Defying orders and setting fires. And the Trump Administration is rolling back transgender bathroom protections. Now gay and transgender rights advocates are accusing the president of violating past promises. Good morning, everyone. Its sthurs, february 23. Im alex witt. This time far from the shadow of washington, d. C. Last night senator tom cotton of arkansas drew more than 2,000 people with long lines waiting to get into his springdale event. What began as a cordial and filled with applause with people who filled from hours away meeting quickly drew contentious. I would like everyone who is affected by the Affordable Care acts and affected by health care to stand up. My family has been in the ozarks since the 1800s. We are historically a republican family, were a farming family, were an nra family, were an army family. Aside from inheriting their patriotism and their work ethic, i unfortunately inherited an incurable genetic connective tissue disorder. I qualify for medicare but unfortunately two of my doctors who are the only doctors in a 500 mile radius who are familiar with my condition accept medicare. Without the coverage for preexisting conditions i will die. Will you commit to replacements in the same way that you have committed to the repeal . Thank you, katie. Lets take a couple more comments or questions about health care. Answer the question. Katie, while im committed to is making sure making sure that people people with conditions as serious as yours or young, Healthy People all have access to affordable quality personalized care. Okay. Not all have been so contentious like frank lucass meeting in oklahoma. Meanwhile, there is frustration in some communities over lawmakers who are not Holding Town Hall meetings. Earlier demonstrators took to the streets of houston demanding ted cruz hold one. He was met by constituents, some in support, some clearly frustrated. Its so important that we allow every montanans voice to be heard. Thats why we have the freedom to assemble, freedom to be heard. Why dont you spend a meeting. This morning i spent some times with schools in helena, we had this press conference. I wanted to be here to stand with these outstanding leaders in montana. This is very important. A Supreme Court nominee comes up very infrequently. Lets not forget a basic point of this last election. Hillary clinton lost by 20 points in montana. Donald trump won in a landslide in the state and and and while every voice must be heard in montana, the reality is the people of montana rejected Hillary Clinton and voted for donald trump. And with that he left amid jeers and chance of do your job. People are confronting their legislators not doing enough to hold town halls. In nevada they faced pointed questions about health care at a business luncheon. The new york i am doing my job. Im here meeting the constituents. How do you think its going so far . I welcome your input. Joining us now from politico, daniel lipman. I want to take a listen to what White House PressSecretary Sean Spicer had to say about things. Some people are clearly upset, but there is a bit of professional protester manufactured base in there. When you look at some of these districts and some of these things, it is it is it is not a representation of a members district. That necessarily just because theyre loud doesnt necessarily mean that there are many and i think in a lot of cases thats what you see. You hear something similar from robert gibbs back in 09 but do you think this white house runs the risk of underestimating whats going on out there . Yeah. Its in their interests to say that these are paid protesters, that these dont represent real people, but clearly there are millions of people who are opposed to trumps agenda. You know, hillarys margin was over almost 3 Million People and those are those millions include people in red districts and red states and so these people are coming out in force and saying, we have to stop the trump agenda. And theyre going to take my grandmas health caraway. Ive been fascinated by the issues that have been raised at many of these town halls. One of the issues republicans campaigned on was the issue of health care which they thought they were going to repeal. Its become such a topic at these town halls. It was contentious. Youre hearing the stories of people standing up. They feel like its one thing to promise to repeal obamacare, its another to try to do it. You have these 20 million americans who have got health care and through no thought of their own what are they going to do . Tick them off. Say were going to repeal it and dont do it . To replace it, what is out there to do so . We hear its coming a people are hearing repealing health care will happen before its replaced. Is there any chance of that happening . Theres a real divide between the Trump White House and conservative congressional republicans. Trump himself says we have to make sure these people are protected and i think all of these protests and town Hall Meetings, they are giving an indication to republicans on the hill that you have to find the replace part before you repeal it. One interesting part of town halls is its not just those meetings. Youre hearing millions of calls come into these congressional offices. I talked to one chief of staff for republican congressman, they said theyve had to increase from two to ten people just to handle all those constituent calls. What . Thats an indication im sure is true in other congressional offices. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. Great to have you with us. Thank you. Sounds good. This morning after a standup. Authorities are closing in on the remaining protesters on the Standing Rocks sioux reservation. Yesterday was the deadline to get off the land. Some of the tents were schett on fire as demonstrators left the area. According to the governor of north dakota they believe 25 to 50 people are still in the evacuation zone. For more on that we want to bring in call perry covering the story. Reporter good morning. Yesterday deadline day came and went and we saw only a small number of protesters arrested. Certainly not what we were expecting. Authorities had said they were going to clear the camp yesterday just after the deadline. That did not happen. One of the things that may have slowed it down, there was a negotiation between authorities and a small group of protesters who wanted to be arrested as they put it, symbolically. The protesters, according to authorities, did not show up at the appointed time and place. That seemingly slowed down the day. Unclear what the hundreds of Law Enforcement will do. Again, they say they want to clear the camp but theyre coming up against some hardened protesters who seem willing to stay at that camp despite the threat of being arrested. Now those who do choose to leave on their own, many of them will come here to the capital in bismarck. There are processing centers. Some dont have the money that they need to get home so theyre offering free bus tickets. If you are trying to get back anywhere in the lower 48 states and you left the camp yesterday, today youre likely to be processed out and put on a bus home. Well have to see how things shake out. Certainly tensions are running high. Everybody expected this to be resolved. Call perry, thank you for that report. Protests rung up outside the white house after the latest move from the Trump Administration. Hundreds demonstrated against President Trumps decision to cancel the federal rule to let transgender students use the bathroom of their choice, a 2016 directive from the obama, justice and education departments. Said that schools which refused could lose federal funds risking billions from some states. A federal judge in texas issued a nationwide ban. According to the New York Times he was opposed by education secretary betsy devos who has supported lgbt rights. The paper reports that sessions pushed devos to relent. After getting nowhere, he took his objections to the white house because he could not go forward without her consent. President trump sided with his attorney general, republicans said, and told ms. Devos in a meeting in the oval office on tuesday that he wanted her to drop her opposition and devos faced with the alternative, resigning or going against the president , went along. The conclusions everybody in the administration is agreed upon. Theres no daylight between anybody, between the president , between any of the secretaries. Democrats denounced the president s move. U. S. Senator caramel lahair ris said revoking federal protections for transgender students is an appalling decision. Shame fp. Washington governor said schools in his stlat continue to protect transgender students. And americas got talent star jackie ivancha tweeted to the president about her transgender sister saying, you gave me the honor to sing at your inauguration, please give me and my sis the honor to meet with you and talk transgender rights. While this ruling lets them decide how to treat trans students and he said barring transgender people from bathrooms is discriminatory. If Caitlyn Jenner were to walk into trump tower, you would be fine with her using any bathroom that she chooses . That is correct. Big move to create new bathrooms. First of all, i think that would be discriminatory in a certain way. It would be unbelievably expensive for businesses and for the country. Leave it the way it is. I will do everything in my power to protect our lgbtq citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology. Believe me. I have to say as a republican it is so nice to hear you cheering for what i just said. Thank you. Trump later told fox news he wanted states to decide bathroom laws. Vice president pence made a surprise visit to the Jewish Cemetery where nearly 200 gravestones were vandalized over the weekend. The Vice President walked the grounds of the cemetery just outside of st. Louis yesterday touring the damage and even helping to clean those grounds. His visit comes one day after President Trump condemned the recent yup tick and antisemitic acts as he faced criticism for not speaking out earlier on the matter. The Vice President reiterated the president s condemnation. Theres no place in america for hatred or acts of prejudice or violence or antisemitism. I must tell you, the people of missouri are inspiring the nation by your love and care for this place, for the Jewish Community in missouri, and i want to thank you for that inspiration, for showing the world what americas really all about. Following the Vice President s stop the Anne Frank Center which had been critical of President Trumps response to the vandalism praised mr. Pence for his visit. Still ahead, despite some record warm temperatures for this week, its bawl to change for several areas across the country. Scientists have found seven earthlike planets. So cool. Absolutely. Well talk to one expert about that major discovery and geek out a little bit. We have that story and much more this morning. This is the story of Green Mountain coffee and fair trade, told in the time it takes to brew your cup. Lets take a trip to la plata, colombia. This is boris calvo. Thats pepe. Boris doesnt just grow good coffee, boris grows mindblowing coffee. And because we pay him a fair price, he improves his farm to grow even Better Coffee and invest in his community, which makes his neighbor, gustavo, happy. Thats blanca. Yup, pepe and blanca got together. Things happen. All this for a smoother tasting cup of coffee. Green mountain coffee. Packed with goodness. Lets find out whats going on weather wise with meteorologist Bonnie Schneider to tell us. Its kind of nice here today, no complaints for sure. Things are going to be changing for so many, alex. We have snow across wyoming, nebraska, idaho. This is the beginning of a big storm ramping up tonight. Winter storm alert, a blizzard watch for parts of iowa today. Watching for the storm to really produce a lot of snow starting tonight with the bulk happening on friday. Heavy snow. 18 inches in southwestern sections of the state of missouri. Well be watching for some of that heavy snow in minneapolis a little bit less. It will change from yesterdays record high temperatures. Something else to mention about the storms that were going to be seeing is a Severe Weather threat, and that is for indianapolis all the way through friday. Strong damaging storms. And potentially tornadoes. Watch out for downpours of rain. The temperatures will be too warm for that area. And looking at the forecast for the weekend, just to let you know, this is all moving to the east. We will feel the rain in new york, not snow. Temperatures are too warm for that. I did some reporting about the possibility of a solar system. Take a listen. When you consider distance, the closest star other than our sun is 4. 4 light years away. We can travel at about 35,000 knots an hour. To get there 4. 4 light years, its about 86,000 years. Thats the closest. The possibility that were not alone in the universe is exhilarating and the possibility that we are alone in the universe to me is terrifying. One year later we may be one step closer to fulfilling that dream. Astronomers from nasa and the european southern observatory have announced the system of trapis 1. Three exowe planets are located in a habitable zone. They could contain water. Its really exciting, guys. Absolutely fascinating. Ph. D. Candidate in astronomy and somebody way smarter than the two of us. Thank you very much for joining us. Were trying to kind of comprehend the numbers involved with the distances were talking about. Right. How soon can we start booking air travel . I think you should probably wait about 500,000 years. Okay. Assuming we dont get any fast data. You were saying its about 40 40 light years. In miles, in actual miles what are we talking about here . Billions. Like tens, hundreds of billions. You were saying thats close. It is. In terms of space. Weve found exo planets that are hundreds of light years away. Even thats really close in the universe. What do we do with this information . Right. Well, so this information is exciting for a lot of reasons. Like lewis said, there are three planets in the habitable zone, and that means even if one of those planets doesnt have the right composition to hold life, there are still two other options and two other planets we can look at. How do we go about looking at them . How do we get this information . Its based on a method called transit photometry. When it passes in front of the star we can study how much light it blocks and figure out the size of the planet and some of the other characteristics of the system. You and i were talking a little bit before you came on the set. A lot more. You were talking about how you guys kind of geeked out about this. Oh, yeah. First of all, can we say you got the report a day or two beforehand. You just did. Yeah. Excited about it, right . Yeah. My advisor at columbia had a watch party so we could watch the press release. I can safely say even though we dont know much about it, were all excited. Alex had a watch party. I had to rewind the story from nightly news. I have to see that again. It is exciting. Moiya, thank you for joining us. Thank you. Still ahead, a shouting match broke out on the Basketball Court and louisville rick pitino seemed to lose his cool. Louis has that story coming up next in sports. Welcome back. Time now for sports and march madness is right around the corner. Last night syracuse may have paved its way into the ncaa tournament hosting tenth ranked duke. Game time in the final seconds of regulation, take a look at this. Five seconds to go. Pay attention to the clock. Gillan. Got it syracuse wins are you serious . The bank is open for the oranges john gillian who hits the gamewinning threepointer lifting them to a 7875 signature win against the blue devils. Lets go to berkeley. Off to a slow start managing only 16 points in the entire first half, but oregon rallies back in the second taking their first lead in the game. The final minute before the golden bears notch things back up. Timeout. Lets see if they use it. Hands off to brooks. Four seconds left. Brooks with two. Brooks for three and the win. Hits it oregons brooks sinks the goahead three with twotenths of a second. Hang on to beat cal 6865. In chapel hill, north carolina, number eight tar heels topped louisville 7463 making its case for a top seed in next months ncaa tourney. The real drama came at the half when cardinals head coach rick pitino had to be restrained during a verbal altercation with a unc fan sitting courtside. He eventually cools off and heads into the tunnel and the fan was ejected from the game. It didnt look like a fan. There were officials around him. When you get to that level you have seen everything. And heard everything. Yeah. Just block it out. Absolutely. All right. Still ahead, weve got more on the outspoken constituents turning congressional town Hall Meetings into mustsee tv. Plus, as the Trump Administration cracks down on immigration, top officials are in mexico hoping to soothe those tensions. Those stories and more coming up next. Stay with us. Theres nothing more than my vacation. Me so when i need to book a hotel room, i want someone that makes it easy to find what i want. Booking. Com gets it. They offer free cancellation, in case i decide to go from kidfriendly to kidfree. Now i can start relaxing even before the vacation begins. Your vacation is very important. Thats why booking. Com makes finding the right hotel for the right price easy. Visit booking. Com now to find out why were booking. Yeah only tylenol® rapid release gels have laser drilled holes. They release medicine fast, for fast pain relief. Tylenol® the full value of your totaled new car. The guy says, you picked the wrong insurance plan. No, i picked the wrong insurance company. With new car replacement™, well replace the full value of your car plus depreciation