GOP 2016 candidates: Paris attacks sharpen national security issue

ORLANDO — Republican presidential candidates moved quickly this weekend to put national security at the top of their campaign agendas in the wake of the Paris terrorist attacks.

From social media to radio and television interviews to speeches at a forum of Florida Republicans, GOP White House hopefuls used the Paris attacks to assail President Obama and former secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as well as the nation's immigration and refugee policies.

"We have leadership who doesn't know what they're doing," said businessman Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner, who addressed a rally Saturday in Beaumont, Texas.

Candidates said Obama lacks a strategy for fighting the Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for the Paris attacks that killed at least 129 people. Some in the GOP field also questioned plans to allow refugees from war-torn Syria into the United States, saying Islamic State terrorists might try to sneak into the country that way.

"If I were one of the leaders of the global jihadist movement, and I didn't infiltrate that group of people with my people, that would be almost malpractice," retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson told reporters shortly after the attacks on Friday.

Echoing those criticisms, Sen. Ted Cruz told Fox News on Saturday that the Islamic State "plans to bring these acts of terror to America."

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said that, in light of Paris, "we must increase our efforts at home and abroad to improve our defenses, destroy terrorist networks and deprive them of the space from which to operate."

Another Floridian, former governor Jeb Bush, told radio host Hugh Hewitt that "this is the war of our time, and we have to be serious in engaging and creating a strategy to confront it and take it out."

The specter of the Paris attacks also dominated the Saturday session of the Florida Sunshine Summit, a meeting of state activists that heard from other candidates before the attacks took place late Friday.

Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum said Obama helped create the Islamic State by withdrawing from Iraq too early. (Democrats have said it was the 2003 invasion of Iraq, under the Republican administration of George W. Bush, that gave rise to the Islamic State.)

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, noting that France closed its borders right after the attacks, said "it's time for us to close our borders and keep ourselves safe from these evil, terrible terrorists." Rand Paul, a senator from Kentucky, told the gathering of Florida Republicans that "extensive scrutiny" should be given to anyone coming into the United States for any reason.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said the "the bumbling foreign policy" of Obama and Clinton — now the front-runner for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination — "has put this country at risk as it has not been since 9/11."

Also speaking to the Florida crowd, Ohio Gov. John Kasich said that "today is a much different day" after Paris, and that the United States has not shown "leadership" in the fight against terrorism. Kasich said the U.S. and allies should organize "joint military action" to destroy the Islamic State.

Businesswoman Carly Fiorina told attendees at the summit that she is "angry" and "heartsick" over the carnage in Paris, as well as what she called the Obama administration's mishandling of foreign policy. "We cannot be the world's policeman, but we must be the world's leader," she said.

In the hours since the attacks, Republicans criticized Obama for saying that the Islamic State — also known as ISIL — is being "contained" within areas of Iraq and Syria.

In the interview with ABC News conducted before the Paris attacks, Obama said Islamic State militants "have not gained ground in Iraq. And in Syria ... they'll come in, they'll leave. But you don't see this systematic march by ISIL across the terrain."

Obama, who held a meeting of his National Security Council on Saturday, said after the attacks that the United States is working with France and other allies "to bring these terrorists to justice, and to go after any terrorist networks that go after our people."

The Paris attacks and national security could become significant issues in the 2016 campaign, analysts said, especially if there are additional attacks in other cities — or in the United States itself.

"Fear is the biggest driver in politics," said Susan MacManus, a political science professor at the University of South Florida. "Right now, people have economic anxiety and personal safety concerns."

Republicans who stress national security are likely to find a receptive audience. Max Abrahms, a political science professor at Northeastern University, said that, "in general, terrorism tends to move the American electorate to the right."

He added: "The greater the terrorist threat, the more that tends to favor the Republicans."

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MORE COVERAGE OF THE PARIS ATTACKS: