President Obama released a statement Sunday calling the death of a White House aide a "tragic loss" that has the left his administration mourning the young staffer.

Jake Brewer, 34, served as a senior policy advisor in the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and died Saturday when his bicycle collided with a car while on a charity bike ride.

Brewer was married to conservative commentator Mary Katharine Ham. The couple have a daughter, Georgia, and were expecting a second child.

"We set out to recruit the best of the best to join their government and help us harness the power of technology and data to innovate new solutions for the 21st century. Simply put, Jake was one of the best," Obama said in a statement. "Armed with a brilliant mind, a big heart, and an insatiable desire to give back, Jake devoted his life to empowering people and making government work better for them."

Brewer recently helped spearhead the administration's TechHire initiative and worked with federal agencies and stakeholders to accelerate the release and use of workforce data for training efforts, according to the White House.

Prior to joining the administration, Brewer worked in several roles, including as a general manager at Change.org and co-founder of Define American.

In a statement posted to Instagram, Ham remembered her husband as a man who lived a life that was "powerful and tender and fierce."

"I will miss him forever, even more than I can know right now," she wrote. "No arms can be her father's, but my daughter is surrounded by her very favorite people and all the hugs she could imagine."

UPDATED 5:28 p.m. - This post was updated with additional information about Mr. Brewer.

Ben Carson's comments on Sunday about not supporting a Muslim as president is not the first time the retired neurosurgeon has said something that's created a stir among Democrats and Republicans alike.

Carson, who is vying for the GOP presidential nomination, said he "would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation."

"I absolutely would not agree with that," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

His comments came on the heels of fallout from a Donald Trump supporter last week insisting at a rally for the real-estate mogul that President Obama is a Muslim. Trump did not look to correct the man.

For Carson, he's touted his outsider status and has insisted he's not in favor of being politically correct.

Here are a few other quotes from Carson over the years that upset some.

During Carly Fiorina's unsuccessful 2010 run in California for U.S. Senate, Los Angeles Times reporter Scott Gold profiled her and found that getting to know the person friends called "the real Carly" was a confounding task.

After a Fiorina supporter volunteered to him -- as fact -- that President Obama is an African-born Muslim, Gold asked her how she felt about support from that arm of the political spectrum.

Only Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, stuck around after the debate in Simi Valley for this weekend's state Republican convention. Huckabee has been ranked seventh among the candidates, with an average national poll share of under 6%.

So the fact that only Huckabee bothered to show up in Anaheim said everything about Republicans' presidential prospects here. As the old song goes: "Turn out the lights, the party's over."

So why are some California Republicans feeling optimistic about recent state victories?

Hillary Rodham Clinton wants the United States to accept at least 65,000 refugees from Syria to help alleviate the humanitarian crisis created by the ongoing civil war in their Middle East country.

For months, Clinton, the Democratic presidential frontrunner, has refused to set an exact number when it comes to the U.S. accepting refugees from Syria, where millions have been displaced since the war began in 2011.

"We're facing the worst refugee crisis since the end of World War II and I think the United States has to do more," she said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation." "I would like to see us move from what is a good start with 10,000 to 65,000 and begin immediately to put into place the mechanisms for vetting the people that we would take in."

Clinton's comments come after fellow Democratic challenger, former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, said the U.S. should accept at least 65,000 refugees next year. O'Malley's call echoed that of the International Rescue Committee, which has said the current U.S. commitment to accept an estimated 8,000-10,000 refugees is just a first step.

Some European nations, such as Germany, have committed to accepting as many as 800,000 refugees fleeing Syria's ongoing civil war.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who is also vying for the party's nomination, said in recent days he doesn't have a specific number in mind when it comes to how many Syrian refugees the United States should accept. Moreover, a majority of GOP White House hopefuls have offered similar assessments, noting that the U.S. must do something.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich said Sunday that Latinos play a "critical role in America," days after he appeared to indirectly conflate the ethnic group with service-industry workers.

"They occupy jobs from top to bottom, they are so critical to our country, they are God-fearing and they're hard-working," said Kasich while speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press" about remarks he made last week in Orange County.

His comments, first reported by the Los Angeles Times , came on Thursday when he spoke at a luncheon in Irvine. Kasich, who served in Congress for nearly two decades prior to his current post, noted that tipping at hotels is a sort of appreciation of Latinos.

"A lot of them do jobs that they're willing to do and, uh, that's why in the hotel you leave a little tip," said Kasich when speaking about how to court more Latino voters.

Kasich went on to tell a story about his stay at a hotel in Los Angeles in recent days.

"This lady wrote me in my hotel there in L.A. She wrote this note. It said, 'I really want you to know that I care about your stay.' Is that just the greatest thing?" he said. "So, you know, we can learn a lot and she's Hispanic, 'cause I didn't know it at the time, but I met her in the hallway -- asked her if I could get a little more soap,” said a chuckling Kasich.

Some Latino activists called the remark stereotypical.

"The comment lacks history, sense of how important immigrants are to our economy, and vision where immigrants are more than just 'the help,'" Jorge-Mario Cabrera, communications director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, told The Times.

On Sunday, as Kasich sought to clarify the remark, he said that Latinos "hold very important positions."

"I've got a friend right now, he's a doctor in oncology," said Kasich.

He added, "to be clear, I believe that from top-to-bottom, Hispanics play a critical role in America, not only today, but going forward."

A pair of new polls released Sunday showed Carly Fiorina had a strong debate performance, but that she still lags behind Donald Trump, the clear front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination.

A CNN/ORC poll showed Trump in the lead, but found Fiorina jumping into second place. In that survey, Trump was at 24%, Fiorina at 15% and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson at 14%. Trump and Carson each lost a few points from a CNN/ORC taken in early September, and Fiorina jumped from 3% in that survey. She had been polling higher in some other pre-debate polls.

Moreover, Trump had support of roughly three-in-10 self-identified Republicans and Republican-leaning independents in an NBC poll. Carson was in second place with 14% and Fiorina in third at 11%.

The Times' David Lauter has more.

Here are some additional tweets from Trump's account that he released on Saturday.