How will Super Tuesday affect the Trump campaign?

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How will Super Tuesday affect the Trump campaign?

Brit Hume weighs in on the GOP candidate's chances at winning the Republican nomination on 'The O'Reilly Factor'

This is a RUSH transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," February 29, 2016. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
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O'REILLY: In the Impact Segment tonight, we continue with our lead story, Donald Trump and the Republican Party. With us here in New York City preparing for tomorrow night's Super Tuesday vote Brit Hume.

So you heard Senator McCain.

BRIT HUME, FOX NEWS SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I did.

O'REILLY: I'll support the Republican nominee be clearly he doesn't want Trump to be the Republican nominee. And in your context and in your thing, is that the prevailing wisdom among the elected Republican.

HUME: I don't think there is any doubt about it. They don't want this guy. And don't want him for two reasons. One is a, you know, one is they don't think he would be a good president. But probably more than that, they're terrified of an enormous Hillary Clinton landslide if Trump is the nominee.

O'REILLY: But all the polls say that Trump is running very competitive with the secretary, sometimes beating her head to head.

HUME: Yes, but the polls say some other things as well that are revealing. For example, Trump's negatives is, in other words, the number of people, the percentage of the people that view him unfavorably, its plus 24. He's 24 percent favorable with Republicans. He is minus 27 percent with Independents, and minus 70 percent bill, with Democrats.

Now, this is -- we are now about, what, less than a week into the beginning of a real attack on him by his Republican competitors. And by full out advertising campaign, this is just the beginning.

When you think about, you know, what is he like and the things he has said and the positions he has shifted and the business ventures he has been in that didn't turn out very well and the bankruptcies and all of that. He is a target-rich environment. And I think that by the time the media and the Democrats, not to mention the Republican attack that going on, are finish with him his numbers won't be anywhere near like that.

O'REILLY: I don't know about that because I have to say that I looked at the new polling today, state-by-state polling he didn't get hurt by the last debate, doesn't seem. He's ahead in every single state except Texas and he's behind by one point in the polls in Texas. So I thought, like you, that, you know, maybe he would take a hit in the last debate because Rubio went at him so hard and Cruz went at him but he doesn't seem to.

HUME: Well, sometimes it takes a while, sometimes, but here is the unique thing about Donald Trump. And I think everybody should understand this. His supporters are going to wane no matter what the press or politicians say. He is going to stay at 35 percent in the Republican precincts.

O'REILLY: Right.

HUME: But you take 35 percent from the Republican Party.

O'REILLY: Yeah.

HUME: More, I think he'll get higher, he'll go higher, when others drop out he will get a share of that.

O'REILLY: Yeah, 49 in one poll.

HUME: . in one poll. Yeah, right. But he'll go higher. But whether he can ever get to anything like a majority seems to me is a very dubious proposition.

O'REILLY: Maybe. But he has defied every expert up to this point. And I know his strategy because I have talked to him about it. Is look, I know I'm not going to get blacks. I know I'm not going to get liberal women, soccer moms or whatever. But I'm going to bring in people who have never voted before. They are going to come to me. And everybody who is teed off is going to come to me. And he is counting on the fact that he will just rip up Hillary Clinton. He will just destroy her on the trail.

HUME: Well, that might work. Republicans can hope for that but, the numbers on how well he does in terms of percentage of people who would support him in the Republican Party if he were the nominee. It's about three quarters. Look, when Romney ran it was about 93 percent, and then roughly the state so.

O'REILLY: I expect him to lose. And I don't expect the Republican establishment to get behind him that much. He is going to have trouble -- he doesn't take pack money. All right, he doesn't have that he is going to have trouble galvanizing other people and he can't self-finance a presidential run.

HUME: No, that's too much.

O'REILLY: Yeah, he has to go out.

HUME: No, he doesn't. You know, I think at that point, you know, a pac might be just the thing for him.

O'REILLY: Right, he will set one up. But you saw how McCain well, I will support the Republican nominee.

HUME: Yeah, but you could hear the enthusiasm in that answer.

O'REILLY: That's what I'm talking about. So it reminds me of the Taft, Teddy Roosevelt race. He remembered that.

HUME: Well of course.

O'REILLY: But you and I covered that.

(CROSSTALK)

O'REILLY: . so much bitterness between Taft and Teddy Roosevelt, the two Republicans that Woodrow Wilson, you see he'll fly right in. And I know what you are saying. But I got to say this Trump phenomenon is like something we've never seen in our lifetime. We have covered a lot of campaigns. And nobody has ever seen anything like this. So to make kind of that linear pronouncement .

HUME: But Bill, you are not even saying to me here that Trump has the support of the majority of Republicans.

Now, if he doesn't get .

O'REILLY: He will if he gets the nomination.

HUME: Well, I think he will.

O'REILLY: They hate Hillary Clinton too much.

HUME: But even so, I mean, his negatives are that high, he needs -- he's going to need Independents and Democrats in considerable numbers. Not just some partial share but really big numbers.

O'REILLY: Particularly independents.

HUME: Right, you can't -- remember Romney won the Republicans, overwhelmingly. He won the Independents.

O'REILLY: But he still lost.

HUME: He lost the election.

O'REILLY: Right.

HUME: So it gives you an idea of the hill that any Republican nominee has to climb although Hillary won't do as well as minorities as -- but against Trump she might because, yeah, he gets nothing from those precincts.

O'REILLY: All right, Brit Hume, everybody, thank you.

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