who follows the leaders? the other leaders. the best one is this guy, a tea party guy, his leadership title is the assistant minority whip. what he is supposed to do for that extra $15,000 a year is he is supposed to as the assistant minority whip, he is supposed to whip the votes of all of the republican senators in the state who are not in the lip to make sure all of the other senators do what the leadership tells them to do. the problem is all of the republican senators in the state are in the leadership. they called themselves all leaders. so this guy literally has no work to do for that $15,000. which is very nice work if you can get it. it is, at least, at the legislative. when the last six republicans left in the senate decide that in their leadership race they're all tied for first place. sometimes it is funny like that, sometimes it is less funny ha ha. massachusetts does not usually make national political waves and when it does it is almost always because of something corky or funny. right now massachusetts is trying their best to throw a really big rock into the very still waters of national democratic politics. this is a column that just ran urging senator elizabeth warren that she should run for president. this is another column that ran in the sunday boston globe urging her to please run for president. this is another column that just ran in the sunday boston globe urging her to run for president. and this is the editorial that just ran alongside all of those other columns on the same day imploring senator elizabeth warren to run for president. the "boston globe" did a whole special section to try to persuade elizabeth warren to run for president even though she clearly doesn't want to. we called to ask about this paper's decision to go huge with this push. as far as they know, the paper has never done anything like this before. they asked what is the most unusual and provocative way to get the point across, and they decided on this blast approach running all of these columns at the same time simultaneously. the globe wants to "urge a discussion of the ideas that elizabeth warren represents on a national scale." so then make the case. they make the case over and over and over again. again, what is amounts to is a special section of the boston globe. as a national leader, elizabeth warren can make sure that doesn't happen. she should not shrink from the chance to set the course for the democratic party. if she puts her causes and goals front and center as democrats gather their forces for the 2016 campaign she could enrich the political process for years to come. that is all from the globe editorial warren is the democrat best positioned to draw out hillary clinton in areas critical to the democratic party. she is a strong candidate, she could win, this moment was made for elizabeth warren. the globe told us today that what they have done is that it should not be mistaken as an endorsement for her has president, they are endorsing the primary process. they want the democrats to have a primary and they think elizabeth warren would give her the best one. they don't want her to run, necessarily, they want her to run because her running would, itself, be good for the country and specifically for the democratic party. they're saying it would pull the democratic party to the left, or at least to the issues of middle class economics and the absolutely stupefying levels of income inequality. even if she could not win were her issues would be in the race. it has to be weird if you're elizabeth warren, right? a whole section of your hometown paper trying to persuade you to run when you don't want to. it is also an interesting argument happening right now in massachusetts. an interesting argument that whether or not you can win, there might be value, great value, just in you running. just by running. if you run well, in the right race, at the right time, even if you don't win you could change the direction and commitments of one of the two major political parties in the country. which brings us to this guy. with big fanfare, today texas senator ted cruz launched what i believe is his dam pain for vice president of the united states. technically what he said today is that he is running for president of the united states, but -- at least nobody who is handicapping the 2016 race at this point seems to think there is any credible threat of that happening. i don't bet, i'm terrible at gambling. if i had to bet money on the 2016 race, i think elizabeth warren has a better chance than ted cruz is, and that includes the fact that he is running and she is not. he could not be elected president of the united states of america. he could be elected president of texas. that may yet happen in our lifetime, but i think there is no reason to believe he could wick a national general election race. him getting into that race though today is important for the future of the republican party and the future of ted cruise. if they pick a more establishment centralist candidate, jeb bush, and if they need an exciting excite the base running mate, ted cruz may put it that bill. his best hope is positions themselves well for a vice presidential pick. you only need to persuade one person when it comes to picking a vice presidential nominee. stranger things have happened -- sarah palin. he will be in the race, at the debates, he will push the others, and republican politics as a whole toward something closer to his image. further to the right. he is a good debater, his political strategy has been to stake out a position more conservative, more compromising to the point of being imprak -- impractical. all of the other people at cpac gave a speech about how terrible president obama was, and he gave a speech about how all republicans are. he is in now. he made the announcement today in a long speech he delivered without notes and without a teleprompter. kids at the university were required, by the school today, to go to this ted cruz event. anyone that did not show up would face a fine of $10 if they did not attend today's speech and that insured a full room. these liberty university kids did not want to be fined $10 or think that their presence at the ted cruise event indicated their support. their t-shirts stay stand with rand. so the announcement was a mix of very well planned and very poorly planned. it's nice to have a big room filled with hundreds of people there against their will. it was nice for their campaign that he had a text message number ready where you could, right then and there take out your cell phone and text to that number and sign up to support his campaign. it was not so nice that anyone that wanted to check out tedcruz.com, or tedcruzforpresident.com were greeted with these websites. that is tedcruz.com. tedcruzforpresident.com right now is for sale. tedcruzforamerica.com takes you to sign up for obama care. maybe this one is just me messing manage up, but had this is what it just brings up, a slide show of random stock photos of scenery with no words or nowhere to click. he is the guy who is first in. it is a weird mix of well prepared and well done. we're also learning interesting details about the timing. as recently as saturday afternoon, liberty university was not admitting they would be a speaking there or announcing that he was running for president, they had terri mcauliffe on the schedule to come speak. so however long they may have been planning it for, the liberty university part of it they were not planning that for long at all. reporter todd gillman had an interesting mini scoop. while everybody else was just marveling that he jumped in and said i'm running, that he skipped the dumb exploratory faze, todd gillman said that quietly, almost secretly last week, ted cruz did form an official exploratory committee for president. he just did not tell min, he did not announce it. so for whatever reason, he felt the need to set up an exploratory fund last week to do house keeping and organizational work you need to do to set up something to run. he did it last week, he just kept it all completely out of the news. today would feel like oh my god, beyonce's record just showed up on itunes, we didn't even know she was working on one. kind of a genius move. if you have been prepping all of this time. you have been prepping in public, and you're quietly and secretly behind the scenes. we would not have known about it had todd gillman not reported it. he was in lynchburg today for the event. thank you for being here. >> it is a pleasure, rachel. >> i have to ask you about this exploratory committee. before i saw you report on this, i had not realized that maybe he had to do stuff behind the scenes before making the big splashy announcement today. did he keep that quiet to today would land with a bigger splash? >> i think that is right. he was going for the element of surprise and the dramatic effect of going straight to a campaign. i think filing an exploratory committee from speaking with one of his strategists. they just needed to do is so they could sign some contracts in the very brief window between last week and this. >> we are seeing sort of a mix of granular detail. it would be one thing if it was just tedcruz.com, it is tedcruzforpresident.com, tedcruz2016.com. >> 20 years ago we used to ask these candidates stupid questions like boxerings or beliefs. now we need to ask are they.com or a.org kind of a guy. it is kind of bad planning they didn't squat on the various names that might be associated with ted cruz like someone out there in cyber space did to pre-empt him. >> between that and liberty university finding out about what he want today do very late, and if it was last week, performing the mini exploratory committee, do you have any sense about the decision, the timing, and why he may have seemingly rushed to get out there today. why today? why now? he want today be first, but why is this happening in the way it has? >> i don't think it was rushed. the current president and son of the founder of liberty university explained to his student body that he got a call from a cruz aide asking for this forum. it happened to be the time slot that terry mcauliffe didn't want his message stepped on so he gave it up for cruz. i think he decided to do it now as a strategy. he is lagging in the poles. he is doing better in places like iowa where the evangelical vote is more important. but what he gets to do now is leap frog in front of everybody else. can you imagine how much attention someone now gets for forming an exploratory committee, that's not exciting we have someone now actively running for president. he short circuited that, there is not that much time left. people will have to declare for president, the first debate is five months away. they need to start raising money. many are waiting until april 1st or later. so they don't have to worry about how much money they flaz this filing for the report that's will be due. cruz is setting an ambitious target of raising a million or more in this quarter to show credibility in that regard. he will be lagging people like jeb bush and some others in fundraising, but being first out out gate gets you more attention, and now that he has done it in front of 8,000 or 10,000 people, it puts you out in front. >> thank you, todd, thank you. i appreciate it. >> looks like one piece of the reaction to ted cruz declaring is that he is not a possible member because so many other members of congress hate each him. i have fate that ted cruz will turn that into an asset in his political column. he will run as the most hated man in washington and try to turn it to his advantage. i think he could run with that. we'll see. ♪ ♪ i'm almost done. [ male announcer ] now you can pay your bill... ♪ ♪ ...manage your appointments... [ dog barks ] ...and check your connection status... ♪ ♪ ...anytime, anywhere. ♪ ♪ [ dog growls ] ♪ ♪ oh. so you're protesting? ♪ ♪ okay. [ male announcer ] introducing xfinity my account. available on any device. every day toward the end of the business day, the white house press sends out president obama's schedule for the next day. so yesterday they sent out this daily guidance of what he would do today. at 11:10 the president goes to see the student's science fair. he delivers remarks at a summit in maryland. that is what he had on the books today officially. but there was an addendum. late tonight we learned about something not on the official schedule they hand out ahead of time. they disclosed an off the schedule meeting that took place today between president obama and someone named hillary clinton. apparently they didn't announce it in advance, but he met with secretary clinton one on one at the white. they met for about an hour and discussed a range of topics. what they talked about we don't know, but we know they met at the white house today in a meeting that the president did not allow to be publicized in advance. this is the part we all say "oh to be a fly on the wall." early this morning at the start of the workweek, a woman went to open her office, she went to the back door, and she noticed one of the security cameras lying on the ground. it was ripped off of it's usual spot, the wires were dangling loose, and then she saw a second security camera was pulled off of it's housing as well. and it appeared that someone tried to cut an electrical cord going inside. she heard the alarm going off. the business reporting this is the last remaining abortion clinic in the state of mississippi. defenders and supporters painted in bright pink saying they were not hiding or ashamed of their work. their motto was this clinic stays open. now that welcomes like a watch word for the last clinic open in mississippi. they say whoever attacked them last night ended up getting caught at least on video. they sent us this surveillance video just before the cameras were knocked down. you see that figure there in boots, a hood maybe at some kind. and they're carrying what might be a hatchet or another longhandled tool. the surveillance images were taken very early this morning at the last open abortion clinic in the whole state of mississippi. they are definitely lurking. seems to maybe want to do damage to the clinic itself. we don't know. but right after these images were taken, the cameras that took these images were destroyed. we have been following the story of the clinic in jackson for afew years now. republicans have come up with a few ways they think they can force the clinic to close. they forced the doctors to get referrals from the hospital. our goal needs to be to end all abortions in mississippi. i believe the admitting privileges bill gives us the best chance to do that. >> you can't just stop a federally protected right, but mississippi has been very determined to try. this new way of attacking clinics through state laws, new requirements about privileges, they have turned out to be pretty popular with courts. it is a federally protected right in this country. on friday, a federal judge blocked that same kind of law in wisconsin just like in louisiana and alabama. last month officials in mississippi said they would keep fighting to get that admitting privileges law back in place to use it to close that last remaining clinic in their state. that is how the fight is playing out in the courts. on the sidewalks this is a different fight. this clinic mississippi has tried to shield their patients and staff from local protestors. they built up a group of defenders and escorts. in the past few days a new annty abortion protest group has arrived. they posted something online but the new arrivals that they say are younger and more militant. they also posted pictures of the damage they found when they opened the clinic today. it looks to be a deliberate shut down. we asked the local police and they did not get back to us. the local fbi office says they cannot comment. they say what is happening now at this last clinic in mississippi is an unsettling change from the challenges they have faced before. the clinic's director said their staff and volunteer defenders from now on will keep watch around the clock 24 hours a day while the new and heightened protests continue in mississippi. we are going to be here. we're not going anywhere. we're insisting that from this day to the end of this, we're going to be here. that clinic staff is, as i said, going to keep watch to stay open safely. keeping watch around the clock tonight in mississippi. many wrinkle creams come with high hopes, but hope... doesn't work on wrinkles. clinically proven neutrogena® rapid wrinkle repair with the fastest retinol formula available, it works on fine lines and even deep wrinkles. you'll see younger looking skin in just one week. stop hoping for results, and start seeing them. rapid wrinkle repair... ...and for dark spots rapid tone repair. from neutrogena®. >> do you guys like inventing and building things like this? >> uh-huh. >> you're very good at this, i'm so impressed. are you resetting it? >> yes. >> that's our special page. >> the magic page. >> this is wonderful guys. can i take a picture with you? >> yes, what camera do we look at. >> the annual white house science fair where kids from across the country show off their inventions in an effort to bettered world, or to maybe just shoot a marshmellow across the room. he made waives in a mini hydro electric power demonstration, and he consulted with the super girls who created a page turning machine out of legos. >> where are those super girls? yes. you -- they're standing up but you can't really see them. because they're in kindergarten and first grade. they realize that some people who might be paralyzed or arthritic might have trouble turning pages. they said "this is just a prototype." that's what they said. i said how did you come up with the idea? and they said we had a brainstorming session. and one of them asked mr. president, have you had brainstorming sessions and i said yeah, but i didn't come up with something as cool as this. >> where are those super girls? president obama interacting with very earnest kids at the science fair is a nice demonstration of what can go right between kids and politicians. [ r&b slow jam playing ] ♪ yeah, girl ♪ ♪ you know, i've been thinking about us ♪ ♪ and, uh, i just can't fight it anymore ♪ ♪ it's bundle time ♪ ♪ bundle ♪ ♪ mm, feel those savings, baby ♪ and that's how a home and auto bundle is made. better he learns it here than on the streets. the miracle of bundling -- now, that's progressive. if is easy to feel cynical about politics. it is also a way to have your faith restored. this girl wrote to her state legislature and said one of the first vertebrate fossils was found in her state, and that south carolina should have a state fossil, and could they try to make that happen. olivia, age 8, started by choosing the wooly mammoth, and it became a big story last year. and a legislature stopped that bill from passing by adding in whole statements from the book of genesis. that wooly mammouth was created on the sixth day. south carolina eventually came around in part because of her perseverance and they got their official state fossil, and olivia says she wants to be a scientist, but now i would prefer her to be a governor or legislature since she can get things done. this is the giant salamander, cute. it is from idaho. in 2012 a fourth grader wrote to get it named the state amphibian. she got as far as the bill getting drafted. in 2013 she tried again. bill was printed, could not get a hearing. 2014 she tried and could not get it passed. this is her fifth treat to the legislative session in her state trying to get this thing passed. when they brought it up in january they voted it it down. they voted it down. they raise