The Latest: Trump says he would've kept out 9/11 hijackers

WASHINGTON  — Here's the latest on the presidential candidates' comments on the yesterday talk shows. All times Eastern.

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9:30 a.m.

Donald Trump says that had he been president, the Sept. 11 hijackers likely would not have gotten into the US in the first place.

The billionaire developer is leading most polls for the GOP presidential nomination and says on "Fox News yesterday" that if he were "running things...there's a good chance that those people would not have been in our country."

All but one of the 19 men who hijacked planes and flew them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania legally entered the country on business or tourist visas. One entered on a student visa but did not show up to class.

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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.