On the campaign trail ever since and really one of his most prominent surrogates. Shes done not just the campaigning, the events on her own, but has done a lot of delegate hunting for cruz even as he loses to donald trump in the primaries and it becomes mathematically impossible for him to lock up the nomination outright. Cruz and fiorina will be headed to convention to continue to do delegate work, making a personal pitch together. So the big question now, though, chris, and one that wed like to pose to the campaign is, why today . Why the timing today . It should be clear after coming off of what has been a big, big series of wins from donald trump. Not unexpected wins, although very decisive. Cruz now is facing what could be the most important six days of his campaign. He needs to turn the narrative around. It seems as though the hope is that by dropping this Vice President ial pick so early, that cruz is hoping to change the conversation and basically put out this news in order to get folks talking about something other than Donald Trumps dominance in the northeast and in the mid atlantic states. Cruz is hoping that as the race moves west, it will be more favorable terrain. Indiana being the first and most important battleground for him. But he still trails trump in the polls here. I think you answered the question. Carly fiorina is a threetime loser. Lost statewide in california, lost at hewlettpackard before that, she lost running for president. But you mentioned the magic word california. She won a california primary at one point or she wouldnt have been the nominee for statewide office. He has to win in indiana and california. All this talk about indiana changing the game, i dont buy that at all. Your thoughts . Reporter hes got to win in indiana first. California means so much less if cruz is not able to pull out a victory here in indiana. If he is able to eke it out, then we can go to california. What Carly Fiorina has said, i covered her during the time she was in the race, she still pulled in millions of votes, had millions of people supporting her in california. The question now was whether somebody who could not beat donald trump now joining forces with ted cruz, who so far has not been able to beat donald trump in the overall delegate count, how the two of them together plan to turn the race around. Now, when it comes to her vulnerabilities, it is likely that trump will hit her on her business record, on the layoffs at h. P. Hes already started to hit cruz for picking fiorina when this was reported earlier this morning saying it was a dumb move, in trumps words, given that fiorina hadnt had success in her own campaign. That said, she could help bolster cruz when it comes to women. This is an area where trump has been vulnerable and where he will be vulnerable in a general election if you look at where the numbers are, chris. Let me bring in nbc news director chuck todd. Lets line it up in terms of math. Necessary conditions, sufficiency conditions. I dont like when people say this is a sufficient condition to stop trump. A hundred percent. Lets call it what it is, a hail mary, done out of desperation. What i question and look, from what i understand, if they could have gotten marco rubio, it could have been marco rubio. Why . You want to pick somebody that has delegates. Why do you do this . You simply do this to try to win the nomination. Why did reagan pick sh swik ert . Pennsylvanias unbound delegates in 1976. So thats my question, i dont know what she brings. Is he committed to this . I dont know. Its funny you said that. Is this a onestate stand . Is this just california or the vice presidency . I think this is simply a, lets do something. It is a hail mary. Shes not a californian. Shes not even registered to vote there anymore. Its been six years. If you think this is a i dont think the cruz people view this as somehow shes going to galvanize and help them in california. I think this is an attempt to find a second surrogate, you know, you change the narrative a little bit. You hope that maybe if you give off the illusion that no, im not out of this thing, that it brings some republicans on board. Give him credit for trying. You know, throw everything you have to win this thing. But boy, it looks even more desperate today. I said that back when reagan picked sh wicert, sends jim baker to try to poach votes. Didnt do anything out of it, but he tried. This thing looks pathetic because shes lost three contests in a row. The question is, are two losers better than one . I mean, seriously, she had a brief moment, two, three weeks, she did well. Because trump was awful in dealing with a woman candidate. And thats what they think. Can we bait trump somehow into another one of those comments. [ all speak at once ] that was her great moment when she said every woman in america knows what hes talking about. And this is about trumps biggest weakness with women. Hes bringing in Carly Fiorina to talk about the conversation with women. The problem is, trump is problem with women. Do you think shell goad him into a fight . Vice president ial nominees, their whole job is to attack. This week . Today. You think shell do it tonight . Yeah. Shes very comfortable doing this. She likes being aggressive. You know, even if its to the point of facts get in the way a little bit every once in a while. But she is very comfortable just going full bore. So thats probably also appealing to cruz folks. I got to ask you something. Youre good at a lot of things. Im not putting you down. I am stunned. I was off yesterday and you took over, all the political coverage. And i thought it was astounding that a guy could run every county in five states. Has anyone ever done that . Usually when its over. Every county theres 60something counties in pennsylvania. But this goes to by the way, two days ago, werent we talking about cruz and Kasich Alliance . Do you know the kasich super pac just sent out a press release noting all the different ways that Carly Fiorina attacked ted cruz. What happened to the alliance . That was mondays attempt to change the narrative. Wednesdays attempt is this. What is he going to do tomorrow. Its like a syrian ceasefire. Yeah, its meaningless. You throw spaghetti at the wall and try to figure a strategy to make it work. This one today, at least were not spending the entire day saying cruz is mathematically eliminated. Thats what happened yesterday. Its impossible for him to win enough delegates to win the nomination. So instead of a day talking about that, were spending the day talking about cruz and fiorina. Which is a better day for him. Heres the question. Cruz cant win through getting delegates through the primary. He cant get 1,237. He cant. It looks like trump will get 1,237 or be within 50 at the most. If you can get to the convention, does Carly Fiorina have any play on the second ballot with delegates . Will that bring anybody to cruz . I dont see it. But is that part of the calculation . I dont think theyre thinking that far out. Lets do something by thursday. And who would be willing to do it . I dont think i know i know there are many people that preferred rubio. Many of the cruz money people. Sure. That would have been the logical thing to do. Rubio or kasich. By the way, if youre doing the alliance, if the two of them had done this, heres what i didnt understand. Imagine them saying this, were going to be a ticket. We cant figure out who is going to be first or second, well let the delegates decide. Had the two of them done that, even that might have been at least something more viable. Its a little goofy, but it would have been fun. You decide. But this whole thing has just been a debacle. Theres two teaming up here. First of all, the thing over the weekend, cruz and kasich, but thats come asunder already. They did it to get kasich out of the border counties in indiana that connect to ohio. What did kasich get . Nothing. Probably a National Figure again for a few hours. Fiorina, shes a National Figure. And she can talk about hillary. This creates tension. And the trump, the other thing were talking about today, trumps comments on hillary last night. Lets bring that up. Ever since what happened to Chris Stevens and the other americans in benghazi, ever since that very confusing night out in the middle of a facility, we dont even know what its called, that horror went on. Hillarys been accused of dereliction of duty. Not that she spun the pr, or failed to meet the needs of an outlying facility, but that she somehow didnt care about her friend, she let him die. Today, i think trump for the first time really said it that way. He said she went back to bed rather than deal with the crisis and when the call came later that night, she didnt answer it. This is unverifiable. This is an assault like dereliction of duty. It is saying she walked in a moment of crisis and let her friend die. I think he may is overstepped. Hes saying it now. Hes outright accusing her of this. But all of his accusations in the past hasnt really gone anywhere. He makes false accusations all the time and everyones like, thats just donald trump. But how does she counter it . Whats her answer to that . Thats where its interesting. If she is forced to counter it, if it becomes something where he beats it like a drum and its false, then she has to produce, heres what happened. Say where i was, who i was in contact with, what efforts did i make to save his life, those people. The interesting thing, six or more republicanled investigations, and she testified for one of them, and none of them have come up with anything. So who is writing for trump today . Some novelist, some fictionalist. He had a novelist writing a story about the iraq war and then people doing the red meat on benghazi and dont worry, i wont even tell you how ill take care of isis. Ill just do it. So it was this mix and match of richard burt and Brent Sko Croft and all the old realists who we tend to like when it comes to rock. And breitbart on the red button issues of Foreign Policy. Lets talk about the mad bomber theory. Richard nixon, in the ending years of the vietnam war, dont let them know what i might do. I have a reputation of being a little crazy, keep it there. Trump when i interviewed him, i said i dont want to take Nuclear Weapons off the field in the middle east. I think its strange he would go back into that trouble area. But he gets away with it, number one. I thought the speech was shockingly thin. I mean, you know, yes, it was you could tell somebody else helped him with it. Yes, it had the whole realism thing. It was written. Yes. Thats the big thing. It was long and he went through. But it really was, it didnt give any idea he just sort of gave you well, America First. Talking points. The same America First he knows rattles the cage of everybody. Thats right. Hes sending an isolationist message, but at the same time, hes saying im going to reach out to russia and im going to deal firmly with china, but at the same time, try to have a friendly relationship. So its not full fledged isolationism. And build up the military, spend more money on the military. And building up the military at the same time youre pulling back from nation building, i think the nonnation building, is very positive, that has no constituency out there. No, it doesnt, except you could argue that we may have no choice but to and this gets us down a rabbit hole, im not going to go there. But the reason why europe has a migration crisis is because were not doing any nation building in the middle east, which is why people are suffering and fleeing to europe. The center for national interest, the former nixon center. Hes aligning himself with nixons Foreign Policy by choosing this group and that venue to deliver that speech. At the same time, hes saying, i cant start any wars that i cant win. What denind nixon was vietnam. How do you win a war on terrorism . Theres no details on how you fight modern warfare. You end it. You dont win it. Theres a series of sound bites meant to appeal to different parts of the republican constituency. So he hits every wing there is. The words were correct. Whatever the if aei put out a word count. Exactly. These are the set of words you put in your Foreign Policy speech. He correctly picked all the right words to sort of appease the serious crowds. Back to the big topic of the hour, the upcoming announcement of ted cruz, hes got a running mate. Hes taken the stage. Well see what kind of political fire power, this move of picking Carly Fiorina as his running mate. Here he is. Heres what i tell everyone i was born in an extraordinary place god bless the great state of indiana. [ cheers and applause ] elections are about choices. The Republican Party faces a choice today. Indiana and america, i believe, want to unite behind a positive, optimistic, forwardlooking, conservative Campaign Based on real policy solutions to the problems facing this country. [ applause ] and the American People deserve a real choice in november. A choice and not an echo. A meaningful distinction, if we come to november and the American People are given a choice between two Big Government liberals, two washington insiders enmeshed in the corruption of washington, then we as a Republican Party will have failed the American People. And i will tell you, when you run for president , one of the most solemn choices you make is the choice of selecting a Vice President ial candidate. [ cheers and applause ] this is a choice that you are telling the American People, this is an individual who i trust. And even more importantly, this is an individual you can trust to lead this country no matter what might happen. Any responsible candidate for president would have spent much time assessing possible candidates, thinking through the pros and cons, studying who these people are. Praying about it. And examining the potential candidates. And you know, the characteristics that you look for in a Vice President are indeed the very same characteristics you look for in a president. [ applause ] first of all, knowledge. Do they know enough to do the job . Do they know where jobs come from . Do they understand why jobs are leaving america . Do they understand why manufacturing jobs are being driven overseas . Do they understand why carrier has left indiana and gone to mexico . Do they understand what is happening in the economy . And government. Do they understand the constitution and bill of rights . Are these words on a paper or are these promises that protect our fundamental liberty . [ cheers and applause ] and security, do they understand the threats facing us in the world, the threats that potentially endanger your children and mine . Thats the first cite earion you look to. Does this experience have the experience and knowledge to do the job . Secondly, you look to judgment. Do they have the judgment and wisdom to bear the mantel of a job whose responsibilities have grayed the hair of every person ever to hold that office . Do they think through decisions in a rash and impulsive way . Do they pop off the handle at whatever strikes them at any given moment . Or do they think through careful measures . Do they assemble a team around them who are smarter than they are . You know, theres an old adage in management that as higher as, a as hire as, and bs hire cs. If you see a leader who deliberately surrounds himself with people, who are not capable, who are not informed, who are not skilled, and who would never, ever, ever stand up to that leader, it tells you that leader is not a leader, but rather someone not at all secure in who they are. [ applause ] and the third thing you look to is character. Are they honest . Do they have Core Principles that come from their gut . Not a momentary dalliance, announced today, to be abandoned tomorrow . But do they know who they are when they look in the mirror . Is it based on whatever the media tells them that given day . Whatever the fad is that given moment . Whatever is trending on twitter . Or do they have a foundation . [ cheers and applause ] and integral to character, how do they treat others . How do they treat others, especially those they dont have to be nice to . You know, everyone knows how to kiss up. Everyone can be nice to their boss. That is not a complicated skill. But how do they treat the clerk at the Convenience Store . How do they treat the average man and woman . How do they treat the american citizen . How do they treat the vulnerable . That reveals everything you need to know about character. After a great deal of time and thought, after a great deal of consideration and prayer, i have come to the conclusion that if i am nominated to be president of the United States, that i will run on a ticket with my Vice President ial nominee, Carly Fiorina. [ cheers and applause ] born [ audience chanting carly ] born in texas, the very first thing i liked about her. Cara carlton fiorina, known throughout the country simply by the name of carly, is an extraordinary leader. She started working as a secretary at a small firm. And she climbed the corporate ladder to become the ceo of the Largest Technology company in the world. [ applause ] and the first female ceo in history of a fortune 20 company. A graduate of stanford and mit, carly is brilliant and capable, and yet she experienced the Hard Scrabble world of being a woman professional in a Business World that extracts a price. I say that as a son of a pioneering computer programmer, my mother, who started in the computer industry in the 1950s. I say that as the husband of my wife, heidi cruz, who spent two decades in the Business World. Over and over again, carly has shattered gl