Trump Says People Liking His 'Hard Line on Immigration' After Paris Attacks

— -- A more reserved Donald Trump brought his immigration plan back to Iowa Thursday night in the wake of the Paris attacks, telling the crowd of 350 that "what happened since Paris is people are really starting to like my hard line on immigration."

The billionaire businessman said that the US needs strong leadership and that he’s seen an uptick in support since the Paris attacks. “I think people look at me as being a strong leader and you’ve seen the polls have gone very much up since that time,” said Trump.

“If we don’t have a border, we don’t have a country...To bring them (Syrian refugees) into this country is suicide,” Trump told his supporters.

The Newton town hall and rally was dominated with questions about Syrian refugees from the audience. The House passed a bill Thursday that would make it extremely difficult for Syrian and Iraqi refugees to enter the U.S.

"I don’t mind helping. Let’s go to Syria, let’s build a big safe area...but we have to get other people to help too,” said Trump.

Trump said that his rival Dr. Ben Carson's campaign "is in free-fall....maybe I helped it along.” Trump was referring to his fiery 95 minute speech last week in Fort Dodge, IA when he called Carson's stories from his books "pathological” and asked voters "How stupid are the people of Iowa to believe this crap?”

At the Newton event, the candidate reflected on his reenactment of the knife breaking on a belt -- mocking Carson's claims of being violent as a youth -- telling the crowd he was very proud of it.

“It was a good speech, but some people thought it was great and some people thought it was not good because they thought I was too tough, but they were the ones that only watched little snippets,” said Trump.