Arizona Sen. John McCain thinks Republican presidential candidates need to ease off the personal attacks on one another or they risk costing the party the general election.

McCain, who won the GOP nomination in 2008, told CNN's Jake Tapper that he wished the candidates "would think of Ronald Reagan" and his so-called 11th Commandment, "Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican."

"I think we're hurting our chances to win the general election if we disparage each other and impugn the character of each other," McCain said on CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday. "Then after the primary is over, then obviously there's a trust and support deficit amongst the American people."

In one example of vitriol among candidates, Republican front-runner Donald Trump said Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio are faking their mutual respect on the campaign trail.

"They hate each other," Trump said in New Hampshire this month. "Trust me, I know."

Bush later denied Trump's claims.

On Sunday, McCain said Republicans can "fight like blazes where we disagree" on policy, but criticizing a candidate's integrity is harmful. Many in the party are unhappy with the "tenor" of presidential hopefuls' attacks, he said, because they are irrelevant to the country's best interests.

"The personal attacks being made ... I'm afraid we will pay a price for it at the polls," McCain said. "I hope we'll change."

As Vice President Joe Biden zeros in on a final decision for the 2016 presidential race, one factor pushing him toward another run is the view that the political climate could be more favorable than ever before in his more than four decade-long career.

The vice president's close-knit circle of advisors sees the yearning in the electorate for a candidate of authenticity and blunt talk, and believes Biden represents that and more, turning what in the past has been seen as a negative into a decided positive.

That view was on display Saturday night as Biden delivered the keynote address at the Human Rights Campaign dinner gala. There, his 2012 declaration in a "Meet the Press" interview that he supported same-sex marriage was hailed as an example of political courage. At the time, however, it was largely added to the catalog of supposed Biden gaffes.

If you've got troubles, you can lean on Hillary Rodham Clinton -- or Val, the bartender she played on "Saturday Night Live."

The Democratic front-runner appeared in the season premiere of "SNL" to console a tipsy Hillary Rodham Clinton, played by Kate McKinnon, who needed to "blow off some steam" after a "hard couple of 22 years."

In the skit -- Clinton's first since her 2008 presidential campaign -- the pair poked fun at Clinton's inability to take a vacation and took cracks at how long it took the presidential candidate to take a stand on the Keystone pipeline and gay marriage.

Clinton has lately positioned herself on the forefront of gay rights, but tucked into the latest batch of her emails was a reminder that she had long taken a more cautious approach to the issue.

While secretary of State in 2011, Clinton personally intervened to reverse a policy change at the State Department that had been a symbolic gesture to nontraditional families, the messages show. She fretted that the change would give fodder to Fox News to attack her.

"It really is great how long you've supported gay marriage," Clinton, playing Val, told McKinnon's Clinton character.

"I could've supported it sooner," McKinnon replied.

Absent from the skit were jokes about her private email server, which has been a source of months of criticism from the Republican Party. Nor were there jabs at other Democratic presidential hopefuls.

Clinton also delivered a spot-on impersonation of Republican front-runner Donald Trump, mimicking his statement, "You're all losers."

"Do you think he'll win the primaries?" Clinton asked.

"He must," McKinnon said. "I want to be the one to take him down. I will destroy him, and I will mount his hair in the Oval Office!"

The piece wraps up with McKinnon and Clinton singing "Lean on Me" together before Val disappears, leaving McKinnon with only a "hard, tan business shoe" as proof that Val was real.

If Donald Trump starts dropping in the polls, he will drop out of the presidential race.

At least, that's what he told NBC's Chuck Todd on "Meet the Press" on Sunday.

"I'm not a masochist," Trump said. "And if I was dropping in the polls where I saw that I wasn't going to win, why would I continue?"

Sunday's comment -- the second time Trump said he would potentially leave the campaign trail -- comes as the Republican frontrunner's standing in polls has leveled off.

Trump remains ahead in Iowa and New Hampshire, but his lead has shrunk since one month ago, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist polls.

In New Hampshire, Trump is five points ahead of presidential hopeful Carly Fiorina -- 21% to 16% -- followed by Jeb Bush in third at 11%.

Trump is five points ahead of Ben Carson in Iowa, 24% to 19%. His lead over Carson in Iowa was seven points in the same poll last month.

On Sunday, Trump said he would have "no problem" going back to work as a businessman.

"If I were doing poorly, if I saw myself going down, if you would stop calling me 'cause you no longer have any interest in Trump because 'he has no chance,' I'd go back to my business," he told Todd.

Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump said Sunday the Middle East would be better off today if Moammar Kadafi and Saddam Hussein were still in power.

"It's not even a contest," he said in an interview during NBC's "Meet the Press." "Iraq is a disaster¿. ISIS came out of Iraq."

Asked by NBC's Chuck Todd if he welcomed Russian President Vladimir Putin's involvement in Syria, Trump said he saw little downside because Putin will get "bogged down."

Trump said that if he were elected president, he would sit back and "see what's going on" in Syria, arguing that it would be problematic to remove Syrian President Bashar Assad from power and potentially replace him with someone worse.

"We are going to get bogged down in Syria. If you look at what happened with the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, that's when they went bankrupt," Trump said. "Everybody that's touched the Middle East, they've gotten bogged down."

Trump's position falls in line with statements President Obama made earlier this week. On Friday, the president cautioned against a commitment that risks drawing the U.S. into a new quagmire in the Middle East.

Trump, who is still ahead in Iowa and New Hampshire despite a shrinking lead in the polls, told Tod the trillions of dollars the U.S. spent in Iraq and Afghanistan were "destroying our country."

"Everybody that's gone to the Middle East has had nothing but problems," he said.