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Published January 23, 2017
This is a rush transcript from "On the Record," March 16, 2016. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS HOST: Another dominant night for Donald Trump as he moves closer to securing the GOP presidential nomination. The Republican establishment will be trying to sabotage their own front-runner.
Radio talk show host and star and editor-in-chief of LifeZette, Laura Ingraham, is here.
Laura, nice to see you.
LAURA INGRAHAM, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, LIFEZETTE.COM: Good to see you. Thank you.
VAN SUSTEREN: What do you make of the Republican Party, the elites or whatever you want to call this people who don't like Donald Trump?
INGRAHAM: I worked for President Reagan. And in the Reagan White House, we had people like Pat Buchanan, Jim Baker. We had Peggy Noonan. We had Don Reagan. We had people from all --
(CROSSTALK)
VAN SUSTEREN: Laura Ingraham.
INGRAHAM: I was a kid. But we had -- people from all wings of the party. All sections of the party. And it worked. And why can't that happen again? And for everyone, I'm saying he is -- Trump is Reagan. No, I'm saying, you put together the coalition that you have that can win the day.
And so I know a lot of people like, well, Cruz is the best or Rubio should have been it, or Jeb. I get that. I understand that. There's -- perfect is the enemy of the good at some point.
I think conservatism should be about making people's lives better. Liberty, the constitution and yet we have disagreements. It's a movement about how to get there, Greta.
VAN SUSTEREN: All right. I think the Republican Party, if we had these so-called elites, I don't know who they are. If we had them sitting here, they would say the problem with nominating Donald Trump is he can't win in November. It's probably what they would say. Plus the fact, he has lit them on fire.
INGRAHAM: It seems that they are more worried that Donald Trump is actually going to win in November and they are worried that because of they're posturing their positioning, they might not have the influence they once had.
And what I would say to all of them is let's make the country better. Let's make this whole process better. Work with the guy or if it's Cruz, work with Cruz. Whoever it is, put together a winning coalition of interest of people.
But you can't, I think you can't go forward and say stomp your feet and say I'm going to take all my marbles, I'm going to go home. Then just say I prefer Hillary. Just say I would rather have Hillary win than have a group of conservatives together working for the betterment of the nation. I think that's what Reagan did in his White House. He took George H.W. Bush who he did not want on his ticket because the establishment was not happy. They were very angry. It worked. They put together a great team that moved forward.
VAN SUSTEREN: Are they fighting Trump. Some of the Republicans because they are sort of -- it hurts them, personally, if he become president?
INGRAHAM: I think --
VAN SUSTEREN: Is there money involved and like special interests? Lobbyists?
INGRAHAM: I think people have different -- people have different self- interests, someone who has just an ideological series of differences. That's fine. But I think in the end, we have to ask ourselves. If we are conservatives, we have to say to ourselves, OK, we did this set of policies for the past 15 years -- immigration, trade, foreign policy. We lost in 2006. We lost in 2008. We lost in 2012.
We had the tea party revolution, which was the most exciting thing to happen since 2004 when Bush won. What do we do now? Do we just keep doing the same policies that got us into a big hole or do we decide we are going to move forward with a new coalition, with better trade deals, not no trade, not protectionism, but better trade deals, a smarter, more pragmatic foreign policy and immigration that actually betters the lives of every day, average people.
I think if they can get together and they can compromise a little bit on these issues, I think the sky is the limit for the Republican Party. But not if everybody goes back in their corner and just say, you know, Trump said this and Rubio did this and Kasich, you know, had some goofy saying last night. It doesn't matter. What matters is this group of Cruz and Trump together, the conservatives and the populist have a super majority, Greta, together. That's winning. So put that together and get some of the establishment voices in as well.
VAN SUSTEREN: Laura, nice to see you.
INGRAHAM: Good to see you.
https://www.foxnews.com/transcript/ingraham-time-for-republicans-to-unite-behind-trump