Radical Islamic terrorists and those who fund it remain a credible threat to America and a clear and present danger to democracy.
Politicians differ in their views whether Russia or Islamic State is a bigger menace, and I personally think that Islamic State is the bigger threat.
Our leaders do us no service when they fail to recognize that the threat the so-called Islamic State and its allied terrorists represent is a civilizational, not a geopolitical, conflict and can only be understood through that lens.
If we pulled out of Iraq tomorrow, Islamic jihadism is on the rise. And they continue, as we see in Lebanon, to seek to destroy the State of Israel and seek to drive America back and bring us to our knees. We must stand tall and straight.
We have to realize that ISIS and Islamic terrorists are not only a threat to America. They are a threat to all of Western society.
You cannot defeat Islamic State with airstrikes only. It's necessary to cooperate with ground troops, and the Syrian army is the most efficient and powerful ground force to fight the Islamic State.
My reading of the threat from Iran is that if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, it is an existential threat to the State of Israel and to other countries in the region because the other countries in the region will feel compelling requirement to acquire nuclear weapons as well. Now we cannot a second Holocaust.
We cannot continue to allow immigrants to come here illegally. And in this age of terrorism, we must not let in refugees whose intentions cannot be determined.
I cannot allow state government to continue to be consumed by this game of political 'gotcha.'
Admitting hundreds of thousands of infiltrators is an existential threat to the State of Israel.
The self-proclaimed Islamic State cannot tolerate diversity, which is why we must celebrate it.
America was founded by men who understood that the threat of domestic tyranny is as great as any threat from abroad. If we want to be worthy of their legacy, we must resist the rush toward ever-increasing state control of our society. Otherwise, our own government will become a greater threat to our freedoms than any foreign terrorist.
That's precisely what I did. Let's not forget Raqqa is not the first capital of the Islamic State. The first capital of the Islamic State when it was called the Islamic State was the Iraqi city of Ramadi. And the only way I was able to access that city was by going in with American marines and soldiers who were desperately fighting for their lives.
Terrorism is really the only existential threat to America as we know it - as a free country that plays a leading role in the world.
We cannot allow a beachhead of terrorism to form inside America. We cannot allow our nation to become a sanctuary for extremists.
My assessment is that we have a crisis in national political leadership. When will America recognize the danger we face? When will the corrosive partisanship of American politics end and allow for a bipartisan solution to arguably the most dangerous threat our nation has faced in over 60 years?