netanyahu apologizes for offensive comments. virginia police suspend their investigation into an alleged gang rape at uva. but first, a cruise missile just hit the 2016 presidential race. it's monday march 23rd and this is "now." >> i'm running for president of the united states. >> welcome to the official start of the 2016 race for the white house. >> this had the look and feel of a mega church sermon. >> i feel a feeling that god isn't done with america yet. >> ted cruz likes to do things his own way. >> if standing for liberty and the constitution makes you a whacko bird, then i'm a proud whacko bird. >> imagine in 2017 a new

president signing legislation repealing every word of obamacare. >> this is a way for him to get out front and make a splash. >> don't count this guy out. >> just like in "star wars" movies movies, the empire strikes back. we shall never surrender. i'm in for alex wagner and today the 2016 race is officially on. senator ted cruz became the first candidate to enter the presidential race today delivering a speech at virginia's liberty university. >> the revolutionary idea that this country was founded upon which is that our rights they don't come from man, they come from god almighty. the purpose of the constitution as thomas jefferson put it is to serve as change to bind the mischief of government.

>> cruz not referring to the mischief of orchestrateing a government shutdown. in his speech today, cruz imagined much much more. >> imagine a simple flat tax. imagine abolishing the irs. imagine repealing every word of common core. imagine a president who stands unapologetically with the nation of israel. >> a big applause line there, but announcing at a mandatory student assembly ran some risks, including students who would rather stand with rand paul. rand paul is expecting to announce his presidential bid april 7th in kentucky. joining me now is political editor and white house correspondent, sam stein, and managing editor of "the washington post" politics

section. good afternoon, gentlemen. >> hey, there. >> good afternoon. >> sam, why jump in first if you're ted cruz? is this all about the money? chris, let me come to you first, actually. cruz heads up to new york tonight for a so-called megafundraiser dubbed jews for cruz. does this threaten his appeal with the base? >> i think it is always sort of hard when you are a grass roots base candidate, whether you are on the right or the left. it can be challenging to have the message like cruz does that the elites don't know what they're doing. it is the co-- is it the best optics

in the world? would you rather if you're ted cruz be able to raise $40,000 rather than $40 million? yes. you take the bad with the good. >> is that why he's jumping in first? >> i think it is a combination of money and attention. if he got in let's say, a month from now, it is going to be a one-day, two-day story at most. it is going to be wrapped in with hillary clinton's announcement. a lot of people are going to get in next month and the reason for that is the second point, which is monday. you have three full months to raise money and put a ton of dough on board heading into june 30th.

he needs badly to get -- as close to a head start in terms of raising money as possible. >> chris, speaking of fundraising, the "the associated press" reported that george w. bush will fundraise for jeb bush on wednesday. does this show how much he needs his brother when he wants to be his own man? >> i don't think jeb bush is going to have a problem raising money. they are brothers. i guess i'm sort of in line to give him a pass on that one. i have two kids. if one ran for president and the other wanted to raise money for him, i'd be okay with it. do i think jeb bush will have to answer the dynasty questions in a primary and the general election of do we want another bush, yes. whether he is by his side or not, the last name is a very good thing for jeb bush in ways

but there are going to be questions that come along with it. do we want another one of these in the white house? in the democratic side you have another dynasty building. they both have to answer those questions, and that's probably a good thing. >> dynasty versus designynasty. sam, i think we fixed the audio issues. which of the potential gop candidates does cruz threaten the most? >> it's tough to say which one exactly is threatened the most by this. i think the party as a whole is going to be more effective than any one individual candidate. ted cruz has an amazing capacity to move the whole gop in certain ideal ideological direction. he went into the house of representatives and got a band of conservatives together and

pushed for a government shutdown. very few people have the ability to do that. it's a mix of his oratory skills. he knows which fights to pick. i'm not sure if he's going to effect rand or scott walker or another social conservative. i think his biggest impact will be on just moving the tone of the debate. >> sam, let me follow up. we just put up some polling data. ted cruz is way down in terms of the republican primary in terms of support. at the same time no first announcer has won the presidential election since 1952 so maybe all those other candidates who are ahead of him in the polls right now can actually breathe a sigh of relief. >> i don't know if that's the best statistic. maybe that streak will be broken this year. who knows what the correlation is between announcing early? >> just correlations exactly.

>> but it's such a massive field. there's something like 15 or so candidates that the dynamics are really tough to figure out. it's tough to figure out if going early helps or hurts you in this case. it is so much different on the democratic side of the aisle where everyone is just waiting on hillary clinton. in this case it is tough to game up judging on what happened in the past. >> aside from imagining an america from from the irs, cruz spent a lot of time on his life story. this reminded me of a freshman senator who ran in 2008. is he going to lean more on his biography than policy? >> i think he probably will. in some ways what's difficult is this is an announcement.

he's introducing himself to many people who have probably never heard of him before, so going through your biography makes sense there. that said i think the i am a living embodiment of the american dream that not everybody is still on board with but we need to get back to that message is roughly right. i wrote about this today. go back and read barack obama's 2004 speech at the democratic national convention. he starts it with a long recitation of his family background and why he is an unlikely person to be in this role. cruz did the same thing. they may not have anything in common from a policy perspective, but cruz sees that idea of i am the american dream. he has a good example of the political power of it with barack obama. >> sam, you sat down with president obama who talked about his disappointment with israeli

prime minister netanyahu and he has just apologized for remarks warning about israeli arabs going toin droves to polls. are you surprised that netanyahu is apologizing and do you think he felt pressured by president obama in any way? >> i'm not surprised he's apologizing. it seemed pretty clear what he was doing in the moment. his goal then was to siphon votes away from some of the more right-wing parties into his camp to get a majority and it worked. to do that he dipped to some lows, but this was an election strategy. what you do is you try to walk back -- or soften some of the hard edges of your re-election strategy, so i'm not surprised at all. the pace of the apology was probably hastened by the fairly rare but public disgust the

administration exhibited for what he said. it's not very common that you see the types of things they said aired in public. they probably made him do the walk back a little bit quicker. it was a crass political move and it always struck me that he said things that he would have to end up reversing course on. >> thank you so much. >> thanks. after the break, virginia police release their conclusions about an alleged gang rape on the campus of uva. plus isis purportedly posts a hit list with the names and addresses of u.s. service members. we'll look at how the military is responding ahead on "now."

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four months of "rolling stone" published its widely disputed article about an alleged gang rape by a university of virginia fraternity police released their results of the investigation. police said they had no evidence to support the assertions made by jackie in "the "rolling stone" police. the inconsistencyies in her story did not mean something did not happen to her. >> unfortunately, we're not able to conclude to any substantive degree that an incident that's

consistent with the facts obtained in that article occurred at the fie kappa sigh fraternity house. that doesn't mean something terrible did not happen to jackie on the evening of september 28th 2012. we are just not able to gather sufficient facts. >> joining me now is police captain from charlottesville, virginia. your police department said today this case was suspended but not closed and the investigation did not mean that something material did not happen to jackie. what would it take for you to reopen the case? >> if jackie decides to come forward and speak to us then we would certainly reopen the case. >> did jackie or her lawyers give you any indication for why she did not give a statement on the case? how much of a difference would it have made to your

investigation if she had? >> we got no explanation as to why she would not give us a statement. i would have made all the difference in the world. that opens up avenues of investigative directions that we could go to. >> given the fact that at least 94 colleges and universities across the country are now under investigation for how they have handled sexual assault cases, do you think colleges are really equipped to handle these cases? >> in this case -- again, we said earlier that uva followed the procedure that was in place, the correct procedures when this came to them. now we as the police department, may not agree with what those procedures are, but those are established procedures throughout the country. the fact that these procedures are now being looked at nationwide is certainly a good thing. it can only help, we believe, victims. >> thank you for your time today. >> yes, sir. thank you for having me.

>> with me now is erin carmoan. i have so many questions for you. first i want to start with this report that effectively discredited the entire "rolling stone" story. it's a story that the magazine has apologized for. what effect do you think this will have on survivors reporting rape and of public perceptions of sexual assault on college campuses? >> i think that there are a lot of things to be very sorry about the way things played out here. it seems very clear that "rolling stone's" reporting wasn't checked out. we know for sure that what "rolling stone" reported could not be backed up and they had no evidence to back up those assertions. i think the police did a good job of saying in a very nuanced day about what they did and did not know. there is always concern with anyone who wants to report a

sexual assault that they're going to be disbelieved, that they're going to be blamed for their behavior. that was true before the "rolling stone" case and it is true after. anything that further sensationalizes that is going to be a problem. that said under the circumstances, which were extremely difficult and were kind of laid out, i think the police did the best they could. >> i want to ask you how would you grade the police handling of this case and the way this report was presented. and specifically do you think the language the police chief used reiterating just because there was no evidence that doesn't mean that something didn't happen. do you think this will be effective in reminding the public not to shame the victim here? >> i think the first thing that's really important is that this is being seen in the context of false allegations to

the police. this young woman chose not to report to the police. she had several opportunities to do so and she chose not to. one thing the police department said today was that it is still always the right of a victim or a complainant to come forward or not come forward. they reiterated their choices. this would not fall under what we would consider a false allegation because it was never reported to the police. the police had their hands tied because there was no name person to charge and no charges brought at all. under those circumstances all they were able to do was to go back to anyone who might possibly have information about this. they have not said anything they

don't know. that's not going to satisfy people -- one of the questions was, will this young woman face charges? for what? she told a story that does not check out. even though it is extremely rare, false rape allegations do exist. it does not change the fact that this national movement of young people young women and young men, for procedural reform is moving forward. it happened before the "rolling stone" story came out. >> this serves as a cautionary tale for reporting. my university columbia university, is expected to release their investigation into this issue in a few weeks. how do you think this shapes the landscape on this issue going forward? >> if you look at what "rolling stone" said about its own behavior they justified it by

saying they were trying to be respective. that ended up being not a way to protect this person. had they done more fact checking, they probably wouldn't have gone with their story and we wouldn't all be spending all of these resources. we all know campus rape is real. rape outside of campus is real. the number of resources the charlottesville police had to devote to this none of that would have happened if they had gone through some basic processes. we're all very much looking forward to this columbia journalism school report which is coming out in a few days. even if you think what you're doing is being very sensitive to the victim ultimately a well-sourced, well-reported story is going to do all victims and all people involved in these situations a much greater

service. >> thank you so much for joining us today. >> thank you. just ahead, a new poll shows the current commander and chief is less popular than fictional presidents even one as ruthless as frank underwood from the tv series "house of cards." that's next on "now." the volkswagen passat handles like a dream. go ahead... step on it. yeah? yeah! that turbo engine packs a punch, right? oh yeah. pinch me. okay... and on passat models you can get a $1,000 volkswagen credit bonus. one more time. pinch me. it's not a dream. it's the volkswagen stop dreaming, start driving event. stop dreaming, do it again. and test-drive one today. hurry in and you can get 0% apr plus a $1000 volkswagen credit bonus on 2015 passat and jetta models. curling up in bed with a ... ...favorite book is nice. but i think women would rather curl up with their favorite man. but here's the thing:

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and now for some stories slightly less terrifying than the prospect of a president ted cruz. kerry washington gave a rousing speech about gay rights. doctors want to ban fast food from hospitals and fake tv presidents are apparently more popular than our actual president. but first, is it time to abolish fraternities? will ferrell said quote, the incident in oklahoma that's a real argument for getting rid of the system all together in my opinion, even having been through a fraternity. when you break it down it is about creating clicks and clubs

and being exclusionary. joining me now are my guests. thank you all for joining for this fun segment. i'm going to ask you the question should fraternities be abolished. this is in lieu of a 2007 study that showed fraternity members are 300% more likely to commit rape than nonaffiliated students and another study indicates that even just living in a sorority house made it three times more likely for a woman to be raped. >> i wasn't in a fraternity but i went to uva and i knew lots of people in fraternities. for as much terrible things have happened in fraternities and there are real problems in

fraternity culture, it's not every single member. not everyone in a fraternity not even the vast majority are engaged in this sort of behavior. i'm hesitant to say we should end fraternities because of the behavior of what ends up being a minority. the question in fraternities should be -- it's fine to speculate, but i'm not sure it's ever going to happen. at a place like uva, fraternities have so many allies. it is not feasible. a better look or a better question is what can we do to change the culture of fraternities. there is a wide range of efforts that you can take that would make fraternities better places for the men that inhabit them and for the communities that interact with them. >> all right, nick. do you agree with him?

is it too much -- >> it's hard in a free country to say you can't associate with who you want to. however what you see in some of those stats is some fraternities actually becoming a public health risk, right? >> right, right. >> which goes beyond issues of culture and association. i think you can consider it on a case by case basis. >> were you in a fraternity? >> i was in a fraternity. i was a pledge for about two months. i hated it. >> my high school years were punk filled with underage drinking. i will tell you this. i spent many nights with friends

platonically at fraternity houses and i was always treated very well like the little sister. this is a downer for me. let's move on. >> okay. next on the docket so to speak, on saturday night, kerry washington was honored for being a prominent ally of the lgbt community, but nobody expected this to happen. >> so when black people today tell me that they don't believe in gay marriage, the first thing that i say is please don't let anybody try to get you to vote against your own interest by feeding you messages of hate and then i say, people used to say stuff about that and you and your love. >> is she right? >> she is right and the

substance of that speech was very compelling. however, i was she was more olivia pope and less kerry washington. caveat, i spend my days watching great attorneys giving closing arguments to juries but with that said the substance was there. >> i feel like it's been five or ten years since we saw that big discrepancy against democrats. that divide that used to be there that was sometimes exploited in politics is gone. >> not if you watch "empire." >> that's a good point in terms of the progress that's been made. there has been a lot of progress under president obama on marriage equality. in 2008 26% of black americans supported same-sex marriage.

by 2014, it jumped. >> i'm with nick. this seems just a bit outdated. part of what's happened over the past six years or so is same-sex marriage has become a partisan issue. i think attitudes have just moved along with it. once it became clear that president obama and vice president joe biden supported same-sex marriage, the rest of the party moved in that direction. come next year i bet most black voters would support same-sex marriage. i'm not sure this political problem is so much of a concern. for so many communities in many places where young lgbt people of color don't feel safe coming out, that's a separate issue i think from this.

>> i'm going to disagree with them. i don't think homophobia is over, y'all. a new report shows that hospitals are making money from selling fast food. mcdonald's can promote food to hospital visitors including a listing on the lobby directory and in the parking garage and in other places. remember hospital gift shops sold cigarettes. you were allowed to smoke in your room. >> the good ole days. in all seriousness, i think we have to understand that a lot of people cannot afford the food in the cafeteria and they are provided with a more affordable option. >> basically just eat crappy food. >> this is a larger discussion.

just recently there was another kraft macaroni and cheese recall. they have had two recalls within the past year and that is a lower priced food option. we're telling people to eat healthy and organically, but it is expensive and most america cannot afford this food at whole foods. >> hospitals could stay in business without fast food franchises. in general hospital food is not really good but it is better for you than fast food. maybe they can take some money they're taking on a blood test and subsidize the food in the cafeteria. president frank underwood is more popular than president obama. fictional tv presidents have higher favorability ratings than the actual president of the united states. frank underwood, seriously. spoiler alert, frank underwood

murders people. >> love it. >> i think this is a symptom of our gridlock right? you watch "the west wing," you watch "house of cards," you watch any show that has a fictional president and rarely do you see that president as ineffective. there doesn't seem to be any kind of congress or obstacles to their objectives. maybe it is possible for a president to get exactly done what he said he would get done. a, that's not the case in real life. and b, these presidents are not as good as they seem. they are just murderers. >> i think "house of cards" is one of the worst shows on television. i'm totally prepared to believe

that a person who likes "house of cards," thinks frank underwood is a good president. >> thank you so much. you can see cima every tuesday at 11:00 a.m. on "shift." you see what's coming next. you see opportunity. that's what a type e does. and so it begins. with e*trade's investing insights center, you can spot trends before they become trendy. e*trade. opportunity is everywhere. toenail fungus? don't hide it... tackle it with fda-approved jublia! jublia is a prescription medicine proven to treat toenail fungus. use jublia as instructed by your doctor. once applied jublia gets to the site of infection

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the u.n.'s top adviser on yemen is warning the country is moving toward the edge of civil war. the warning comes after the u.s. pulled out its special forces this weekend. a group claiming to be the yemeni branch of isis claimed responsibility for suicide bombings targeting mosques on friday killing more than 130 people. isis has posted an online hit list of 100 u.s. military service members. thank you for joining me. tell me about this alleged isis hit list. how seriously should we take this? >> there's two ways to look at it. u.s. officials are looking at it from the perspective was there any classified information that was compromised.

absolutely not. this information was mostly out there in the public. some of this information was available on social media websites, but nonetheless it is a source of concern in general. i think that the u.s. right now is taking this with a grain of salt. i don't think they have put any protection or closed protection on any of these individuals. they're encouraging them to exercise caution and keep a lower profile on these social media sites. as we have seen in the past isis tries very much to use fear as a tactic in shaping behavior. >> let's talk about yemen. tell us how dangerous the situation is there and what could be the consequences. are we looking at another failed state here by syria? >> by any measure of the word, yemen is a failed state.

no single group controls any territory. there's no single government institution that actually works on behalf of the entire country. by that definition you don't have a central government. what you do have now are these territories that have fallen under the control of some of these rebel groups or al qaeda or isis. but yemen is very important. not only does it border the world's largest producer of oil. >> saudi arabia. >> saudi arabia but it also sits on one of the most important strategic waterways. if you see a rise of piracy or attempts by these groups to destabilize, it is beyond a serious problem. the u.s. is certainly concerned about it because it has been such a hub for international terrorism, but i think now we're

entering into a new phase where it has the underpinnings of a proxy war. so we're starting to see some of these sectarian issues coming to the surface. >> we can count more failed states in the region than non-failed states. >> the u.s. has two immediate problems. one is preventing states from constantly falling into failed status, if you will. and two trying to prevent the outbreak of violence. that's the more pressing issue. the majority of arab countries to some degree have some kind of violence taking place in them. to get that violence the u.s. needs partners on the ground. you need governments who are committed to some kind of reform. we're not seeing that happen.

the bigger issue is the regional threat. these pan regional or transnational groups are now becoming more of a problem and that also requires a willingness and i just don't see that in the near future in some of these countries. there's a political desire. >> always so insightful. thank you very much. don't forget to catch his show "road map." prohibiting the use of an offensive symbol on a state license plate. is that an assault on free speech? the sons of the confederacy fight for their first amendment rights next. [ female announcer ] take skincare to the next level with roc® multi correxion® 5 in 1. proven to hydrate dryness illuminate dullness lift sagging diminish the look of dark spots and smooth the appearance

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plate bearing the confederate flag free speech. the case before the court has to do with a six-inch space on the texas state license plate. the state of texas refused a request for sons of the confederacy on grounds the flag was offensive. they said their aim is to preserve quote, the history and legacy of the soldiers who fought for the confederacy. nine states across the country let drivers choose specialty plates featuring the confederate flag. it costs an extra $30 and generated almost $18 million in texas state revenue last year alone.

the court's decision is expected by june. joining me now is paul butler. thank you for joining us. >> it is great to be here. >> do you think the state of texas has the right to refuse this plate, especially given the fact that they sell pro-religion plates anti-abortion plates over 450 kinds of specialty plates? >> yeah. so the legal issue is when you see one of those tag lines on the license plate, is it the government that is doing the talking or is it the individual? most say it is the individual. texas can't pick and choose which points of view it likes. we're not trying to defend the sons of the confederacy. that flag, it is hard to imagine a more potent symbol of white supremacy. what we're worried about is the next case. right now in north carolina you can get a tag that says choose

life. you can't get one that says respect choice. do we want the government to be making those kinds of decisions? >> you're saying this kind of speech is protected by the first amendment in essence, and how do you think the court will rule on this one? >> they seemed to be leaning in in favor of groups having the right to have messages. will that lead to some outcomes that nobody likes? possibly. there could be a swastika on a license plate. with governor perry, it is all about the benjamins. if he was all that concerned about the message, he should

stop selling it at the texas state gift shop. he should abolish the holiday they have in texas to honor the confederate dead. what he's concerned about is cash money. >> i know there are a lot of civil rights groups and black ministers in the state who want this banned. if i'm driving if texas, i want to see if you have a confederate flag on your license plate because i want to get away from you. what is it with people in the south and this flag and why do they feel the need to honor it so badly? >> it is so old school. when the group that says i want to a black lives matter i want to put that on my license plate. texas might say that is too divisive as well. the best resort to hate speech is more speech. >> there are these other confederacy celebrations.

there are many commemorations of the confederacy. can you walk us through how those are allowed and not this? governor rick perry, he came out in support of keeping these plates alive. >> yeah. you know the irony is if it is the government that is doing the speech then the first amendment applies. when the government says, we want a holiday to honor the people who were killed fighting for the confederacy, fighting to enshrine slavery in the constitution, that's all good for governor perry. there's no question the first amendment applies there. we have to wonder how he is picking and choosing which pro-confederacy messages he supports and which he doesn't. >> i want to read a quote from rick perry in "the new york times". he said we don't need to be scraping old wounds in terms of his position on this.

thank you so much professor paul butler. that's all for "now." "the ed show" is up next. good evening, americans, and welcome to "the ed show," live from new york. let's get to work. tonight -- >> i'm announcing that i'm running for president of the united states. >> catching fire. >> the whole world is on fire. >> plus courting working america. >> do we do to better equip our people to be able to take the jobs? >> later, glorifying segregation. >> it's not about what race you are. you were willing to fight for this country. >> and the fight to take away your weekends. good to have you with us tonight, folks. thanks for watching. senator ted cruz is officially running for president. he wants to be the man to run this country.