fighting units. So I would go back to using what we should be doing. Which is putting forth people on those front line positions who are best prepared to do the job, survive the job, and come back home safely. ...I would change the policy to reflect what is the best interest of the people that we're asking. I've got a son who's going, who's going into the Air Force right now, and I, as a father, I want to make sure that, if he's out there on the front line -- and he may be a pilot flying an airplane -- I want to make sure that the person who's responsible for, for his wing has the ability to do the job they're doing. And if they don't have that ability to do the job, if we're doing a social promotion as opposed to what's best for the efficacy of our fighting force and for the survivability of our men and women, I'll change that policy.”

Donald Trump

• On protecting America’s borders: “We are not talking about isolation. We're talking about security. We're not talking about religion. We're talking about security. Our country is out of control. People are pouring across the southern border. I will build a wall. It will be a great wall. People will not come in unless they come in legally. Drugs will not pour through that wall. As far as other people like in the migration, where they're going, tens of thousands of people having cell phones with ISIS flags on them? I don't think so, Wolf. They're not coming to this country. And if I'm president and if Obama has brought some to this country, they are leaving. They're going. They're gone.”
• On ISIS and the internet: “Well, look, this is so easy to answer. ISIS is recruiting through the Internet. ISIS is using the Internet better than we are using the Internet, and it was our idea. What I wanted to do is I wanted to get our brilliant people from Silicon Valley and other places and figure out a way that ISIS cannot do what they're doing. You talk freedom of speech. You talk freedom of anything you want. I don't want them using our Internet to take our young, impressionable youth and watching the media talking about how they're masterminds - these are masterminds. They shouldn't be using the word ‘mastermind.’ These are thugs. These are terrible people in ISIS, not masterminds. And we have to change it from every standpoint. But we should be using our brilliant people, our most brilliant minds to figure a way that ISIS cannot use the Internet. And then on second, we should be able to penetrate the Internet and find out exactly where ISIS is and everything about ISIS. And we can do that if we use our good people.”
• On immigration: “I have a very hardline position, we have a country or we don't have a country. People that have come into our country illegally, they have to go. They have to come back into through a legal process. I want a strong border. I do want a wall. Walls do work, you just have to speak to the folks in Israel. Walls work if they're properly constructed. I know how to build, believe me, I know how to build. I feel a very, very strong bind, and really I'm bound to this country, we either have a border or we don't. People can come into the country, we welcome people to come but they have to come in legally.”
• On whether he is ready to assure Republicans that he will run as a Republican and abide by the decision of the Republicans: “I really am. I'll be honest, I really am.”

Third Party Candidates

Gary Johnson (Libertarian Party)

• On Tuesday, Gary Johnson criticized the process for passing a federal budget in the following Facebook post: “While the media is obsessing over what Donald Trump is saying or doing, Congress is quietly getting ready to pass a federal budget that will spend more than $1 TRILLION next year. But don't worry, your elected representatives will have a couple of days to read it before they vote on it -- and go home for the holidays.” (Facebook)

See also

• Presidential election, 2016
• Presidential candidates, 2016
• Presidential debates (2015-2016)
• Important dates in the 2016 presidential race
• Polls and Straw polls
• 2016 presidential candidate ratings and scorecards