This is a rush transcript from "On the Record," March 3, 2015. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS HOST: A fierce controversy over prime minister Netanyahu's speech just one of the latest examples of the dysfunction. And it isn't that they don't agree. It's that they don't get along and aren't even trying.

Another glaring example, the battle over DHS funding. Our next guest says too many in Washington have forgotten they work for the American people.

And former Senator Tom Coburn joins us.

Nice to see you.

TOM COBURN, FORMER SENATOR: Good to see you, Greta.

VAN SUSTEREN: First of all. Do you agree Washington is dysfunctional?

COBURN: Oh yeah.

VAN SUSTEREN: So --

COBURN: But it doesn't matter which party is in charge.

VAN SUSTEREN: So what happened? How can we fix this?

COBURN: Well, you know, I think -- I spent 10 years up here in the Senate and left early because I don't see a solution in the U.S. Senate and U.S. Congress to fix what's wrong with our country. If you look at history, all republics eventually fail over the same thing, which is fiscal issues. We identified over $400 billion of pure waste, fraud, or duplication, none of which got eliminated under -- and we have both presidents that were Republican with House and Senate Republican, we have Democrat presidents with Democrats in control, we had every mix in-between. People with power tend not to want to give that power up. We are far away from what our founders thought we should be.

VAN SUSTEREN: But I don't understand. I would think what a great topic to run on. How you can hate -- it's like nobody hates puppies. Nobody hates kittens. How could you hate or not want to vote for someone who is trying to get rid of waste and fraud? How can you can be for waste and fraud?

COBURN: Well, you are not. You are protecting what benefits your next election cycle. They are not for it. They just don't want to be -- they don't want -- every one of these programs, every bit of this waste has a constituency. That's why our founders actually, in their wisdom, they gave us a constitutional way to address this. That's what I'm working on now. It's an Article V convention of states. It's not a constitutional convention. It's a convention of states where we come together and we realign what was intended to be the relationship between the states and the federal government. So we limit the scope and jurisdiction of the power of the federal government. So we know how we got astray. The founders were very worried about that. That's what the Federalist Papers were all about. That's what they wrote about. And so they put in the Constitution, Article V. And so what I'm working with is a group, as a senior advisor with a group of people, 200,000 around the country, to try to pass the same request for a convention of the states in 34 states, and to start putting some limits. And --

(CROSSTALK)

VAN SUSTEREN: I should say, conventionofstates.com is the website if you want to read about it.

COBURN: It is. It's a very thorough website. All the questions have been raised. What I hear from conservatives. Well, we can't do it, it might not be successful, it might be run away. You know, 69 of the 99 legislative bodies in the states are controlled right now by Republicans. But, forget that. People in the country, outside of Washington, have a lot of common sense.

(CROSSTALK)

COBURN: They are not about to let our First Amendment or our Second Amendment or our Fourth Amendment or our Sixth Amendment rights be taken away in some run-away convention. And besides, it only takes 25 legislative bodies to stop anything that would come out of that.

Here is something that bothers me more than anything. The federal government continues to lie to the American people about our fiscal situation. Last year, we published that our deficit was $420 billion. But we added $4.6 trillion in unfunded liabilities. A trillion of it associated with federal employee retirement. So what we added to our kids was $5 trillion dollars last year that they are going to have to pay for.

VAN SUSTEREN: You know --

COBURN: So, the dishonesty coming out of Washington, and the rule of the rulers, instead of the rule of law. is that's how all other republics have failed. What we ought to be about is restoring that.

VAN SUSTEREN: Well, conventionofstates.com is where the viewers can read more about it.

Nice to see you, Senator.

COBURN: Good to see you.

VAN SUSTEREN: Every time you come back to town, you know where to find us.

COBURN: I will. Good to see you.