Donald Trump will face Hillary Clinton

Donald Trump's general election prediction: He'll face Hillary Clinton, and the two will bring out "the greatest turnout in history."

"Frankly, if she gets indicted, that's the only way she's going to be stopped. I think it's going to be Hillary and myself," the Republican real estate mogul said Sunday in an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union."

Trump's comments came the morning after he cruised to victory in South Carolina's primary -- giving him two wins and one second-place finish in the first three GOP contests.

Trump said he expects to win enough delegates to clinch the Republican nomination before the party's convention in July.

"I don't think we're going to have a convention, a brokered convention. I think it's unlikely. I think I'm doing better than that," he said.

He laid out his own road map to general election victory, pinpointing two states -- Michigan and New York -- that he said he'd sweep into the Republican column.

"I'll win states that aren't in play. I'll win states that Republicans don't even think of," Trump said.

And he predicted he'd earn a "tremendous amount" of support from African-Americans.

"I'm going to do great with the African-Americans. African-American youth is 58% unemployed. African-Americans in their prime are substantially worse off than the whites in their prime, and it's a very sad situation," he said.

For Trump, Saturday's South Carolina victory was an important one in stunting challenges from top-tier rivals like Texas Sen. Ted Cruz -- but also because it knocked his foil, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, out of the race.

Trump didn't mention Bush in his victory speech Saturday night, and he noted the attacks that Bush and his allies had launched against Trump on Sunday.

"He's a good person, he's a good man, but he really hit me with a lot of commercials," Trump said.

Still, Trump offered some praise to Bush, saying he "fought very hard" and could have defeated Mitt Romney for the GOP nomination in 2012.

"It was really just not his time. You know, four years ago, I think he would have won," Trump said, adding: "But this was not really his time."

Trump acknowledged he could still lose the GOP nominating contest -- "certainly nobody's unstoppable," he said -- and launched another broadside at establishment politics, saying that "the day I decided to run, which was June 16, I became an outsider."

He even broached the subject of the military-industrial complex in lamenting the way Washington operates.

"The drug companies control the drug industry, I mean it's ridiculous, and the military companies -- I mean it's ridiculous," Trump said.

And he explained away a moment in Thursday night's CNN town hall in South Carolina in which he seemed to suggest he supports the individual health insurance mandate included in President Barack Obama's health care law.

"We were talking over each other, and it wasn't Anderson's fault," Trump said of CNN's Anderson Cooper, who was the moderator. "There's no mandate, no mandatory anything. We're gonna end Obamacare, we're gonna terminate it. It's going to be repealed and it's going to be replaced by something much better."

Still, he expressed his support for at least some forms of government-provided health care.

"People are not going to die on the streets of any city or of any place if I'm president," Trump said. "And every time I say it, I get standing ovations from Republicans. ... We have to take care of people."

In an interview on CBS' "Face the Nation," Trump also defended his foreign policy credentials, saying other Republicans could "start World War III over Syria."

He said he has "great knowledge for the military and I have better vision for Syria than a lot of the so-called 'great military geniuses' that are saying how to fight the War with Syria."

"And in my opinion, they're doing just the opposite. I mean, are we going to start World War III over Syria?" he said. "Are we going to be there for the next 40 years? We've been there for 15 years in the Middle East and much more than that, probably."

Trump also defended his attacks on Ted Cruz's Christianity -- particularly after Trump criticized Pope Francis for questioning his own faith over his proposal to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

"I'm not questioning his Christianity, I just think it's inappropriate to hold up the Bible and lie," Trump said of Cruz.

Trump has promised to release his tax returns -- but he won't put a timetable on when those will come.

On ABC's "This Week," he said he won't release them by the March 1 "Super Tuesday" set of contests.

"No, no, no, I won't. I'm working on it. We're working on, they're massive," he said.

Asked of they'll come before he's the Republican nominee, Trump said "at some point" he'd release them.

"There's no rush," he said. "Why is there such a rush? I'm supposed to rush like crazy?"

Trump added: "By the way, I released my financial statements which are much more important. I released my financial statements and everybody was amazed at how big and how great the company is, much bigger than they thought and it's a great company. Very little debt, tremendous cash flow, some of the best assets in the world."

Tight Democratic race in Nevada

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are locked in a tight race in Nevada as Democrats caucus in a state once viewed as a firewall for the former secretary of state.

Early entrance polls indicate Sanders is slightly ahead of Clinton 49% to 47%.

Minority voters are turning out in strong numbers while a large number of attendees identified as liberal, according to the entrance poll results.

The early entrance polls reflect the views of the first few caucusgoers to arrive at each surveyed caucus site, and those arriving early aren't always similar to those who arrive at just before the doors close. These numbers may change as the final caucusgoers are incorporated after doors have closed.

Clinton is counting on a strong turnout among Latino voters to hold off Sanders' momentum in this critical swing state. Her surrogates fanned out across Nevada this week in an attempt to portray her as the more trustworthy candidate for Latinos.

In the final days, Clinton's allies have slashed Sanders' immigration record, criticizing him as a johnny-come-lately to the issue who has been too vague about his plans. At the same time, they pushed for Clinton in Nevada's rural counties -- where Clinton's canvassers have been pressing the case that Sanders' proposals are unrealistic and unachievable in the current political climate.

Clinton has sought a strong win here to provide a jolt of momentum heading into South Carolina and Super Tuesday.

A loss, or even another close finish with Sanders in Nevada, would further chip away at the aura of invincibility that once surrounded her path to the nomination, serving as a testament to the strength of Sanders' momentum even in a heavily Latino state where she was organized sixmonths ahead of him.

An estimated 40% of the state's Democratic voters are non-white -- and Clinton was expected to show her strength among minority voters with a good showing here. But Sanders has emphasized his family's immigrant roots in ads and on the campaign trail, noting that his father was a Polish immigrant to America who originally spoke little English.

"Immigration isn't just a word for Bernie Sanders," the narrator said in one Spanish-language radio ad for his campaign in November. "His story is the immigrant story."

Beyond Clinton's breakneck campaign schedule here this week, there were other signs of concern within her campaign about the unexpected strength of the Sanders effort.

On the same day that Clinton released an emotional immigration ad featuring Clinton talking to a tearful 10-year-old girl about the deportation letter that her parents received, her operatives added a half-million dollars to their ad spending on broadcast, satellite and cable for a total of $3.4 million to Sanders' $3.7 million, according to data from Kantar Media/CMAG, a company that tracks political advertising.

The Clinton campaign is also clearly looking at caucus states beyond Nevada, dispatching Bill Clinton to speak to voters in the upcoming contest of Colorado even as the post-caucus celebrations get underway in Nevada Saturday evening.

Clinton repeatedly dropped in on employees at the casinos on the Las Vegas Strip in her efforts to boost Clark County turnout. Both campaigns had heavily courted the powerful Culinary Workers Union, which supported Obama in 2008 and helped him turn out voters to caucus. But in a blow to Clinton's campaign, they chose to stay neutral this year.

Like Obama in 2008, Sanders is counting on a strong turnout from first-time caucusgoers, though not nearly as many are expected as eight years ago when some 120,000 turned out.

Though Clinton is perceived as having an advantage with voters in Clark County, in part because of her strong support from labor unions, Sanders spent a good amount of time campaigning around the populous areas of Las Vegas this week before heading to Elko, Nevada, on Friday to rally rural voters.

During both an MSNBC forum and a speech at the Clark County Democratic Dinner on Thursday night, Sanders made a direct pitch to Latinos by chiding Donald Trump for vilifying immigrants. He argued that Congress "must move towards a path for citizenship for undocumented immigrants."

"While I understand that there are people who have differences of opinion with me on immigration reform, there is no justification, no reason, to resort to bigotry and xenophobia when we are talking about Mexicans or we are talking about Muslims," Sanders said at the Democratic dinner at the Tropicana Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip.

"People can disagree about immigration reform, but in the year 2016, we will not allow the Trumps and others to divide us up and appeal to racism, which has done this country so much harm for so many years," he said.

During the MSNBC/Telemundo forum, Sanders also defended his 2007 vote against legislation that would have revamped the immigration system, stating that he objected to guest-worker provisions that were described by one legal advocacy group as being "akin to slavery."

Both Sanders and Clinton have also made an aggressive play for Nevada's rural voters this cycle. Clinton won the popular vote here in 2008. But by organizing in the delegate-rich rural counties of Nevada, Obama won more nominating delegates to the Democratic National Convention than Clinton.

Clinton is heavily organized in those rural counties this time. The looming question is whether her campaign will be able to overcome the enthusiasm for Sanders, as well as a palpable level of discomfort with her position on gun control compared to Sanders' more moderate stances.

At a town hall in Elko Friday morning, Sanders stressed the importance of turnout among rural voters to his campaign, calling on them to show the world the desire for a "political revolution that transforms this country."

"I really believe this from my heart of hearts: obviously we are here to win and hope to win. I want democracy to flourish," Sanders said. "I hope Nevada turns out -- I hope we have a YUGE turnout -- I'm afraid to use that word! But I hope we have a very, very large voter turnout. Show the world that democracy is alive and well in Nevada."

Muslim MMA star appalled by 'the cult of Donald Trump': Bashir Ahmad

If Donald Trump and his Republican rivals had their way, people like Bashir Ahmad would never step foot in the United States.

A Pakistan-born Muslim who moved to the U.S. at the age of two, Ahmad served in the American forces during the Iraq war in 2004 -- the scene which would witness the birth of his Mixed Martial Arts career.

His parents swapped Lahore for Great Falls, Virginia, and Ahmad says he grew up without facing the prejudice that has accompanied some of the recent rhetoric surrounding the recent GOP debates -- rhetoric that has left him feeling "isolated" and "degraded."

Now, as Pakistan's most famous MMA fighter competing in Asia's ONE Championship franchise, Ahmad has both the profile and the platform to speak out.

'Hate'

"When I hear somebody like Trump, it's like a comedy," Ahmad told CNN.

"It's frightening that he has taken control of the American mob -- that's what his whole campaign is based on.

"It was like, 'Who hates Muslims more?'" he says of the debates between the Republican party candidates.

Ahmad, who runs the most successful MMA gym in Pakistan out of Lahore and retains business interests in the U.S., may be what he terms a "global citizen" but the upsurge in attention surrounding the American Muslim community has shocked him.

While he spends much of his time working and competing abroad, the man known as the "Godfather of MMA in Pakistan" keeps an eye on the country for which he was prepared to lay down his life in Iraq.

He was the man his unit in Mosul would look to in order to reassure locals; his presence and the name on his uniform would often defuse potentially dangerous situations.

Yet, now, the same name that once proved so valuable on the streets of Mosul in saving American lives is now the one he believes is being targeted by those who feel Muslims should not be allowed to enter the U.S.

"I couldn't believe it was 2015 and I was listening to stuff like this -- you wonder how much of U.S. society is being influenced by thinking like this," he says of the GOP debates.

"The fact Trump gets support hurts my heart a bit. One of the greatest ways towards peace is for people to sit down together and realize they're not so different."

Trump

Trump, one of the frontrunners for the Republican nomination, announced last year -- in the wake of the deadly mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, by suspected ISIS sympathizers -- that he would ban Muslims from entering the U.S. "until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on."

He has also previously called for surveillance against mosques and said he was receptive to establishing a database for all Muslims living in the U.S.

For Ahmad, who makes his living fighting with his fists rather than arguing with politicians, those kind of policies take him back to his time at college.

After returning from Iraq to complete his political science major at George Mason University in Virginia, he encountered students who he said had little understanding of the real problems.

Describing himself as "very skeptical of the intentions of the government and what was happening in the world," Ahmad says his time in the midst of the action focused his mind.

"When I got back to college I just got fed up with so many people talking about something they know so little about," he says.

"I used to get engaged in these political conversations about Iraq but after coming back it was a little bit pathetic hearing arguments from people who had never been outside the classroom.

"They could have been the guys going on to make the decisions of the future and yet they'd never see the consequences. I kind of detached myself after that."

Army

Ahmad joined the National Guard in 2002 after listening to a recruitment talk at his college.

He says he decided to live by his mantra that he did not want to wake up one day and wonder, "What if?"

It was then that he headed off to training, though the prospect of seeing any action remained thin.

"The National Guard training was like being in one of those 'Police Academy' comedy movies," Ahmad jokes.

"I was one of the most serious guys there. Going to Iraq? We didn't even get to go to the gas station.

"So when I returned to college after training, I didn't really expect much."

In 2003, life began to change for Ahmad as the U.S. invaded Iraq.

That news was greeted with a premonition that he would suddenly be thrust into the action -- one which would come to fruition.

In March 2004, Ahmad arrived in Iraq and began his tour of duty as a medic in an EOD unit (explosive ordnance disposal) working around Mosul.

He was on standby whenever the call came in that an IED had been located, just in case his services were required.

"I was the only Muslim soldier and so everyone assumed I spoke Arabic," Ahmad says.

In reality, he didn't.

"But most of the time, Iraqis would see the name 'Ahmad' on my uniform and ask if I was Muslim -- then they would be OK with me.

"I could defuse a lot of situations and tension would subside and people would be more sympathetic to us."

Muhammad Ali

Ahmad served in Iraq between March 2004 and February 2005 -- a period of his life which he credits with the birth of his fascination with MMA.

It was a long and often arduous time and, as someone who was outspoken of his disillusionment with U.S. foreign policy, he often sought other avenues to cure his frustrations.

"When I was in Iraq there were times when I had a lot of downtime and I'd spend that either reading about MMA or practicing," he says.

"As a kid I was very into Muhammad Ali and his life -- I found that MMA was my therapy.

"I would wake up at 3 a.m. some nights and go to the bag and start practicing -- that was an important part of my life when I was there.

"It was a hobby but a very obsessive hobby -- it helped me to de-stress and that continued when I got back to the U.S."

There he continued with his passion for martial arts and took up a street fighting class.

From then on it was a rapid ascent into the world of Japanese and Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

'Normal life'

The extra outlets let Ahmad burn off the worries and anxieties which had surfaced from his time in Iraq.

"People had it much, more worse than me," he says.

"It was very apparent to me that it had affected me because I got back in February and went to Pakistan and was thinking, 'Whoah, this is scary.'

"I had been going ever since I was young and it was usually very enjoyable but now driving through Lahore I'm thinking, 'I don't have a weapon or body armor.'

"My hand twitched (towards where my gun would've been) while I was sitting in the car, and I noticed noises a lot more. The 4th of July wasn't an enjoyable day."

The combination of his time in Iraq and the frustration with college life, which he returned to after serving, led to him planning a future away from the U.S.

Ahmad moved to Thailand for a year to train in MMA before going on to Pakistan to set up the next chapter of his life.

Fed up with college and the opinions of his peers, who he says "would go on to make the decisions in the the world but never see any of the action," he sought solace in MMA.

Pakistan

Ahmad had to get out -- he didn't even attend his own graduation.

While his parents had expected him to come back to the U.S. after his time in Thailand, Ahmad had other ideas.

After a couple of months working, he was soon on an airplane to Pakistan clutching a one-way ticket and dreaming of becoming the country's MMA man.

He headed to Lahore and rented out an apartment above a shop that he kitted out as a gym -- albeit a rather basic one.

He became close friends with his grandmother's former driver, as they maintained the facilities while sleeping on the gym mats at night.

Slowly but surely, the venture began to take off with groups of kids coming to learn MMA and spreading the word on social media.

The surge in popularity has led to four expansions and a move into the central district of Lahore, where hundreds of enthusiasts now train at Ahmad's Synergy Gym.

"We've got a real broad mix of people coming in," he says.

"We have people in the music industry, film industry -- and people who can't read or write.

"For Pakistan, that's a huge deal because social hierarchy is very strong."

Loren 

Star in the making

With the business succeeding in Lahore and his family settled in the United States, Bashir flits between the two.

His One Championship career is beginning to take off.

Three wins from his past five fights and with a huge following across Asia, Ahmad is becoming Pakistan's warrior figure.

That's not bad for a guy who says he'd never considered becoming a professional fighter.

"It wasn't the plan," he says, ahead of his next showdown -- Saturday's bout with Jimmy Yabo of the Philippines in Jakarta, Indonesia.

"But after the army I knew I wanted to get serious.

"To do that I had put myself in a situation to see if I was any good -- which meant going into an environment where I could could get hurt.

"So I used the MMA competitions and although I came late to the sport -- my first professional fight was at the age of 30 -- I did well."

While he remains focused on the fight ahead of him inside the cage, the political battle for the White House remains of some interest.

Ahmad, who moved to the U.S. from Pakistan after his father found work in Great Falls, Virginia, is all too aware of the hysteria being whipped up during the presidential campaign.

While the 33-year-old featherweight recalls facing little prejudice during his youth, he says he had particular problems when traveling out of JFK airport in New York.

Now, older, and a parent, he is beginning to wonder what kind of America his son will face.

"As a parent, I wonder how the future will affect him," Ahmad says.

"I have to think about him -- but I have a lot of hope in what America is about, even though bad things can be said and some can side with negativity towards Muslims.

"I still think tolerance and peace will win out and I think that's where America is going."

Japan's ruling political party has apologized for Obama 'black slave' remark

A lawmaker from Japan's ruling political party has apologized for inaccurately stating that U.S. President Barack Obama is a descendant of slaves.

"In America, a black man became president. I mean, he's in a bloodline of black people who were slaves," Kazuya Maruyama, a lawmaker from the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), said Wednesday, during a meeting of the Upper House constitutional panel.

"People in the country's founding era would have never thought a black slave would become president," Maruyama said, making a point about America's "dynamic reform" while discussing constitutional changes being debated in Japan.

Obama, the first African American U.S. president, is not a descendant of slaves. He's the son of black father from Kenya and white mother from Kansas.

In a press conference after the meeting, Maruyama apologized for the statements that were widely perceived as racist.

"I'm sorry that I made a remark that could lead to misunderstanding," he said, suggesting that his comments be deleted from the meetings' minutes.

'Certain kind' of Japanese nationalism

Kyle Cleveland, an associate professor at Temple University in Tokyo, has written about racism in Japan and says Maruyama's comments are indicative of a greater issue among some Japanese politicians.

"This isn't just one particularly racially outrageous thing that he said about Obama, but it represents a certain kind of nationalism that this generation of politician holds," Cleveland said.

Cleveland cited Tokyo's controversial former Governor Shintaro Ishihara, who retired in 2014 after a political career full of incendiary and often racially charged statements.

Ishihara once said sangokujin, a derogatory term used to describe ethnic Chinese and Koreans in Japan, and other foreigners were more likely to commit crimes and would likely cause civil unrest if a natural disaster hit Tokyo.

Ishihara also made derogatory comments about women, homosexuals, and claimed the Nanking massacre was "a story made up by the Chinese."

Despite outrage over his remarks, Ishihara held office for nearly 50 years.

"It's a general lack of education on issues related to race, discrimination, and ethic diversity," Cleveland said.

The Japanese Trump?

Maruyama, a U.S. educated lawyer who rose to fame in Japan as a television legal commentator before running for office, drew comparisons this week to U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Trump, a leading Republican candidate, has been accused of racism for his comments about Muslims, Mexican immigrants, Asians, and Jews.

"What Trump's supporters like about him is he's outspoken and defiant of the norms of political correctness," Cleveland said.

But Cleveland believes, unlike Trump, Maruyama was not attempting to gain attention for his remarks.

"He's emblematic of a generation of Japanese politicians who are tone deaf to this kind of issue and out of touch," Cleveland said.

The LDP is led by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, whose party has been rocked by recent scandals, including the resignation of a lawmaker embroiled in a sex scandal and an economic policy minister accused of misusing government money.

Japan is the United States' closest ally in the Asia Pacific region, which heightens the sensitivity over any perceived racist insult of the U.S. Commander in Chief.

In an apparent attempt to extinguish this latest controversy, Abe's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga quietly scolded Maruyama Thursday during a Lower House budget committee meeting.

"A politician must to be accountable to his own word and gain trust from the people. [Maruyama] is responsible for that," he said.

President Barack Obama's message for Donald Trump

President Barack Obama has a message for Donald Trump — being president is tougher than being on a reality show and the American people are too "sensible" to elect him.

"I continue to believe Mr. Trump will not be president," Obama said at a news conference in California after a meeting with southeast Asian leaders. "And the reason is that I have a lot of faith in the American people. Being president is a serious job. It's not hosting a talk show, or a reality show."

He went on: "It's not promotion, it's not marketing. It's hard. And a lot of people count on us getting it right."

The comments marked a political resurgence for a lame-duck President in his final year in office. Obama offered surprisingly frank assessments of the campaign to replace him, taking shots at Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. He also hinted hint that he was sympathetic to Hillary Clinton's position on the difficulty of enacting political change, as she faces a tough challenge from a candidate in Bernie Sanders, who has fired up Democratic primary voters who are demanding sweeping reform.

But it was the potential of a Trump administration that Obama seemed most eager to critique.

The presidency isn't "a matter of pandering and doing whatever will get you in the news on a given day. And sometimes, it requires you making hard decisions even when people don't like it," Obama said, adding that whoever succeeds him needs to be able to reflect the importance of their office and give foreign leaders confidence he or she knows their names and something about their nations' histories.

Obama also appeared to raise the question of whether Trump was prepared to be commander-in-chief.

"Whoever's standing where I'm standing right now has the nuclear codes with them, and can order 21-year-olds into a firefight, and (has) to make sure that the banking system doesn't collapse, and is often responsible for not just the United States of America, but 20 other countries that are having big problems, or are falling apart and are gonna be looking for us to something."

He added: "The American people are pretty sensible, and I think they'll make a sensible choice in the end."

Trump responded to Obama during an event in Beaufort, South Carolina.

"He has done such a lousy job as president," Trump said, before adding that he didn't mind being targeted by Obama, saying he took it as a "great compliment."

Trump wasn't the only Republican who took a shot from the President.

When he bemoaned Republican warnings that his nominee to replace late Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court would not even get a hearing, Obama rebuked people who claim to be "strict interpreters" of the Constitution -- except regarding his right to propose a nominee.

That seemed to be a clear jab at Cruz, who has helped lead calls to prevent the president installing a nominee who could tilt the ideological balance of the court to the left.

Rubio also came under fire when the president mocked "a candidate who sponsored a bill, that I supported, to finally solve the immigration problem, and he's running away from it as fast as he can."

The President stepped more carefully when he was asked about the Democratic race. He opened by making it look like he was delivering a veiled endorsement of Clinton, who is facing a stronger than expected challenge from Sanders.

"You know, I know Hillary better than I know Bernie, because she's served in my administration, and she was an outstanding secretary of state. And I suspect that, on certain issues, she agrees with me more than Bernie does," Obama said.

But then added: "On the other hand, there may be a couple issues where Bernie agrees with me more. I don't know, I haven't studied their positions that closely."

Obama who, like Sanders, once wowed young Democrats with soaring calls for change in the 2008 election, also appeared to give credence to Clinton's election argument that pushing through fundamental reforms is harder than it looks.

"Ultimately, I will probably have an opinion on it, based on both -- (having) been a candidate of hope and change and a President who's got some nicks and cuts and bruises from -- you know, getting stuff done over the last seven years."

Obama was clear on one thing -- he's happy not to be in the race himself.

"The thing I can say unequivocally," he said, "I am not unhappy that I am not on the ballot."

Hillary Clinton barked like a dog

Hillary Clinton's stump speech has gone to the dogs.

Not really. But Clinton told a colorful story on Monday in Reno that ended with the former secretary of state barking like a dog.

Clinton was in the middle of a riff about how, in her view, Republicans say things that are not true, when she remembered a radio ad that she said ran in rural Arkansas while her husband, Bill Clinton, was running for office.

"(Republicans) actually, with a straight face, say that the great recession was caused by too much regulation on Wall Street. They actually say that," Clinton said.

Then she launched into her story.

"One of my favorite political ads of all time was a radio ad in rural Arkansas where the announcer said, 'Wouldn't it be great if somebody running for office said something, we could have an immediate reaction to whether it was true or not. Well, we have trained this dog. Well, the dog, if it is not true, he is going to bark,'" Clinton said. "And the dog was barking on the radio and so people were barking at each other for days after that."

"I want to figure out how we can do that with Republicans. We need to get that dog and follow them around and every time they say these things like, 'Oh, the Great Recession was caused by too much regulation,' arh, arh, arh, arh," Clinton said, letting out a barking noise that caused the audience to laugh and some people to mimic her.

"I think," Clinton concluded, "we could cut right through a lot of their claims."