pulling back. minors are showing up at our southern border in record numbers. >> we have a broken system and need a holistic approach. >> this is a humanitarian approach for all of us. welcome to our viewers in the united states and all around the world. this is "new day." it's monday, march 15th. it's the ides of march, i just realized that. >> oh, my gosh. >> i believe. i was told. alisyn is off and erica hill is here. i want to start off with something i think is amazing, okay? more than 3 million new coronavirus vaccinations were reported on saturday. that's the biggest number. nearly more on sunday. right around 6 million for the weekend. that's just staggering to me. we're now averaging more than 2 million vaccinations per day for a virus we didn't know about 14 months ago. so that's a great thing. it just is. one in five americans have received at least one dose, 11% fully vaccinated. it seems when it comes to supply and logistics, the u.s. is pretty much there or close to there. one obstacle that remains is hesitancy. one group that's lagging, self-identified republicans, supporters of the former president, particularly men, which is why dr. anthony fauci is urging the former president to get in the game when it comes to urging people to get vaccinated. other news this morning, a new fear that spring break could lead to a spike in coronavirus cases. and today president biden continues a cross-country bush to highlight the benefits of the $1.9 trillion relief bill. i think people started getting checks this weekend. >> the other thing is trying to contain this growing problem at the southern border. more than 4,000 unaccompanied minor children have crossed over the border. the president now ordering fema to help care firefighter those kids. we're going to get you the very latest on that situation. let's begin with jeremy diamond who's live at the white house with the latest this morning. jeremy, good morning. >> reporter: good morning, erica. you're going to be hearing a lot about this american rescue plan. that $1.9 trillion relief package which president biden signed into law last thursday. that's because the president, vice president, first lady and second gentleman are embarking on this help is here tour. that's what the president is branding with his top officials, to go across the country and sell the benefits of this $1.9 trillion relief package. it's a duo effort. he wants americans to know the relief they can get. if you look at the map, you'll see they begin fanning out across the country. it begins today with the first lady in new jersey and the vice president in las vegas, nevada. what's notable is a number of battlegrounds being hit. president biden is in nevada but heading to the state of colorado tomorrow where michael bennet, democratic senator from the state of colorado is up for re-election once again in 2022. they end the week, of course, in atlanta, georgia, and that is notable because none of this, $1.9 trillion package, a package certainly of that size would not have been possible without the democrats winning the two key senate seats in the state of georgia, and hanging over this would be the 2009 stimulus bill. president obama didn't feel they did enough to sell this package. while this relief bill has 60% of support among americans, the president wants to make sure it stays that way especially as republicans continue to heat up their attacks near the midterm. >> thank you. also this morning, a growing concern that crowds of spring breakers partying like it's 2019 could lead to a spike in cases. about 100 were arrested in florida over the weekend as some gatherings got out of control. natasha chen is live with the latest. good morning. >> reporter: good morning. it's quiet now because i'm guessing the spring breakers have just gone to bed. we did see a lot of crowd issues over the weekend and you mentioned an arrest. a couple happened a few blocks from where i'm standing. miami police say they were unruly, surrounded them. a couple of officers were even injured. some of these issues are typical of spring break season, but policing visitors during a pandemic is twice as difficult. spring break is here in miami with people crowding the beaches and bars as if there is no pandemic. some gatherings grew out of control. miami beach authorities arrested at least 100 people over the weekend, and without a statewide mask mandate in florida, local leaders must impose their own rules, something the miami beach mayor says is more difficult with spring breakers in town. >> the government has made it difficult. we have a mask mandate. we just can't find anybody. >> reporter: according to the tsa, more than 2 million went through airports across the u.s. friday and saturday. >> people are going on spring break and letting down their guard as so of these new more infectious variants are spreading across the country. >> reporter: the threat of the coronavirus is not the only concern for health experts. while 15% of u.s. adults are fully vaccinated this morning, a large number of donald trump supporters are refusing shots. according to a poll, nearly half the people who backed trump in 2020 say they will not get the vaccine. >> in arkansas it's a very pro-trump state in terms of the last election, and so we see that resistance whenever we're opening up eligibility for the vaccine. >> we're seeing vaccine hesitancy, and a lot of that is dealing with white republicans, quite honestly. >> reporter: whool all other living former presidents were quiet, trump received his vaccine in january. >> i can't imagine if he comes out, they would not be vaccinated. it would be very helpful to the effort for that to happen. >> reporter: some states like maryland is relaxing their restrictions. >> we didn't lift them. we kept the most serious mitigation measures in place, which is masking and distancing. >> reporter: dr. anthony fauci asks americans to keep following personal safety measures warning the u.s. is vulnerable for another coronavirus surge. >> we can avoid that if we continue to vaccinate people, get more and more protection without all of a sudden pulling back on public health measures. >> reporter: dr. fauci also confirmed with cnn over the weekend a new study out of massachusetts showing no significant difference between a 6-foot and 3-foot difference between a person, which could prove really critical to helping to reopen schools. >> if you wear a mask. even then, it could be a big change for how schools approach us. so this morning more than 4,000 unaccompanied migrant children are in border patrol custody and now fema is being sent in to help. so what does this mean? fema is being sent to help do what? >> reporter: fema's mission is going to be to help get the unaccompanied children in border patrol facilities into shelters that are suited for them. now, this is the challenge the administration keeps facing. there is a number of children crossing the u.s./mexico border alone and not enough shelter capacity to accommodate them. as we know, there are 4,000 children in border patrol custody. that's up again from last week and it's why fema is being asked to tap in so they can help move along this process and move quickly. john, we should also note fema has been involved in the past. here, mallorca is asking them to move it along in terms of children. >> what happens stateside with governor greg abbott? he needs to approve this, correct? >> reporter: in this case it's happening with the department of homeland security. this is separate from when they were offering funds to texas. in this case, fema is helping with a gonvernment-wide effort. >> that's an important distinction. how about these facilities where these 4,000 children are being held? >> lawyers that my colleagues spoke to about a dozen children in one of these border patrol facilities, and they shared accounts of children who are scared, who are worried. they also encountered children who had been there for several days and had only showered a few times or had not been able to contact their parents. so, again, this underscores the challenge for this administration. these are not facilities intended for children and they need to move out quickly to avoid the situations they're in currently. >> any sign where the fwhum bers are headed? >> john, the numbers from last week are already up. it shows no signs of slowing down any time soon. the paces are accelerating and moving fast. >> priscilla alvarez, thank you very much for your reporting on this. a shocking claim about the capitol insurrection. by shocking claim, i'm talking wildly racist. stick around. uh-oh, sorry... oh... what? i'm an emu! no, buddy! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty. ♪ when we found out our son had autism, his future became my focus. lavender baths calmed him. so we made a plan to turn bath time into a business. ♪ ♪ find a 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[sfx: thunder rumbles] [sfx: rainstorm] ♪ comfort in the extreme. ♪ the lincoln family of luxury suvs. so every now and then the kids like to note when they say the quiet part out loud. this morning ron johnson says the racist part out loud. listen how he explains why he was not worried about the capitol insurrectionists and what would have concerned him. >> i know those who love this country, that truly respect law enforcement would never do anything to break the law, and so i wasn't concerned. had the tables been turned -- and joe, this could get me in trouble -- had the tables been turned and president trump won the election and those were thousands of black lives matter and ante na who were protesting, i might have been concerned. >> so a guy was holding a "hang mike pence" sign up and ron johnson puts them in that column. it could be called a single entendre. what other way is there to read it other than white protesters promising death and upheaval, not bad, but largely black protesters really bad. johnson, you might remember, is that guy who read a statement into the congressional record who called the invaders jovial. does that mean they wanted to hang mike pence with a smile? like what's the friendly version of a camp auschwitz sweatshirt? of course, dozens of police officers were injured, one killed. 300 have been arrested connected to the siege. one open question from senator johnson. he said his racist comments could get him into trouble. any sign of that? and with that, i mean among republican leadership or officials? >> we haven't heard anything from republican officials yet and they have been silent regarding the comments he's made. it's probably not the most stream but the first since the january 6th insurrection. his office has not clarified. i'm sure senator johnson will be asked about it today. it's hard to square what he said and the images you're showing. you saw the images of police officers who protect the capitol every day being beaten, being, you know, crushed in doors, these horrific images, and senator johnson is kind of defending them here, and it just follows this long -- i mean clearly these comments are a more extreme example, but this is kind of kind of what we see from republicans, kind of creating this false equivalency black lives matter protests over the summer which did get violent, to be clear, but trying to equate that with what happened on january 6th at the capitol, which is completely on a different level and a huge attack to our democracy. >> to your point, it's this revisionist history that we're seeing, right, and what goes back to what we heard many years ago, what you're seeing and hearing is not really happening. this is what's continuing. that's the message being put out. to john's point we haven't heard anything from tsenator johnson, this might get me in trouble. >> we'll be asking republicans and senator ron johnson to clarify those comments. it's a reminder of where there are other kinds of problems over the fallout of the january 6th insurrection. remember that 911 stile commission that nancy pelosi has proposed. that's absolutely gone nowhere. she proposed it last month but there's still disagreements over how many democrats, how many republicans to appoint to the panel and definitely a di disagreement over the scope of it. nancy pelosi wants to expand the scope of the commission to look at domestic terrorism. mitch mcconnell said if you bring that in, we going try to investigate the black lives matter protesters. that's just another example of how on something that was just a shocking and should be potentially unifying as an attack on congress itself, it's creating these deeper and deeper bipartisan desniegs i'm going to send some history books to ron johnson. that confederate flag didn't mean they loved america and wanted a civil war. he may want to check the record on that. seung min, one of the things the democrats in the biden administration says, this is all the more reason to pass comprehensive immigration reform and there's the beginnings of action on capitol hill on that subject. what kind of roadblocks will this face? >> there's a passage of two targeted bills. it's a pathway for dreamers, the undocumented immigrants who came here as children, and also a legalization path for undocumented farm workers who have been doing a lot of the essential work during this pandemic, getting food to the tables of americans. and while the bill is expected to pass the house, we know those bills will face an uncertain future in the senate. and clouding all over this debate is that crisis at the border and the rising number of migrant children. i think republicans would point to that as they argue against immigration bill this week and future immigration reform efforts as signs we can't give any more signs -- any more signals that these democrats -- or that these democrats would qualify for these bills, which they will not, first of all. but they say the biden administration say they should not be sending signs that it's a good time to come here, which they've obviously made clear, but obviously they are struggling with that at this moment. we're talking about 4,000 children in custody always of yesterday. the biden administration has not answered yet if it would need additional funding to deal with the crisis at the border, whether it's additional hhs funding or other ccp funding, and that's something we should definitely be watching for. it was something requested under the obama administration. it's certainly something the biden administration could be looking to this time around as well. >> seung min kim, appreciate it as always. ing that you. vaccination rates are soaring across the country, especially over the weekend, and yet there's one large group of americans hesitant on getting their shot. that's next. ♪ ♪ we made usaa insurance for veterans like martin. when a hailstorm hit, he needed his insurance to get it done right, right away. usaa. what you're made of, we're made for. usaa re-entering data that employees could enter themselves? that's why i get up in the morning! i have a secret method for remembering all my hr passwords. my boss doesn't remember approving my time off. let's just... find that email. the old way of doing business slows everyone down. with paycom, employees enter and manage their own hr data in one easy-to-use software. visit paycom.com for a free demo. see every delivery... every yikes... and even every awwwwwwww... wait, where was i? introducing self protection from xfinity. designed to put you in control. with real-time notification and a week of uninterrupted recording... all powered by reliable, secure wifi from xfinity. gotta respect his determinatio. it's easy and affordable to get started. get self protection for $10 a month. person among republicans. if he came out and said go and get vaccinated, it's really important for your health, the health of your family, and the health of the country, it seems absolutely inevitable that the vast majority of the people who are his close followers would listen to him. >> dr. anthony fauci urging former president trump to urge his supporter os to get vaccinated. a recent poll shows 46% of the republicans will not try to get the vaccine. joining us now is dr. peter hotez, the dean at the university of tropical medicine. doctor, that hesitancy we're seeing not just from republicans but leaders, this is really among white republicans is a major concern. how much do you think it would change things if former president trump came out and said i got the shot, it's safe, do your part? >> yeah, absolutely it would be a game-changer. and here's why. i mean this is an evolving story that we've seen since 2015, erica. what happened was -- the backstory is the anti-vaccine movement to re-energize found a way to link itself to political extremism on the right to the tea party and to the far right component of the republican party. it started in orange county, california, but quickly moved to texas and oklahoma where it really amplified. and political action committees starting to form around the anti-vaccine movement. they started going after me because i'm a vaccine scientist in texas, and i have a daughter who has autism and have been rioting about why the vaccine does not cause autism. and in 2020 it piled on the protests against masks and social distancing. so what was an anti-vaccine movement is now an anti-science movement. it's now a mainstream platform of the republican party, and that's why we're seeing so many members of the u.s. congress not willing to take vaccines. what we need to do is find a way to de-link anti-science from the republican party. national science was started by lincoln. you know, the republican party was never an