Despite all the brickbats thrown at him by critics far and wide, Donald Trump not only continues to lead the race for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination but is actually pulling away from the rest of the pack.
On Monday, his support skyrocketed to 41 percent among primary voters nationwide, leading by a whopping 27 points his nearest rival, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who received 14 percent. Placing third in the Monmouth University poll conducted Dec. 10 through Dec. 13 is Florida Sen. Marco Rubio at 10 percent, WND reported.
Monmouth's poll was conducted by telephone with 385 registered voters who identify as Republicans or independents who lean toward the Republican Party. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.
"Looks like we just broke another polling ceiling. While the establishment schemes to nominate someone they control – the voters are clearly indicating that they want someone who will fix the broken political system in D.C.," Trump wrote on Facebook Monday. "Thank you for your support! We will MakeAmericaGreatAgain!"
Pundits atribute Trump's surging support to his forceful response to the Islamic terror attacks on Dec. 2 in San Bernardino, California.
Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute in West Long Branch, New Jersey, said Trump "is giving his supporters exactly what they want, even if what he says causes the GOP leadership and many Republican voters to cringe."
However, despite Trump's massive lead nationwide, the billionaire businessman is trailing Cruz in the early caucus state of Iowa. A Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics poll released over the weekend showed Cruz leading in Iowa at 31 percent compared with Trump at 21 percent.
The two top Republican candidates are expected to slug it out on Tuesday night when CNN hosts the fifth and final GOP presidential debate of 2015.
A Trump versus Cruz battle for the Republican presidential nomination could be the GOP establishment's "worst nightmare," according to WND. Both candidates, according to sources, do not have the support of party leaders. They consider Trump as a "powerful anti-establishment billionaire threatening a possible third-party run" while they regard Cruz as a "conservative Washington 'bad boy' known for his scathing criticism of the party and its leaders," WND reported.
Ban on Muslim immigrants could be legal — experts
Meanwhile, Trump's proposed ban on Muslim immigrants could be legal after all, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Although the proposal may seem unconstitutional because it discriminates against a class of people based on religion and punishes even those who have done nothing wrong, legal scholars say it could actually be done without violating the law.
The legal experts said this is because federal law and the courts have long given Congress and the president nearly unchecked power to bar foreigners from entering the country.
"Whenever the president finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he deems necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens," according to the federal Immigration and Nationality Act.
Moreover, non-citizens who live outside the U.S. usually cannot invoke rights protected by the Constitution, they pointed out.
Moreover, the Supreme Court throughout history has steadily upheld the federal government's so-called "plenary power" over immigration.
For instance, in 1889, the justices upheld the Chinese Exclusion Act, which kept out Chinese labourers and declared that the "power of exclusion of foreigners" was a "part of the sovereign powers delegated to" the federal government. That decision remains on the books, the LA Times reported.
