Chuck Grassley. (file photo)

Chuck Grassley. (file photo)

The 13 Republicans who are running for president will meet in Las Vegas tonight for the party’s fifth and final debate of the year.

It’s the first Republican debate in about a month and the first since the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, so Iowa U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley, a Republican, predicts terrorism will be a primary topic for the debate.

“I expect we’re going to have a very aggressive front by all of the candidates in the war on terrorism,” Grassley says. Given the recent events, Grassley anticipates the discussion to lean heavily on foreign policy and on protecting the homeland.

“I expect probably a lot of criticism of how the president has a lack of credibility, has invited Russia into the Middle East after 40 years of our keeping Russia out of there, the dangers we have here at home,”according to Grassley.

We’re about seven weeks from the Iowa Caucuses and Grassley expects the GOP candidates will be wanting to show their strengths and their ideas about the use of American troops overseas, as well as plans for neutralizing domestic threats.

“I assume we’re going to hear most of them being more aggressive in the sense of having more people in the Middle East but not on the front lines, more aggressive use of air force, and at home, more encouragement for surveillance of possible terrorists,” Grassley says.

The nine leading Republicans will be debating on CNN in prime time starting at 7:30 Central time tonight, while the four remaining GOP candidates will go on at five o’clock.