LAURA INGRAHAM (HOST): Right after the 2012 election cycle when everyone is in this frothy panic, everyone was oh, we got to get the Hispanics, got to get the Hispanics. And Byron York comes along, does a whole examination of state-by-state if the Hispanic vote had been historic for Romney, he still would have lost. So then, you guys over there did analysis, too. The working class people weren't turning out for Republicans.

And so what do the Republicans do? What does Paul Ryan decide to devote his, almost his entire year to last year? We've got to get trade promotion authority for Obama. We've got to make sure we don't shutdown the government. We've got to make sure we fund the government through all of 2015. Now we're funded through all the end of the president's term, period.

So the answer for Republicans, the guys who are really smart. The guys who are ideologically conservative, they're strong, they're sensible, they're pragmatic. These peoples' idea of building up America has been to enrich China, to tie ourselves further to that corrupt regime and to continue to flood the country with foreign workers, refugees, now keeping people in the country, as Rubio said, as long as they're here and they're not criminals, they can stay. That's what the Republican Party has offered America and is there no wonder that the guy who says, you know, here's what I'm going to do: I'm going to build a wall. Mexico's going to pay for it. And we're going to be tough as nails in trade negotiations. I mean, if that's the only two things that a president got right, I bet there'd be a lot of good things that ended up happening in the country. Doesn't mean Trump is some perfect, utopian conservative candidate. But when everything else is so screwed up, I am not at all surprised that he is where he is in the polls.

[...]

INGRAHAM: Right now, it looks like he's going to be the nominee of the party. And we have all these people stamping their feet, stomping their feet, excuse me, over at National Review. And I know you wrote your piece saying --

BILL KRISTOL: That's not fair, Laura. They're saying they don't think he should be the nominee. If he's the nominee --

INGRAHAM: They why don't they come out and say who should be the nominee? Why not come out and say Marco Rubio is the best candidate and here are the reasons why? And that's why Trump should be more like Marco, or that's why Cruz should be more likable or whatever it is. But why just say, the guy who has captured the imagination of the people, we're going to excommunicate from the conservative movement? Because the last time I checked, they did that to Huckabee, they did that to Buchanan, they did that to Bob Novack. They did that to all of those people.

Previously:

Politico Details The Conservative Media Schism Over Donald Trump And Ted Cruz

CNN's Chris Cuomo Calls Out Glenn Beck, GOP For “Birthing Donald Trump”

Rush Limbaugh Blames Obama For The Rise Of Trump

“They Built This”: Media Call Out National Review's Anti-Trump Feature For Ignoring Right-Wing Media's Role In Trump's Rise