Trump still in lead but Republican race becomes tighter

US Republican presidential front- runner Donald Trump faces a tough test today when the party's key primaries will be held in four states of Hawaii, Idaho, Michigan and Mississippi as the gap between him and his rivals has narrowed.
The four State primary is considered to be decisive for the Republican front-runner as an impressive show would put him on the path of commanding lead.
A series of polls released yesterday indicated that 69-year-old real estate tycoon is loosing the momentum in some of the key States like Michigan and Florida.
Though still in the lead, the popularity gap between him and his other rivals have narrowed down considerably.

For instance, the gap between him and Marco Rubio has come down from a 20 point to juts eight points now.
Meanwhile, Rubio strongly refuted reports that he is dropping out of the race.

In Florida, Trump launched a advertisement campaign against Rubio.
"Lightweight Senator Marco Rubio is a dishonest person. He has cheated with credit cards, and does favours for lobbyists. In my opinion, he is a total crook and I am doing the people of Florida a great favour by further exposing him," Trump said in a statement.
"In addition to everything else, he is an absentee Senator with one of the worst voting records in the history of the United States Senate, instead preferring to spend his time begging for campaign contributions," he said.

In a related development, Paul Ryan, Speaker of the US House of Representatives, called both Trump and Senator Ted Cruz to discuss with them the party's agenda.
This was part of his effort to efforts to craft a bold, election-year agenda, his aid said.
The Politico reported that the Trump campaign has introduced new security measures in view of the increasing frequency of protesters at his rallies.
This includes having security personnel in plain cloths.
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"We have a divided country. We have a country where you have Hillary Clinton with her e-mails that nobody's ever seen where she deletes 33,000 e-mails, and that's after getting a subpoena from Congress. If you do that in private business, you get thrown in jail," Trump said.

On his plans to defeat ISIS, Trump said the generals under Obama and Clinton have not been successful.
"I think under the leadership of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the generals have been reduced to rubble. They have been reduced to a point where it's embarrassing for our country," he said.
When asked what his plan is to defeat ISIS, Trump said he will not disclose his plan just like Obama does.
"I have a plan. I don't want to broadcast to the enemy exactly what my plan is. If I like maybe a combination of my plan and the generals' plan, or the generals' plan, if I like their plan, I'm not going to call you up and say, 'Matt, we have a great plan'. This is what Obama does. We're going to leave Iraq on a certain day," Trump said.

Part of the problem plaguing the US is that it goes to war and "then we don't know what we're doing after that, he said.
"We lose it, like as an example, you look at Iraq, what happened, how badly that was handled. And then when President Obama took over, likewise, it was a disaster. It was actually somewhat stable. I don't think could ever be very stable to where we should have never gone into in the first place.
"But he came in. He said when we go out, and he took everybody out. And really, ISIS was formed. This was a terrible decision. And frankly, we never even got a shot. And if you really look at the aftermath of Iraq, Iran is going to be taking over Iraq. They've been doing it. And it's not a pretty picture," Trump said.

He suggested that if the US was going to get out of Iraq, it should take the oil with it.
"If we would have taken the oil, you wouldn't have ISIS, because ISIS formed with the power and the wealth of that oil," Trump said.
When asked how the US could take the oil, he said, "just we would leave a certain group behind and you would take various sections where they have the oil. They have, people don't know this about Iraq, but they have among the largest oil reserves in the world, in the entire world".
Trump was also asked about the two intelligence briefings he received and whether there was anything in the briefing that shocked or alarmed him.

"Yes. Very much so. I have great respect for the people that gave us the briefings. They were experts on Iraq and Iran and different parts of - and Russia. But, yes, there was one thing that shocked me. And it just seems to me that what they said President Obama and Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, who is another total disaster, did exactly the opposite.
"What I did learn (from the briefing) is that our leadership, Barack Obama, did not follow what our experts and our truly - when they call it intelligence, it's there for a reason - what our experts said to do," Trump added.