Trump said Muslims hate America. Rubio fired back.

Donald Trump doubled down on his latest Islamophobic comments at Thursday night's debate — and got some strong pushback from Marco Rubio and the other GOP candidates onstage.

When asked about his recent comments that "Islam hates us," Trump said "A lot of them" do.

"I mean a lot of them," he said. "There's tremendous hatred."

Rubio fired back — defending Muslims while warning that comments like Trump's hurt American national security.

"Presidents can't just say anything they want. It has consequences here and around the world," he said.

"If you go to any national cemetery, especially Arlington, you'll see crescent moons there. If you go anywhere in the world you'll see American men and women serving us in uniform that are Muslims. And they love America," he said.

Trump responded by criticizing the culture of the Muslim world — and seeming to suggest that the U.S. needs to start using some of the violent tactics that terrorists use.

"We're large portions of a group of people, Islam, large portions want to use very, very harsh means," he said.

It was John Kasich's turn to push back next.

"No, I don't. I think there is a sect of this radical Islam that is really, really serious and poses the greatest threat to us today. There isn't any question. That's why the whole world has to work together to make sure we don't have proliferation of these weapons of mass destruction," he said. "I was there and saw when the Egyptian ambassador was in the Rose Garden bringing the Muslim world to work with us to defeat Saddam Hussein."

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