What I believe is important is that we win the battle of ideas.

One of the most troubling aspects of the Rubio-Schumer Gang of Eight Bill was that it gave President [Barack] Obama blanket authority to admit refugees, including Syrian refugees without mandating any background checks whatsoever. Now we've seen what happened in San Bernardino. When you are letting people in, when the FBI can't vet them, it puts American citizens at risk.

Liberty is never safer than when politicans are terrified.

If the Republican Party stands for individual liberty, if we defend the Bill of Rights, if we stand for keeping this country safe, then we deserve to win, and if we don't, we deserve to lose. It shouldn't be - it's not just a game of blue team/red team. It is actually about making a difference in people's lives.

I appreciate the good work that senators in both parties have put into trying to fix our broken immigration system. There are some good elements in this proposal, especially increasing the resources and manpower to secure our border and also improving and streamlining legal immigration. However, I have deep concerns with the proposed path to citizenship. To allow those who came here illegally to be placed on such a path is both inconsistent with rule of law and profoundly unfair to the millions of legal immigrants who waited years, if not decades, to come to America legally.

I believe in a America first foreign policy, that far too often President [Barack] Obama and Hillary Clinton - and, unfortunately, more than a few Republicans - have gotten distracted from the central focus of keeping this country safe.

I think data is incredibly powerful for understanding what people are thinking and for allocating resources.