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What 10 Republican Presidential Candidates Said in Iowa This Weekend

  • Leah Jessen

    • Donald Trump spoke out against the Iran deal at The Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa. (Photo: Brian Cahn/ZUMA Press/Newscom)

    AMES, Iowa—“How many of you by show of hands are better off today than your parents were when they were your age?” Frank Luntz, a national political consultant, polled the audience at the Family Leadership Summit on Saturday. “It’s almost everybody.”

    Luntz, who moderated discussions with 10 Republican 2016 presidential candidates while onstage at Stephens Auditorium, involved the audience by polling the nearly 2,500 attendees at the start of each candidate’s time on stage.

    “Now be honest with me: how many of you truly believe, not that you want, but you believe that your children will be better off than you when they get to be your age?” Luntz said. Almost no hands went up.

    Marco Rubio

    Onstage while the above question was posed, Rubio started off the day with comments on immigration policy. “I think the American people believe in immigration and want it to work for America,” Rubio said. “I don’t think we can make any progress on it until we can bring illegal immigration under control.” Rubio said 40 percent of illegal immigrants come legally: “they overstay a visa.” Rubio says there are two steps to getting this issue under control. First, the borders must be secured (including airports and seaports). This includes an electronic verification system, E-Verify, to be put in place for employers. Second, “You have to modernize legal immigration.”

    Donald Trump

    Donald Trump, getting national attention for comments made onstage and to the media, became a number-one trending topic on Twitter.

    At the summit, Trump spoke out against President Obama’s deal with Iran.

    “It was just announced that Iran got one of their leading nuclear scientists back as part of the deal,” Trump said.

    “So Iran, in addition to making an unbelievable deal, that’s going to make them one of the great powers, perhaps more powerful than the United States,” Trump said. “’Cause today it’s about the weapons, not about the number of soldiers you have.”

    “We’re giving them billions and billions of dollars that we shouldn’t be giving them,” Trump said. “We didn’t get our hostages back, which is terrible.”

    Ben Carson

    “We have radical Islamic jihadists who want to destroy us, and they want to destroy our way of life, and their existence is a threat to us,” Carson told the crowd.

    “They [radical Islam] want to destroy us, and we have two choices. We can sit here, ignore them, bomb the desert, and think that we’re doing something, or we can destroy them first. And I choose the latter,” Carson said.

    Carson would use resources, like ground troops, to defeat the threat.

    Ted Cruz

    Sen. Ted Cruz said of the Planned Parenthood video that surfaced last week, “Every American should watch that video, and simply say, ‘Are those my values?’” “On tape it appears the senior Planned Parenthood official is admitting to multiple federal felonies and to multiple felonies at the state and local level.” Cruz, who also said that every word of Obamacare needs to be repealed in 2016, called for the U.S. Department of Justice to open an investigation and “prosecute Planned Parenthood.” Calling for local prosecutors and districts to investigate Planned Parenthood, Cruz said, “Congress should hold hearings, and we should cut off every penny of taxpayer funds.” The audience, as well as Cruz, gave a standing ovation for his remarks.

    Mike Huckabee

    “The most basic unit of government is a family,” the former Arkansas governor said. “A mother and a father and the children being raised to become the next generation.”

    “Those parents are there to train that generation to become the replacements for them,” Huckabee said. He said people learn social behaviors in “that governmental unit called a family.”

    “The breakdown of social order is directly proportionate to the cost of government,” Huckabee said, and when people self-govern, it costs the government less money.

    Huckabee continued, “If we want a strong economy, we need a strong moral fiber in this country. We need people to grow our understanding that they have to govern themselves, or else someone will step in and govern them instead of themselves.”

    Rick Perry

    Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry said the federal government has an obligation to provide a strong military and secure the borders. To secure the border, “you have to have personnel in the right places.” In some instances personnel are located 45-50 miles away from the border. Perry believes that personnel need to be put in a prevention position: “you put the personnel on the border, you have the strategic fencing in those metropolitan areas, and the one thing that’s really missing today are the aviation assets from Tijuana to El Paso to Brownsville. Nineteen hundred thirty-three miles, flying 24/7, looking down with our technology, analyzing what’s going on on that border.” Perry said a quick response team should be in place to respond to suspicious activity.

    Lindsey Graham  

    Sen. Lindsey Graham said defeating radical Islam should be a top priority. “We’re in a religious war, don’t you think? They would kill everybody in this room if they could.”

    Graham, who recently retired from the Air Force, does not want to see national security compromised.

    Graham said of radical Islam, “These are religious Nazis. They can’t be dealt with; they have to be degraded and eventually destroyed.”

    To defeat this threat, Graham said the United States must partner with people in the region and rebuild defense, “and go after these bastards and kill every one of them if we have to.”

    “In the process, we are going to help them. Sorry for the bad word.”

    Bobby Jindal

    Gov. Bobby Jindal voiced his dislike of recent decisions made by the Supreme Court.

    Jindal said the court decision on gay marriage does not change his view that marriage is between a man and woman.

    “We need justices who don’t look to international law or opinion polls. If they want to make law, they should run for Congress. They need to apply the United States Constitution, not anything else,” Jindal said.

    Rick Santorum

    Former Sen. Santorum, who won the Iowa caucuses in 2012, ended his time on stage with “look at what’s happening to our culture.”

    “Bottom line is our culture is crumbling,” said Santorum.

    “We need to have a leader who’s willing to stand and fight for the principles that made our country great,” Santorum said.

    Santorum values policies in support of traditional marriage that nurture children in a healthy family.

    Scott Walker

    Less than a week into his campaign and currently one of the front-runners in Iowa for the 2016 presidential race, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker took the stage as the final presidential candidate to speak. Walker said, “I believe you grow it [the economy] by helping hard-working people in cities and towns and villages across this country.” “That government doesn’t create jobs, that people create jobs,” he continued. Walker believes that success of government is measured “by how many people are no longer dependent on the government.”

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