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 t

a genius move and we would not have known it if todd gillman had not reported it in dallas. joining me today is todd gillman. he has followed senator cruz's political career for years. thank you for being here. >> pleasure rachel. >> i have to ask you about this exploratory committee. before i saw you report on this i had not realized he might have had to do stuff behind the scenes before making the splashy announcement today. as far as you can tell, did he keep it quiet so today would land with a bigger splash? >> i think that's right. i don't think it is a major conspiracy. he was going for the element of surprise and the dramatic effect of going straight to a normal campaign. i think the technicality of an exploratory committee is something they did, as i understand it, from in speaking to senior strat gist today and i have to confess i wasn't the only reporter the strategist told this to. they had to do it to sign contracts in the brief window between last week and this. >> we are seeing sort of a mix of granular detail about in some ways seeming prepared and on the ball

. >> let's go to todd gillman at the dallas morning news. you were there at liberty university. you've been covering senator cruz ever sense he ran for senate. so let's begin with -- before he got to this point speaking at jerry falwell's university there in virginia it me inside and tell me to why this backdrop and why today. >> well, it's a built-in enormous crowd. there are 10,000 maybe 12,000 people. there were no about a lon drop,about a lon balloon drop, no cop at the timity but it was a huge crowd and how is everybody else goal to beat this? so putting it at evangelical university sends signals to evangelicals in iowa south carolina florida he won't get a lot of votes in virginia it doesn't matter, but a lot of other people that he does need to appeal to. and if millions of conservatives rose up in unison wouldn't that be great. well if it they all rose up in unison for him it would be great, but he has to do what he has to do to get his share of that. >> let me ask you quickly confetti or not, he is the first person out of the gate to declare i want to be president of th