jean cummings, chris cillizza thank you. >>> now we have something special as the united states claims to have diminished the threat of another 9/11 type mass attack from core al qaeda, u.s. intelligence is now focusing on lone wolves. lone wolves recruited online by isis or isil as the group is also called. how serious is this problem to the homeland? i asked the head of all 16 national intelligence agencies retired general james clapper in an exclusive interview. >> well, it is a threat serious threat to the homeland i believe. and princeably through the detecting of classical intelligence and law enforcement techniques. as people are radicalized either by themselves or via social media by others and they're not admitting any signatures that would tip us off, particularly in light of the growing use of encryption, when an overseas recruiter gets a promising prospect here in the united states on the line and then directs them to go to an encryption system and then we kind of lose the continueity. this puts a greater premium on the you see something, say something kind of thing because

and that's why they've worked hard in past cycles to keep trump in the fold. >> but, jean cummings doesecide whether or not they keep encouraging him or not criticizing him at least from the party level because if he actually does a third-party run, this is incredibly threatening to the republican party. >> absolutely. >> any way you look at it, no matter how much he pulls, look at what happened with roz perot when he was running. any third-party candidacy that draws from republican ranks is going to elect the democratic nominee. >> the republicans already have so many other demographic problems in terms of you know, the minority vote, the gap on hispanics, and donald trump would take from only one place, unlike ross perot, trump takes one place and that is conservative republicans. and so it would create a huge disadvantage for them in the general election. and so we'll see what he decides. you know, he could certainly self finance and stay on the stage if he is still enjoying his while he's out there. >> sam stein, is there any advantage to the republican party keeping him off the deb

. >> joining me now for our daily fix, chris cillizza and jean cummings political editor for "the wall street journal." welcome to you both. chris, i'll start off with you. trump/cruz, is that the ticket in 2016 my friend? >> oh man. i would pay a pay-per-view fee to see that meeting. >> what's cruz trying to do here? what's the play? >> look ted cruz is being, i think, quite smart politically speaking in not being the guy bashing donald trump. why? because he doesn't think donald trump is going to go the distance here. he believes that eventually the donald trump boom will sort of fade but what he wants is the people attracted to donald trump's messages brash, bold were the words cruz used to port right over to ted cruz. what he doesn't want to do is alienate those folks. he wants them to eventually once trump either drops out of the race doesn't ultimately run or fades, for those people to jump on him as the guy who can carry the message they like but can also sort of be a top tier or second tier candidate. >> and, jean to be the trump whisperer is not that bad of a extras gee becaus