Political analyst Dick Morris tells
Newsmax TV that President Barack Obama left out one important issue during his Sunday night address on terrorism: refugees.
"Not a word about it," Morris said Monday on "Newsmax Now." "These terrorists didn't just show up in the United States by active magic. And while some of them may be homegrown, they get their training and everything else from ISIS [the Islamic State] and the couple in question that perpetrated the San Bernardino horror, had been in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. You could close down this issue by effective immigration policy. He talked about everything under the sun but that."
Appearing on "Newsmax Prime," Morris also criticized Obama for saying the United States would not use ground troops in the fight against ISIS.
"I thought the most significant error in Obama's speech last night was when he basically said, 'We will fight this to the limit, unless it requires ground troops,'" Morris said. "And the president should be saying, 'We'll get the job done whatever it takes, ground troops being the last resort.' Obama didn't say that."
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Expect Republican presidential candidates to go into next week's debate focusing on the issue, he said.
"Cruz's effort is to try to catch Rubio on the wrong side of immigration because of his sponsorship of the Schumer-Rubio bill that provided for amnesty from the Gang of 8," Morris said. "Rubio is countering by trying to portray Cruz's vote in favor of reining in the NSA and having communications stored at the phone company, not in the government, as handicapping the government's ability to track down terrorists."
But Cruz essentially has Rubio trapped on the wrong side of immigration, a major concern with Republican voters, Morris said. "Not only is it what it's always been, a demographic and political issue, but now it's an overwhelming national security issue."
On "Newsmax Now," Morris said Cruz may end up winning Iowa, and will probably pick up voters from neurosurgeon Ben Carson, whose star is fading amid his apparent lack of knowledge on foreign policy.
"People are turning off Carson because they don't think he'd be strong enough to cope with ISIS, and they're right," Morris said. "He'd have to learn the difference between hummus and Hamas, to start. You eat one, you get eaten by the other."
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