Mark Humphrey / AP

A leading voice on the religious right sharply criticized the "dangerous" anti-refugee sentiment that has permeated the recent political debate in the United States — and warned that some Republican presidential candidates may turn off Christian voters with their lack of compassion.

Russell Moore, the president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, told BuzzFeed News on Thursday that he was shocked by the "overheated" rhetoric being employed by high-profile politicians in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris.

"Donald Trump is saber-rattling about shutting down mosques in this country, which, as somebody who works every day on religious liberty, I'm astounded that we could have a presidential candidate of either party speaking in such a way," Moore said. "Evangelicals should recognize that any president who would call for shutting down houses of worship ... is the sort of political power that can ultimately shut down evangelical churches."

Moore was also critical of candidates like Ted Cruz who are now arguing that the U.S. should only accept Christian refugees from Syria, not Muslims.

"I don't think we ought to have a religious test for our refugee policy," Moore said, adding that a rigorous vetting process could still make room for innocent Muslims. "We really don't want to penalize innocent women and children who are fleeing from murderous barbarians simply because they're not Christians," he said, though he added that persecuted Christians in the region haven't received enough attention from the U.S.

Moore is an influential figure in the evangelical community, and frequently goes to bat for religious social conservatives in the national media. His comments come as many Republicans are studding their campaign stump speeches with calls for a crackdown on Syrian refugees and arguing that the Paris attacks revealed how ISIS will take advantage of Western countries' generosity.

But while conservative voters generally agree that national security must come at the cost of aiding Syrian refugees, polls suggest evangelicals are split on the issue.

Moore suggests the divergent attitudes come from Christ-like compassion — and an evangelistic spirit.

"Our Muslim neighbors are not people we want to scream and rail at — we don’t want to demonize our mission field," Moore said. "I think that the evangelistic missionary impulse of Christianity that sometimes seculars present as nefarious actually is what grounds evangelicals to see individuals not as issues but as persons."

"Every person may well be our future brother, sister in Christ."

“Hitler went to the pastors, put his arms around them, and said: ‘You take care of their souls inside of the church — I’ll take care of the nation.’ And because the church did not get involved, six million Jews were exterminated.”

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Rafael Cruz, the father of Republican presidential candidate and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, invoked the Holocaust at length to make the case on Tuesday that pastors should be politically active.

"You think the government today fears the pastors?" he asked during a speech at Bible Baptist Church. "No, they laugh at the pastors, and they use them as pawns: 'You just stay in your churches, singing hallelujah, while the country's going down the drain. You just stay in there.'

"You know, Hitler did the same thing," Cruz continued. "Hitler went to the pastors, put his arms around them, and said: 'You take care of their souls inside of the church — I'll take care of the nation.' And because the church did not get involved, six million Jews were exterminated."

"And I'll tell you what, it is said that when the trains — those churches that were close to the railroad tracks — when the trains were going by, taking Jews to the camps, that they would just sing their hymnals louder, so they wouldn't hear the train going by," said Cruz. "God help us. The time to be passive has long passed."

Here's the video:

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Sen. David Vitter

John Stanton/BuzzFeed

BATON ROUGE — Sen. David Vitter Thursday said as governor he would consider all “legitimate” measures to halt the resettlement of Syrian refugees in Louisiana, including stepped up monitoring of refugees in the state as well as eliminating state funding to Catholic Charities, which helps in the resettlement process.

Vitter, who has injected the Syrian refugee situation into the governor race in an 11th hour bid to take beat State House Minority Leader John Bel Edwards, also harshly criticized the Obama administration’s supervision of refugees already in the United States.

“We have a case from Baton Rouge, a case that’s pretty close to home. A Syrian refugee that settled here last week, is gone. Allegedly traveling to Washington, D.C., I guess. No one really knows. According to the briefings I’ve gotten he hasn’t checked in with any federal authorities,” Vitter said, arguing that the incident highlights the “wildly irresponsible nature of this program.”

Vitter also indicated that as governor he would consider creating some mechanism to track the movements of the handful of refugees already in the state. “They come here and that there is no adequate tracking and contact with these individuals. The fact that one could up and leave … proves that. Yes, we need much better protection to anyone who is already here,” Vitter said.

Asked if he would cut state funding of Catholic Charities and other non-profits assisting refugees in the resettlement process, Vitter said, “We’re looking at every tool at a governor’s and state legislature’s disposal. And certainly I’d be very serious about using every legitimate tool to assert our responsibility, not just our right but our responsibility, to protect the state of Louisiana.”

Whether the refugee issue can lift Vitter over Edwards is, at best, unclear: Polls show Edwards leading Vitter going into Saturday’s vote, and early voting in the state seems to favor the Democrat, with substantial numbers of black and registered Democratic voters voting early.

And then there’s Gov. Bobby Jindal, whose relationship with Vitter is worse than it is with Democrats in the sate. Jindal announced he was abandoning his quixotic presidential race just as Vitter was going on the air with an ad highlighting the Paris terrorist attacks. Observers in the state see the abrupt decision as not-so-subtle pay back for Vitter’s decision to hold a press conference admitting to visiting prostitutes the same day Jindal announced his bid for governor in 2007.

Then on Wednesday afternoon, Jindal floated a new budget plan, a move that further sucked up the political oxygen Vitter’s campaign desperately needs. A press conference on the refugee crisis originally planned to be held in front of the Catholic Charities’ refugee assistance office was scraped at the last minute in favor of one focused on the budget on the state capitol’s front steps.

Vitter may have been seeing a shift in voter sentiments, “but then Bobby Jindal parachuted in,” said Edward Chervenak, director of the Survey Research Center at the University of New Orleans.

“It’s hard for me to see him reversing the trends we’re seeing in polls and early voting,” Chervenak added, noting “there’s just not a lot of time left … people just don’t shift that abruptly, outside of an actual attack.”

Still, Vitter aides insist the campaign is in a good position to win Saturday. They argue their polling shows the race tightening, and noted that former Sen. Mary Landrieu saw similar early voting levels in 2014 before ultimately losing her reelection.

“We’re feeling good,” the aide said.

Steve Pope / Getty Images

Republican presidential candidate and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie had a tense exchange on the Michael Medved radio show on Wednesday when a caller accused Christie of being naive about the Muslim Brotherhood infiltrating the United States.

The caller — John, from Houston — said, “Hi, Governor Christie, look I've given money to Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, but I haven’t given you any money yet because I think your statements basically represent — or is symbolizing a naïveté about what's going on with the penetration into the United States institutions of the Muslim Brotherhood.

"To wit: Look there's a stealth jihad going on and there's a substantial penetration of Islamic lobby organizations, like CAIR [Council on American-Islamic Relations] by Muslim Brotherhood interests. This is documented. I think you’re naive about it and I want to know what you have to say about that.”

Christie responded, asking, “Naive in what sense? What is what I've said — what is what I’ve said naive? I’d like to know that.”

The caller responded to Christie, saying, “You’ve said that 'these people who are obsessed about Sharia law in the United States.' You've criticized them, but I think that there's ample documentation to establish that there is in fact a stealth jihad underway in America.”

Christie explained to the caller he made the remark about Sharia law when he received criticism from right-wing commentators in 2011 for appointing a Muslim judge to the New Jersey Superior Court.

“Listen, what I was talking about was when they accused a specific appointee of mine of following Sharia law, which was complete ridiculousness and sophistry and the guy's been on the bench now for nearly five years and has got nothing but rave reviews from the lawyers and other judges that serve with him.”

Christie concluded, saying, “So this is, you know, this gentleman from Houston — reading some website where he doesn't even understand the story — making accusations — there’s no one in this race that has been tougher on radical Islamic terrorism then I've been.”

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“You know what happens when 10,000 refugees from Syria get here, they all petition to have their families come over.”

Joe Raedle / Getty Images

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul says President Obama isn't being honest when he says the administration only wants to bring 10,000 refugees from Syria.

Speaking with Iowa radio's Mickelson in the Morning on Thursday, Paul said the number of refugees would actually end up being closer to 200,000 because refugees that come here would want to petition for their families to come.

"One of things people don't realize is, President Obama saying, 'oh, it's only 10,000,'" said Paul. "You know what happens when 10,000 refugees from Syria get here, they all petition to have their families come over. So you add that and you multiply by four and then those bring their families over. This 10,000 will turn into a couple 100,000 through family migration."

Take a listen to the audio:

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“The grand, big scale ones we’ve been able to disrupt, but in my mind, in my mind, the odds are that eventually one of them will succeed and we need to be prepared for that reality.”

John Raoux / AP

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Republican presidential candidate and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said on Thursday that, though the U.S. has been able to prevent a "grand, big scale" terrorist attack since 9/11, the "odds are" that one will eventually happen.

Rubio made the comment to Iowa radio host Jan Mickelson, who asked him for his "gut feeling that the U.S. may be visited by a Paris-like attack." The Republican presidential candidate replied that it was a credit to law enforcement and intelligence agencies that they had prevented all but smaller-scale attacks, such as that on Fort Hood in 2009, but said he thought a larger attack "will succeed" at some point.

"The grand, big scale ones we've been able to disrupt," Rubio said. "But in my mind, the odds are that eventually one of them will succeed and we need to be prepared for that reality. We are at war with radical Islam and they want to kill Americans here in the homeland and all over the world."

The Florida senator said that the U.S. should be concerned about foreigners entering the country from nations in Europe that participate in the visa waiver program with the United States.

"It appears now that if not all, almost all, of the attackers in the Paris attack last Friday, were passport holders in Europe," Rubio said. "And that means that they came from visa waiver countries and could've easily entered the United States, given the visa waiver programs we have with most if not all of those nations."

Rubio was also asked about the Obama administration's plans to accept Syrian refugees through resettlement. In his answer, Rubio referenced the U.S. "asylum programs." Most Syrian refugees who come to the United States apply through the refugee resettlement program, which is distinct from the asylum process.

Here's that exchange:

HOST: Overwhelmingly now around the country, governors including our own are rejecting the claims of the Obama administration to dump Syrian refugees around the country using the U.N. relocation programs along with the State Department. A lot of people are rebelling against the mechanism and the formula. What's your thinking on it?

RUBIO: Well, first, let's understand our existing asylum programs have very specific criteria. It says that you have to be fleeing oppression whether it's because of your religion or your political party, your political views — you can't just be fleeing a civil war. You have to be fleeing oppression. That doesn't mean we also accept people who are fleeing violence around the world. But the asylum program is for people that are fleeing oppression. The United States remains open to that — we continue to admit refugees every year that are fleeing oppression because of their religion or their political views. The issue is that no matter who you are and no matter why you're coming, you've always had to pass some level of background check, especially if you're coming from a part of the world that is producing terrorism. My argument is it's not going to be easy to background check most of these people. Now if a five-year-old child or an elderly sick person or someone who's well-established as a religious minority in the Middle East and is being oppressed, that might be easier, but for the most part, the bulk of people is hard. Why? Because there are falsified documents, there is no database to cross compare them, you can't just pick up the phone and call Syria and ask who these people are. So my argument has been it's not that we don't want to accept people — it's that we, quite frankly, may not be able to because you cannot conduct reliable background checks on people coming from the Middle East right now.

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Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — With President Barack Obama’s visit to Malaysia on Friday, members of the opposition party in the Southeast Asian country have been raising concerns regarding the president’s ties to major Democratic fundraiser Frank White, who lobbied the U.S. government on behalf of a scandal-plagued state fund.

Obama is expected to talk about trade and economic issues in Kuala Lumpur, but the state fund known as 1Malaysia Development Bhd., or 1MBD, has been the subject of national attention in Malaysia for months and opposition party members want to make it part of the discussion. The fund, which was set up in 2009 by Prime Minister Najib Razak, allegedly transferred $700 million to Najib's personal bank account after it missed payments to several banks, the Wall Street Journal reported in July.

White, who served as vice-chair for Obama’s 2012 campaign, registered as a foreign agent on behalf of the Government of Malaysia — specifically a solar project funded in part by 1MDB — in September 2013 and terminated the contract a year later in October 2014, according to records filed with the Department of Justice under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

In October of 2013, White’s firm, DuSable Capital Management, LLC, received more than $500,000 from the Government of Malaysia for a joint-venture partnership on a solar project.

The Government of Malaysia was White's only foreign lobbying client. Disclosure reports state that White’s then-newly formed private equity firm would “encourage the U.S. government to provide non-financial support for a solar energy project whose investors include 1 Malaysian Development Berhad, the Government of Malaysia's development fund, and a private equity fund to which DuSable Capital Management, LLC is the investment adviser.”

White raised about $2.2 million for Obama's campaign in 2012, and as of April of this year, he and his wife had raised $100,000 or more for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's presidential bid.

Representatives from DuSable discussed the solar energy project with top White House aides including Alyssa Mastromonaco, then-deputy chief of staff and Gene Sperling, former director of the National Economic Council, based on the FARA disclosures.

Wong Chen, a member of the opposition party PKR, told BuzzFeed News in an email that the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement — which Wong Chen argues will allow the "ruling party to continue to implement race-based economic policies and cronyism in government contracts” — and Malaysia’s surprising upgrade from tier 3 to tier 2 on the U.S. trafficking report earlier this year raise "serious questions whether personal interests of the president are driving bizarre U.S. policies.”

Wong Chen has held press conferences in recent days pushing the connection between 1MDB, DuSable, and Obama.

Other opposition party leaders have also been vocal up the connection, according to local media. DAP parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang has even brought up some reports that question whether White used money from the Malaysian government for campaign contributions.

In a press briefing Thursday, Ben Rhodes, White House national security adviser, pushed back on questions about Obama's relationship with Najib, who is under a number of investigations for corruption. Najib and Obama golfed together last year.

"Absolutely, I think the president will want to raise and will raise with Prime Minister Najib concerns that we have about the status of the political opposition in Malaysia, the imprisonment developments of that opposition or of a free media in civil society that are such important components of democracy," Rhodes said.

"I think he'll also want to hear and engage with young people and representatives of civil society as well, so that we're demonstrating that our engagement is not just with one figure, it's with the government and it's with the people of Malaysia."

White did not return requests for comment.

Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration formally asked the Supreme Court to take up the appeal of the case challenging President Obama's immigration executive actions.

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Nov. 9 that states, led by Texas, had the authority to sue the Obama administration over the 2014 order known as Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) and that the program would continue to be put on hold because Obama lacked the authority to implement it as he did. The administration had said at the time that it would appeal the ruling.

"If left undisturbed, that ruling will allow States to frustrate the federal government’s enforcement of the Nation’s immigration laws," the administration lawyers write to the court. "The decision warrants immediate review."

Specifically, they write of the ruling, "It will force millions of people—who are not removal priorities under criteria the court conceded are valid, and who are parents of U.S. citizens and permanent residents—to continue to work off the books, without the option of lawful employment to provide for their families. And it will place a cloud over the lives of hundreds of thousands of people who came to the United States as children, have lived here for years, and been accorded deferred action under the 2012 DACA policy, which respondents have never challenged."

The Obama administration is asking the Supreme Court to hear its appeal of that decision and reverse the decision, allowing the program to go into effect.

If the justices decide to hear the case by mid-January, it is likely that the case will be heard this term, which would mean a decision would be expected by the end of June.

Read the petition:

Donald Trump said earlier this week that there would be “no choice” but to shut down some mosques and raised the possibility of registering Muslims.

After last week's terrorist attacks in Paris, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said he would be willing to shut down mosques where he said "some bad things are happening."

“Some bad things are happening, and a lot of them are happening in the mosques and you're going to have to do something,” Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Tuesday when asked about his call to shut down some mosques.

“Nobody wants to say this and nobody wants to shut down religious institutions or anything, but you know, you understand it. A lot of people understand it. We’re going to have no choice.”

Asked on Thursday night whether he would consider registering American Muslims, "There should be a lot of systems, beyond databases," he said. "We should have a lot of systems."

"I would certainly implement that," he said. "Absolutely."

Scott Olson / Getty Images

On CNBC Friday morning, former Florida Gov. Bush denounced Trump's remarks, saying that his calls were "manipulating people's angst and their fears."

"When you talk about internment, you talk about closing mosques, you talk about registering people, that's just wrong, I don’t care about campaigns,” Bush said.

Bush continued, “It’s not a question of toughness. It’s manipulating people’s angst and their fears. That’s not strength, that’s weakness.”

“I find it abhorrent that Donald Trump is suggesting we register people. That haunts to a time that no one wants to go back to,” Bush added later in the interview.

youtube.com / Via CNBC

On Thursday night, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio was asked about Trump's comments about shutting down mosques by Fox News' Megyn Kelly. Rubio said it was not just about mosques, but any place that inspires attacks against the United States.

“It’s not about closing down mosques. It’s about closing down anyplace, whether it’s a cafe, a diner, an internet site, anyplace where radicals are being inspired,” Rubio said.

“The bigger problem we have is our inability to find out where these places are, because we’ve crippled our intelligence programs, both through unauthorized disclosures by a traitor, in Edward Snowden, or by some of the things this president has put in place with the support even of some from my own party to diminish our intelligence capabilities.”

“So whatever facility is being used, it’s not just a mosque, any facility that’s being used to radicalize and inspire attacks against the United States, should be a place that we look at,” Rubio said.

youtube.com / Via Fox News

“But you know, while I was going on, he was going to a school in Indonesia, so his idea of America is entirely different than the idea that most Americans have of what we ought to be like, and he’s filling our country up with people that will continue to attack us.”

Darren Mccollester / Getty Images

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Republican Rep. Steve King, while discussing on Thursday the Obama administration's plan to admit 10,000 Syrian refugees next year, said President Obama is "filling our country up with people that will continue to attack us" and cited Obama's upbringing in Indonesia as giving him an entirely different idea of what America should be like.

"We just should remember that, when — where we grew up is — when we were in our grade school that's when the world was right and we tend to want to recreate that idyllic scene in our adulthood thinking that's the best thing for America. And in my case, it is. I grew up with 'Fun with Dick and Jane,'" said King on Boston Herald Radio. "Wonderful. But you know, while I was going on, he was going to a school in Indonesia, so his idea of America is entirely different than the idea that most Americans have of what we ought to be like, and he's filling our country up with people that will continue to attack us."

Earlier in the interview, King said that Obama was "feckless" and that his administration did not due its due diligence.

"We've got a feckless president that can't — we can't win a war without a commander-in-chief, we have a commander-in-chief that won't let us fight it, so we're vulnerable here in America and we're vulnerable because he has established a feckless administration that does not do their due diligence," King said.

King was asked if he thought ISIS terrorists would slip into the United States through the refugee resettlement program, in the context of a Department of Homeland Security inspector general report finding 73 TSA workers were on government terrorist watch lists.

"And when something like this pops up, if I'm running a shop like that we're gonna do all hands on deck and we're gonna fix that problem," continued King. "We'll purge everybody that we can identify that might even be in question and we'll start all over with a new security system. But he's got a different idea about what merits should be like."

The Iowa congressman added that bringing in refugees was like bringing in "needles" that are terrorists along with the hay. King also asserted the number of refugee was probably 200,000 not 10,000.

"And by the way, when I look at lists of those who have gone to work for ISIS out of America, there's at least 66 on that list. Some were refugees, many were immigrants to the United States, and most almost all of them — some of them came in at a very young age and were still radicalized so, background checks, it's just — it's a fallacy to believe that we can protect ourselves with background checks. It's a huge haystack of humanity that they're trying to bring into America. This 10,000, 100,000, 200,000 more likely, and in that haystack hay's benign, but there are needles in it that are terrorists. And they think they can sort them out, but of course they can't."

“Some people make threats and have no capacity to carry them out, but when you watch what happens in Paris, you have to say, these folks certainly have the intent and they do have a capacity.”

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

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Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine says that ISIS has the intent and capacity to strike the United States.

"The focus should be, I think there should be two focuses, protecting American lives. That's got to come first, and as we hear, they make a threat against D.C., they make a threat against New York," said the Virginia Democrat this week on the John Fredericks Show. "Some people make threats and have no capacity to carry them out, but when you watch what happens in Paris, you have to say, these folks certainly have the intent and they do have a capacity."

Kaine added the U.S. needs "to use military and non-military assets to protect American lives." Kaine also said that the ISIS threat was "born and bred" in the Middle East and regional nations need to stand up against the terrorist threat.

"We should help them and help them in targeted ways that we can, like airstrikes for example or some special forces, or some training," Kaine said. "We should be there with them."

Kaine said it would be a "recruiting bonanza" for ISIS if only the U.S. and the West takes them on.

"It's got to be the region against their own terrorist threat," he stated, adding that the focus of the U.S. should be on humanitarian help and supporting a regional force.

Chief Justice John Roberts

Paul J. Richards / AFP / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — In October 2014, the Supreme Court declined to hear appeals of any of the cases challenging state bans on same-sex couples' marriages.

The decision set off a chain reaction in the days that followed, increasing the number of states with marriage equality from 19 to 29. Further moves by the Supreme Court and decisions of lower courts increased the numbers even more. By time the Supreme Court actually heard a marriage case — appeals of the cases out of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, led by Obergefell v. Hodges — same-sex couples had married legally in thirty-eight states.

In a new article published at the Ohio State Law Journal Furthermore, I detail the process of how that happened, why it matters, and what role Chief Justice John Roberts likely played in making it happen.

“Had the Justices accepted cert.—which requires the vote of only four Justices—in one or more of the cases before it on October 6, 2014, it would have been reaching a decision expanding marriage equality to roughly sixty percent of the states,” I write. “Instead, its ruling [on June 26, 2015,] affirmed the right in roughly the final twenty-five percent of states still enforcing marriage bans at the time of the decision.”

The court did this “without considering a single case on the merits or issuing a single precedential decision” that would bind lower courts.

Although I discussed these issues in articles over the past year, this article raises an additional, key point: The decision to deny cert in October 2014 was made “with the support of at least one of the Justices who eventually dissented in Obergefell when that Justice (or those Justices) refused to provide a vote for cert. in October.”

Because Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas have, since October 2014, made it clear that they believe the court should have granted cert in the first batch of cases in October 2014, that leaves Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito — the other two dissenting justices to the Obergefell decision.

“Although Justice Alito could have refused to vote for cert., a far more likely candidate is Chief Justice Roberts — the man interested in protecting the Court itself,” I write, explaining how several assessments about Roberts’s tenure as chief justice note how — most notably in the Obamacare cases — he has shown himself “willing to consider the court’s institutional interests as part of his role on the court.”

While Roberts has faced significant scrutiny for his Obamacare votes, I find it to be striking that there has not been similar attention paid to the likelihood that Roberts prevented a more aggressive showdown over marriage equality by not voting to grant cert in any of the October 2014 marriage case cert petitions.

LINK: "Cert. Denied, Stays Denied, Marriage Equality Advanced"

“Here is what disgusts me, this is just, you know, early morning me here, but I thought what the president did earlier in his press conference was an absolute disgrace.”

Andrew Harnik / AP

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Republican Rep. Ann Wagner from Missouri said President Obama "stood up for ISIS" when he criticized Republicans for calling on the administration to stop accepting Syrian refugees.

"Here is what disgusts me, this is just, you know, early morning me here, but I thought what the president did earlier in his press conference was an absolute disgrace," the Wagner said on FM NewsTalk 97.1 on Friday.

In a press conference earlier this week, the president slammed Republicans calling on the administration to stop admitting Syrian refugees out of concerns for security, a position held by some Democrats as well.

"Apparently they are scared of widows and orphans coming into the United States of America," Obama said. "At first, they were too scared of the press being too tough on them in the debates. Now they are scared of 3-year-old orphans. That doesn't seem so tough to me." Obama singled out Republican rhetoric as a "potent recruitment tool for ISIL."

Wagner said Obama stood up for ISIS and went against "the side of freedom."

"He decided to pick a fight and stand up for ISIS and stand up against the side of freedom and to pick a fight with not just Republicans, but Democrats, over this refugee issue," she said. "It is a politicization. It is a deflecting measure."

Wagner added Obama should have left troops in Iraq, singling his failure to get a status of forces agreement with Iraq as a factor leading to the rise of ISIS.

Mark Kauzlarich / Reuters

DES MOINES, Iowa — About halfway through Friday night's Presidential Family Forum — a Republican candidate roundtable that featured seven 2016 contenders — the moderator lobbed a softball question toward Ben Carson.

"Is President Obama an armchair quarterback?" Frank Luntz asked, referring to what conservatives widely view as the administration's overly passive foreign policy.

"Are you asking me?" a momentarily confused Carson replied, which prompted friendly laughter to ripple across the ballroom of more than a thousand Iowa conservatives.

"Yes," Luntz said.

"Yes," Carson replied, "He is an armchair — an armchair quarterback."

This rhetorical regurgitation was greeted with a warm round of applause by many in the audience — not the loudest ovation of the night, but probably the most easily won. They may not have all been Carson 2016 supporters, but there was little doubt that this was a roomful of Carson fans.

Indeed, even as the candidate has begun to slide recently in national polls amid brutal media coverage and questions about his grasp of foreign policy, the gentle neurosurgeon has remained remarkably popular, with huge majorities of Republican voters reporting favorable impressions of him. And while there hasn't yet been enough polling to measure how the recent terrorist attacks in Paris might effect Carson's standing in this first-in-the-nation caucus state, voters interviewed Friday often seemed torn between wanting to support him, and doubting whether he is up to the job.

Asked which candidate most impressed her after the forum concluded, Jan Swinton — who traveled two hours from the southern Iowa town of Fairfield to see the contenders live — enthusiastically rattled off the names of several Republicans. She was dazzled by Marco Rubio's confident command of the issues; attracted by Carly Fiorina's eloquence; struck by Ted Cruz's nerve.

What about Carson?

Swinton emitted a reluctant chuckle, and then sighed wistfully. "I really like Ben," she said. "He's really smart." She thought for a moment, and then offered up another virtue. "If you read his stuff, it's the best stuff." But? "When you see him in person he just doesn't bring it on. I don't think he's gonna be quick enough and firm enough ... He's a nice guy, but I don't know if he can be president."

Mike Crook, from the nearby suburb of Urbandale, said he had donated to Carson's campaign, and he eagerly praised the quality of the candidate's character.

"He's very down to earth. He relates to people. He's been through so much. He knows what it's like to live in poverty, he knows what it's like to live in abundance," Crook said, adding, "I've never seen him think like, 'I've got to be the president!' He just prays about it, and if he's the one, great."

But Crook himself isn't sure anymore whether Carson is "the one." He said he was interested in Cruz now, and he gently suggested that he'd like to see Carson demonstrate a firmer understanding of international issues. In the last Republican debate, Carson mistakenly suggested that China's military had become involved in Syria — one of several flubs that led to one of his own advisers conceding to the New York Times this week that the candidate has struggled to master the complexities of the Middle East.

"It matters to me that he knows foreign policy, for sure," Crook said, hastening to add, "but his integrity's above any politician that I know of on both sides of the aisle."

This current of loyalty to Carson seemed to course through the crowd here Friday. Even voters aligned with one of his rivals were protective of him, believing that the mainstream media had subjected his inspirational life story to nitpicky vetting, and that liberals were unfairly targeting him because they were threatened by the idea of a black candidate winning the Republican nomination.

If this electoral dynamic holds, it could give Carson a unique opening for another surge. As opposed to most of his opponents — who must scrap for every vote and favorability point in the primary popularity contest — Carson has many voters who are actively looking for an excuse to support him.

A student from Iowa State University who attended the forum said Carson held special appeal among the college Republicans he knew, who were disillusioned with Washington and wanted an "outsider," but found Donald Trump's alpha-male schtick to be over-the-top and dated.

Still, the student (who requested anonymity so as not to complicate a family member's job in politics) said his classmates weren't sold on Carson.

"They see how likable he is. They love his story, and everything that he's about, and what he's been through. And they want so badly to think he would be a great president," the student said. "And he might very well be. But I feel like ... he's falling short."

“I denounced many of his ideas, including the idea of some sort of federal deportation force, that’s he gonna put together.”

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Former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore called real estate mogul and Republican frontrunner Donald Trump a fascist on Friday for his ideas on immigration.

"I denounced many of his ideas, including the idea of some sort of federal deportation force, that's he gonna put together. Some sort of local, domestic organization that's gonna root people out," Gilmore said on NewsMaxTV. "I just don't agree with that kind of thing. I've said it's fascist talk."

"This not a serious candidate for president, I don't what he's showing the polls," he added.

Trump has said he would deport undocumented immigrants in the country using a "deportation force."

Gilmore, who is still running for president, is not registering in presidential polls. Trump leads the field with just under 25% in the Real Clear Politics polling average.

CHRIS KEANE / Reuters

COLUMBIA, South Carolina — On the campus of Allen University, a small HBCU downtown here, Bernie Sanders gave a crowd at a criminal justice advocacy summit a lesson in the obvious: It’s not going well for him in the fourth state on the Democratic primary calendar.

But, Sanders said, there’s still time.

“We are going to do well in South Carolina, but we’re not doing well right now,” Sanders said. “I’m the first to admit it.”

Sanders’s view of the state of the race overall was a significantly rosier picture.

“Based on the last poll we saw in New Hampshire, we are ahead by a little bit,” Sanders said at Allen University. “We are probably behind by Iowa today, but not by much. And we’re going to do well in Nevada.”

South Carolina remains Sanders’s biggest challenge.

Polling averages show Sanders down nearly 53 points to Hillary Clinton in South Carolina, a huge gap that has widened in recent weeks. The Sanders team has said from the beginning that he has an uphill climb with minority voters — the black electorate is seen as the key to the Palmetto — and in a pre-Thanksgiving swing through the south this weekend, Sanders tried to boost his appeal with speeches focused on criminal justice and voting rights.

As he has throughout his campaign, he chalked up his lack of support among black voters to a low name ID.

“My guess is probably 80 to 90% of the people in South Carolina did not know who the junior senator from Vermont was,” Sanders said at Allen University. “Is that a fair statement? So we started nationally at 3%. We’re running against one of the best-known, in the world, one of the best-known.”

National polls don’t look great for Sanders either. The Real Clear Politics average, which aggregates public polls, shows Sanders running more than 20 points behind Clinton, a gap that has remained fairly steady since the start of debate season. That number doesn’t mean a lot — given that Democratic primary voters in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada are the ones that really count — but Sanders said there was a message in them for people worried about his candidacy.

“I think the first poll had me at 3% nationally,” Sanders told reporters in Columbia. “We’ve come a long way.”

Sanders is working hard to win the black vote, spending big money in South Carolina on a sophisticated operation that includes paid canvassers and a new radio spot that his campaign told reporters “highlight[s] his participation in the March on Washington with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and repeated calls to end racial profiling and mass incarceration.”

The ad is narrated by the actor Reg E. Cathey, who currently plays Freddie Hayes, the barbecue joint owner in the Netflix show House Of Cards. Cathey accompanied Sanders on his South Carolina swing Saturday.

On Monday, Sanders will hold one of his trademark large rallies in Atlanta. Standing with him will be the rapper Killer Mike, who endorsed Sanders in July after Sanders promised to fight voter ID laws. At Allen University, a small Columbia HBCU, Sanders told a young black woman that forcing changes in tactics on police departments aimed at reducing the use of force would be a “a major priority of a Sanders administration.”

But Sanders has been actively trying to build support in the black community since the start of his campaign, when he was interrupted by Black Lives Matter protesters at Netroots in June. A recent poll of South Carolina showed Sanders still has a wide gap with Clinton among black voters.

Sanders went so far as to say he could win South Carolina, though he said the victory would come as a surprise to many.

"I think we're going to shock some people on Election Day, because I think we're going to win here," Sanders told a crowd in Columbia moments after officially filing the paperwork to be a candidate on the Democratic primary ballot.

He was more even more direct about his current chances at his first stop of the day, a Democratic party rally in Charleston.

“If the election were held today, I would lose,” Sanders said. “Fortunately for us, the election is not being held today.”

At least six people at a Trump rally in Birmingham, Alabama, reportedly punched and kicked a man who shouted “black lives matter.” The man was later escorted out of the rally.

Donald Trump speaks in Birmingham, Alabama, on Saturday.

Eric Schultz / AP

A black protester reportedly was tackled, punched, and kicked Saturday during a Donald Trump rally in Birmingham, Alabama.

The incident was recorded by CNN reporter Jeremy Diamond. In the video, an altercation in the middle of a crowd is visible.

CNN later reported that at least six white attendees at the rally punched, kicked, and tackled the protester, who appeared to have shouted "black lives matter."

According to Stephon Dingle, a reporter for WIAT, the protester also yelled "dump Trump" before the incident began.

During the altercation, Trump reportedly stopped his speech to say "get him the hell out of here." Law enforcement then escorted the protester out of the building, which Dingle recorded.

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Lee Celano / Reuters

NEW ORLEANS — Republican Senator David Vitter, who has survived more than a decade of stories about his relations with prostitutes, finally saw them catch up to him Saturday night, losing badly in the race for Louisiana governor.

Louisiana House Minority Leader John Bel Edwards Saturday hung on to his weeks-long lead, despite a last minute attempt by Vitter to turn the wild campaign into a referendum on Syrian refugees — and on thin claims of danger from a "missing" refugee.

Edwards, a Democrat, will succeed Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal, who leaves office in January following a failed presidential bid. And Vitter will resign at the end of his Senate term, he said Saturday night.

Although the governor’s mansion should have been Vitter’s for the taking, a tighter than expected primary race and Edwards’s successful use of Vitter’s scandal-stained past resulted in the Democrat leading in most polls — sometimes significantly — for weeks before Saturday’s run-off election.

Saturday’s election marks the likely end of Vitter’s nearly three-decade political career.

Elected to the House in 1999 to replace Rep. Bob Livingston — who was forced from office after revelations of an affair surfaced — Vitter quickly made a name for himself as one of the right’s most strident social warriors and in 2004, he won election to the Senate.

Things took a turn for Vitter just three years later, however, when a powerful madam in Washington, D.C., identified him as a client.

Although Vitter's awkward 2007 acknowledgement at a press conference that he had hired a prostitute — who allegedly shared his wife’s first name — should have quickly put an end to his career, Vitter survived.

In what became known in political circles as the Vitter Rule, rather than embarking on a “healing tour” or “business-as-usual approach” like so many scandal-tarred politicians, the Louisiana Republican opted instead to essentially disappear.

For months Vitter could not be found on Capitol Hill, and on the rare occasions when reporters spotted him, he would ignore any and all questions.

After his self-imposed exile, Vitter slowly began to reemerge into the public light, attending hearings, giving floor speeches and, ultimately, giving a press conference. And while he was initially dogged by questions about his involvement with prostitutes, they quickly faded in the unyielding stonewall silence from Vitter.

And Vitter survived again, overcoming a Democratic challenge in 2010 and providing a model for future lawmakers who would find themselves in similarly difficult situations.

Coming into this year’s governor election, Vitter seemed to be the odds-on favorite to succeed the deeply unpopular Jindal. But Republican observers say Vitter miscalculated not only his popularity with voters, but the political acumen of Edwards.

Rather than shy away from Vitter’s scandal — as Democrats did during his 2010 re-election bid — Edwards and his outside allies used virtually any chance to highlight it. In many ways it became the centerpiece of the attacks on Vitter, who at first sought to ignore it altogether. But even when he addressed the issue, he was never able to put it behind him.

An added, and certainly unwelcome, complication for Vitter was Jindal, who had spent almost his entire second term as governor operating an ultimately futile presidential campaign. Jindal is one of the most unpopular governors in the country — something that has hurt the GOP’s brand in Louisiana, despite the state's conservative leaning.

But perhaps even more than his unpopularity, Vitter was hurt in the closing days of the election by Jindal himself. Longtime rivals, Jindal seemed to wage a last minute campaign of his own to sabotage Vitter.

CHRIS KEANE / Reuters

ORANGEBURG, South Carolina — Bernie Sanders alleged that CBS once canceled an interview with him — because Monsanto, the agricultural tech giant, had threatened to sue the network.

During a town hall event here on Saturday night, a voter asked Sanders about Monsanto. Questions about agribusiness and genetically-modified food are not unusual at Sanders events, but on Saturday night the Vermont senator claimed his criticism of the industry and Monsanto's objection caused CBS to cancel an interview:

Monsanto is a very, very powerful corporation. They are one of the leaders in food technology and basically working hard to transform our food system. Let me tell you a funny story, or not so funny. In my state, a great dairy state, we have a lot of dairy cows. There was an effort to put what was called BGH, bovine growth hormone, which is a stimulant that makes cows produce cows more milk but is unhealthy. I was against that.

I'll never forget this. I was invited by CBS, not a small company, to appear on television to talk about why I was opposed to bovine growth hormone. CBS then called me up and said, 'Well, Monsanto is threatening to sue us, so we can't go on with it.' They are very powerful.

Asked when this incident took place or for other details about the incident, Sanders campaign aides did not immediately offer any further information on Sanders's recollection.

Eric Schultz / AP

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump this weekend said he observed "thousands and thousands" of Arab Americans in New Jersey "cheering as the World Trade Center came down" on 9/11.

“Hey, I watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down," Trump told a rally in Birmingham, Alabama, on Saturday evening. "And I watched in Jersey City, New Jersey, where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down. Thousands of people were cheering. So something’s going on. We’ve got to find out what it is.”

Speaking by phone with George Stephanopoulos on ABC's This Week program on Sunday morning, Trump doubled down on the comments:

TRUMP: It did happen. I saw it.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You saw that?

TRUMP: It was on television. I saw it.

STEPHANOPOULOS: With your own eyes?

TRUMP: George, it did happen.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Police say it didn't happen.

TRUMP: There were people that were cheering on the other side of New Jersey where you have large Arab populations. They were cheering as the World Trade Center came down. I know it might be not politically correct for you to talk about it, but there were people cheering as that building came down — as those buildings came down, and that tells you something. It was well covered at the time, George. Now, I know they don't like to talk about it, but it was well covered at the time. There were people over in New Jersey that were watching it, a heavy Arab population that were cheering as the buildings came down. Not good.

Footage was screened of some Muslims cheering in the Middle East on September 11, 2001, but internet rumors about Muslims in New Jersey cheering as the Twin Towers fell were debunked by local police at the time, according to the New York Times and ABC News.

Hope Hicks, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign, did not immediately return a request for more information on the source for the candidate's claims.

Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, a Democrat, wrote on Twitter that Trump's claims were "absurd."

George Pataki, another Republican contender who served as NY Governor at the time of the attacks, also condemned the comments:

Ibrahim Hooper, national communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, told BuzzFeed News Trump was "either mistaken or he's lying."

"This has been one of these vile memes on the anti-Islam hate sites for some time, but there's actually no evidence to support it whatsoever," Hooper said. "And it'd be interesting if he personally saw it. That would be quite interesting since it didn't happen."

"You could understand somebody making a mistake of fact the first time, but the second time where he restates it and expands on it, it sends the message that he doesn't actually care whether it's true or not as long as it panders to the worst or lowest common denominator of his supporters," Hooper said.

In a statement to BuzzFeed News, the Anti-Defamation League, an international NGO that monitors anti-Semitism, said: “It is unfortunate that Donald Trump is giving new life to long-debunked conspiracy theories about 9/11.”

Eric Schultz / AP

On Sunday evening, New Jersey Gov. Chris Chistie was also asked by reporters about Trump's comments:

CHRIS CHRISTIE: I don’t recall that. I don’t. I mean, listen, I can’t say, Matt, I can’t say that I have – it was a pretty emotional time for me because, as I’ve mentioned before, there’s family involved, there’s friends involved and so it was a pretty harrowing time. I do not remember that. And so, it’s not something that was part of my recollection. I think if it had happened, I would remember it. But, you know, there could be things I forget, too. I don’t remember that. No.

During his ABC interview, Trump also said he was "not at all" backing away from comments he had made about establishing a database for Muslims in America, although he later said he was referring specifically to refugees.

"We have no idea who these people are," he said. "When the Syrian refugees are going to start pouring into this country, we don't know if they're ISIS, we don't know if it's a Trojan horse and I definitely want a database and other checks and balances."

More than half of U.S. governors have said they are opposed to accepting refugees from Syria after the Paris attacks, which were claimed by ISIS.

"It's probably not, but it could be the great Trojan horse of all time," Trump said of the Obama administration's plans to resettle 10,000 Syrian refugees in the U.S. in the next year.

Federal officials have repeatedly underscored the extensive, years-long security vetting refugees must undergo to win asylum in the United States.

LINK: Here’s The Hateful History Of Falsely Accusing U.S. Muslims Of Celebrating On 9/11

LINK: Anti-Defamation League Condemns Trump For False Claims About U.S. Arabs Cheering 9/11