WASHINGTON (AP) – Here’s the latest on the presidential candidates’ comments on the Sunday talk shows. All times Eastern.
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9:15 a.m.
Republican presidential hopeful Ben Carson says he doesn’t think any of the Democratic candidates would be tough opponents for him to beat in the general election.
The retired neurosurgeon would first have to win the crowded race for the GOP nomination, and currently he’s behind billionaire businessman Donald Trump. But Carson says on ABC’s “This Week” that the election will essentially be about, “whether we want a nation where the government is in control or a nation where the people are in control.” And that, he says, would make him the clear choice no matter the Democratic opponent.
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9:00 a.m.
Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz says it’s better for the United States if strongmen like the late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi (MOO’-ah-mar gah-DAH’-fee) were still in power.
The Texas senator says on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Gaddafi and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak (HOHS’-nee moo-BAH’-rahk) were better allies than the extremists in power in those countries now.
He would not say, however, whether Iraq was better off led by the late Saddam Hussein, who was toppled by President George W. Bush’s administration in 2003 and executed three years later.
Gadhafi was killed in a battle in 2011.