Appearing as a guest on Friday's The O'Reilly Factor, FNC correspondent Geraldo Rivera declared that "you've got to be a nut to get the Republican nomination," and that Republicans "have a suicide complex" as he responded to host Bill O'Reilly recalling that Hillary Clinton's campaign has already started characterizing GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump as a "nut."
After Rivera predicted that Trump would evolve his views on illegal immigration to win Hispanic voters, and defended the fact that he has already started to do so by promising to allow some illegals to have a faster process to return to the country, O'Reilly injected:
What isn't speculative is Hillary Clinton, you saw the soundbite this morning, "Donald used to be a nice guy, he's turned into a werewolf, I don't know why, he's biased and this, he's offensive." That's what her campaign is going to be against him: "He's a nut." That's what she's going to do.
The liberal FNC correspondent shot back:
But you've got to be a nut to get the Republican nomination. The Republicans have a suicide complex. When you read the Republican platform, you can't have birth control, you can't have gays getting married-
The FNC host then called Rivera out for being a "propagandist." O'Reilly: "Yeah, if you're a nun, if you're a nun, you can't have it. You're a propagandist. That's not what they're saying."
Rivera, who has a history of describing himself as a "liberal Republican," then complained:
The Republican platform is designed to narrow the field, narrow the tent. I want a Jack Kemp Republican primary. I want a big primary. If you want to be a liberal and be a Republican, you can be.
While Rivera was calling for a "Jack Kemp Republican," O'Reilly jumped in: "Well, you have one. You have one, Kasich, and he can't win. So that's that."
Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Friday, February 26, The O'Reilly Factor on FNC:
GERALDO RIVERA: You watch Trump take a hard turn on the Latino and immigration once he secures the nomination as he surely will.
BILL O'REILLY: Hard turn where, though?
RIVERA: His turn will, be, he already started it by softening this forced deportation, even citizen children, everybody goes. By saying they go and the good ones can come back, this is the beginning of a policy. You have to see through the obvious casualness of it.
O'REILLY: Yeah, but what could the policy possibly be?
RIVERA: The policy could be this-
O'REILLY: He's gonna deport.
RIVERA: If you are here for 10 years, you have not committed any crime, you have a family, you have citizen children and so forth, all you have to do is go home, touch base, and then you're on this priority list 102, and you come back in 12 months I promise you-
ERIC BOLLING You're okay with this?
RIVERA: I am absolutely okay with designing a policy that is compassionate and practical.
BOLLING: Now, can I just tell you something? This is how it works. This is actually promising for Donald Trump. Geraldo and I almost got in a fist fight over this exact policy a couple of months ago-
RIVERA (JOKING): And we can do it right now!
BOLLING: -because Geraldo said that was awful, how insensitive of Donald Trump to this.
RIVERA: Because it's the beginning.
BOLLING: But the good news for Donald Trump is that maybe more Latinos will evolve to Donald Trump's way of seeing that it's not as hurtful as it was at one point.
O'REILLY: Now we're into speculation. What isn't speculative is Hillary Clinton, you saw the soundbite this morning, "Donald used to be a nice guy, he's turned into a werewolf, I don't know why, he's biased and this, he's offensive." That's what her campaign is going to be against him: "He's a nut." That's what she's going to do.
RIVERA: But you've got to be a nut to get the Republican nomination. The Republicans have a suicide complex. When you read the Republican platform, you can't have birth control, you can't have gays getting married-
O'REILLY: Yeah, if you're a nun, if you're a nun, you can't have it. You're a propagandist. That's not what they're saying.
RIVERA: The Republican platform is designed to narrow the field, narrow the tent.
O'REILLY: In the primaries.
RIVERA: I want a Jack Kemp Republican primary. I want a big primary
O'REILLY: Well, you have one.
RIVERA: If you want to be a liberal and be a Republican, you can be.
O'REILLY: You have one, Kasich, and he can't win. So that's that.
RIVERA: He'd be an excellent Vice President.
