O’Reilly said her idea would 'destroy the Republican party.' O'Reilly: Ingraham plan dooms GOP

Bill O’Reilly is pegging Laura Ingraham’s opinion of using mass deportation to address illegal immigration as a “draconian” idea that would “destroy the Republican Party.”

The heated debate arose on Wednesday after O’Reilly asked on his Fox News show, “The O’Reilly Factor,” what Ingraham would do to address the tens of thousands of children and adults that have been apprehended trying to cross the U.S-Mexico border.


“No. 1, first thing you do is start deporting people, not by the hundreds, not by the dozens, by the thousands,” the conservative radio talk show host said. “That means entire families, not just the father or mother, but we keep families unified by deporting all people who are here illegally.”

( Also on POLITICO: Obama's border crisis)

Later in the interview, O’Reilly challenged Ingraham’s idea, saying “I do believe that if you do mass deportations … that the Republican Party would become obsolete, that it would ensure Hillary Clinton’s election in 2016 because demographics don’t add up.”

“That’s the left’s argument,” Ingraham said in response. “You are adopting the argument of the left.”

O’Reilly pointed out that other Republicans, such as Sen. John McCain of Arizona and strategist Karl Rove share the argument.

“If you do that kind of a draconian action … mass deportation would be draconian, it would be,” O’Reilly said.

Ingraham shot back that the current situation America faces is an example of what the country would be like without deportation.

O’Reilly answered, “You, Laura Ingraham, don’t believe that if television cameras, and you know how wild the media would go, show families being forcibly removed — and I mean forcibly, because it would have to be — placed on buses … you don’t believe, and the polls show, that 67 percent of Americans want some sort of pathway … so I’m telling you, if your vision were put in there, Republican Party, done.”

Ingraham responded by citing an incident Tuesday during which protesters in Mureitta, California, turned back Department of Homeland Security busloads of immigrants.

“I think what you saw in Murietta, California, was not something that we should say should not happen in the United States,” Ingraham said. “No one wants people to spit on each other, I don’t agree with that, but the people saying ‘Oh no, you won’t do this to our community, you won’t do this to our wages, you won’t do this to our public schools,’ where do the people get satisfaction? Where do they go?”

“I understand the frustration 100 percent, and I’ll be out there demonstrating with them, but I think that there’s a better way to do it without destroying the Republican Party,” O’Reilly said.

Ingraham got in the last word: “The Republican Party has done a good job at destroying itself by not standing up for the American worker. They’re not standing up for the regular people.”