♪ you're going to be so strong and healthy when it's it's your turn just take it ♪ ♪ don't be too late, baby ♪ ♪ don't hesitate ♪ >> all right. . >> that's fantastic. . >> the great carol king with her own vaccine song inspired, she says, by dolly parton. >> tomorrow, we of course are going to be doing our own, willie and i are. go ahead, put up the tweet. that you could put up the tweet that would be great. thank you, dolly parton, for you for inspiring me to inspire me to record my own vaccination song. covid vaccine. vaccines save lives. a duwop version of the happiest girl in the whole usa. we change the words around a little bit. we think we could get 50 million new vaccines by tomorrow evening just on the strength of our song. speaking of big numbers, willie, it looks like oprah's interview with -- >> whoa! . >> -- meghan and henry -- what's his name? >> come on! >> harry. sorry. looks like they outrated your interview with oprah from the spring of '04. >> back in the "morning joe" days. 17 million people watched. that's just sitting down that night watching. many more watched it online, probably watched it yesterday after they heard everything about it. that's an incredible number in this day in age of fractured media. oprah still gets it done with a little help from harry and meghan. . >> and some big news. to say they were asking questions about what the child would look like, my god. >> providing no names. . >> no names except it was charles. okay. no names we're going to tell you about, but it was charles. >> it wasn't grandma. no it wasn't grandma. was it granddad. no, it wasn't granddad. it was a member of the family who doesn't have a lot of hair. well, come on. they have totally exposed the next king of england. if you are going to have that explosive of a charge. for some reason, this offended people yesterday when i said it. i said you need to give us a name. if you're going to accuse an institution that's been around over 1,000 years of that type of racism and the whole world is up in arms about it, you have to provide a name, unfortunately, willie. and i think, again, the -- right now the presumption is that it's charles. so he's doing a grave disservice to his father if it's not charles. >> yeah. that happened yesterday morning, actually. that comment got such traction and offended so many people. oprah came out yesterday and said harry reached out to me and said it's not my grandmother and it's not my grandfather. so he is leaving the bread crumbs on the trail. it is a small group of people it could be. that is the next king of england who is alleged to have asked those questions if that is true. . >> right. well, we'll leave it right there. . >> no more hints. but it rhymes, oprah, with marles. >> what? . >> they have to give us a name. . >> i'm not saying this is definitive about the claim, but the way harry talked about his dad in the interview, how he doesn't return my calls, how we are working on our relationship, that the bond isn't terribly close right now between father and son. >> well, and also, it's kind of like at the dinner table pre-covid and i say something and mika looks at me and says, you what? he had passed along to oprah what he told her. >> yeah, yeah. >> what the color of the baby was going to be. he was like, oh, no, i'm not going to talk about that. . >> okay. very awkward. let's get to the news this morning. the cdc released new guidelines yesterday for those who are fully vaccinated offering hope that life could soon return to normal. >> we've been through a lot this past year. with more and more people getting vaccinated each day, we are starting to turn a corner. fully vaccinated people can visit with other fully vaccinated people indoors without wearing a mask or physical distancing. visit with unvaccinated people have a single household who are at low risk of severe covid-19 disease indoors without wearing masks or physical distancing. and refrain from quarantine and testing following a known covid-19 exposure to the vaccinated person remains asymptomatic. >> the cdc recommends that fully vaccinated people wear well-fitted masks, avoid large gatherings, and physically distance themselves from others when out in public. and it does not mean people can move freely around the country. the cdc said people should follow their local health department's travel recommendations. dr. lena wen said the cdc is missing a major opportunity to tie vaccination status with reopening guidance by coming out with such limited guidance, they are missing the window to influence state and national policy. willie? . >> let's did ig into this with dr. vin gupta. it's great to see you. i don't think families have ever been so emotional about a powerpoint slide as they were when they saw this one from the cdc yesterday that showed the two green grandparents theoretically and a child and grandchild. if you are vaccinated, you don't have to be masked. after a year apart you can hug your children and grandchildren in most cases unless they are high risk. as you heard the guidelines, dr. gupta, what do they mean approximate what do they not mean? >> good morning, willie. good to see you. what they mean is vaccination will keep you out of intensive care. i think we actually have a slide showing what that means, what the purpose of vaccination means. a set of ct scans if your team has it on deck here. and you're showing it right now. this is the point of vaccination, willie. if you're, saying, a grandma or granddad, you want to see your children and they're nearby, you can go. because you know what, those vaccines will keep you from developing lungs that are seen on the right. that's key. let me put a word in here. that applies to the johnson & johnson vaccine. i keep hearing isinferior. we need to balance the head and the heart here. we need to get grandparents to see their grandkids. we don't know yet with certainty whether they stop transmission of the virus. so it's weird. how can you be kept out of the intense i care but still be a carrier? i see where dr. wen is coming from. it is still the leading cause of death in this country week over week. we are still in the middle of a pandemic. 70,000 cases. we're predicting about 65,000 more. it could be over 130,000 if more governors follow the lead of governor abbott in texas. this is still a precarious situation, which is why you are seeing a phased set of guidance. there's going to be a version two before long where i'm sure it is going to be offered or recommended for individuals vaccinated once there's more vaccine. so there will be a version 2. it will continue to be readapted. let's be patient here. >> let's be clear about what the cdc said yesterday for people who have been vaccinated gathering with other people who have been vaccinated. you can get-together, including indoors without masks on. what are the limits on that for people who say, okay, great, i can go see my friends or travel to see my friends in florida because they have been vaccinated as well. what did that guidance mean to you? . >> if you want to congregate with other individuals that are close by another household indoors, one additional household indoors, you can do so, unmasked, not distanced. but when you leave that setting you need to still be very vigilant. mask, distance in public because of the transmission question. we don't know if vaccines will stop you from transmitting the virus. you to that with those that are nearby. you don't hop on a flight with friends who might be vaccinated hundreds of miles away from you. so that is the key piece. for everyone saying, well, that doesn't make sense. there will be a version two shortly to allow for more normalization, more travel. it's just not here yet. >> great to see you as always. joe, as i said, when that announcement was made yesterday, there were cheers going up from grandparents across america saying i can hug my children, speck hug my grandparents again. dr. tkpaoup tpa says as long as they're close by. they don't want you traveling to do that. >> some say the guidelines are going too far, others say they don't go far enough. if you're vaccinated and you haven't seen your family in some time, i think it's pretty certain people are going to be getting on planes and they're going to go see their family members. i understand what lena wen is saying. we need to do everything we can to encourage people to get vaccines. if you say you're going to be fine and you go visit your grandparents as long as they live next door to you, people are going, wait, what? i understand what dr. gupta is saying. i certainly hope, though, they do come out with a new set of guidelines sooner rather than later. all you are doing is saying, well, you can get the vaccine but you still can't go seen your parents that you haven't seen in a year. you still can't take your kids to go see their relatives. i think, mika, again, the guidelines, hopefully there's going to be another phase of guidelines coming from the cdc sooner rather than later. we are at a point now in this pandemic where people who have been more conservative with the vaccine does not seem to be a winning strategy in the longer term if we encourage people to get the vaccine to return to their normal lives, reopen businesses, get back to some sort of normalcy. >> hopefully as more people are vaccinated this is less of an issue. it is the long haul to get the entire country vaccinated. moving on to politics and the latest sign that former. did not win the 2020 election. >> what? >> he didn't, if you can believe it. the supreme court yesterday decided it will not take up the last of trump's election challenges. in a one-line ruling, which is its normal practice, the court denied his appeal of lower court rulings that upheld wisconsin's mail-in ballots. >> this is a 6-3 court. donald trump put three members on that court when amy coney barrett was selected there were a lot of concerns he was rushing her selection through so she could have an impact on the election. i don't know where people got that idea. well, wait a second. actually donald trump bragged about the fact that he wanted to get her on the court quickly so she could have a big impact on the election challenges. once again showing his complete and total ignorance how federal courts operate, how an independent judiciary operates, and how judges who get lifetime appointments don't really care what he tweets about them. . >> donald trump's understanding of the supreme court is if i put you on the court, you're there to defend me, help me. in this case with justice barrett who he said you're there to help me win this election. she said, no, that's not how this works. the people he put there in his mind have not helped him at all. and this last decision is the final slapdown of all of these contests and people asking what happened in 2020, was there a voting irregularity. mike pence still writing op-eds about that. >> oh, mike, mike, mike. . >> the courts have said more than 60 times that these are bogus claims. this last one from the supreme court should put an end to the conversation. unfortunately, as we all know, it won't. . >> yeah. mike pence. come on, mike. come on. seriously? >> trump has a hold on them all. >> i cannot say this enough. i think the real heroes the past four years, i think the people in our government that stood shoulder to shoulder and remained committed to institutional norms, remained committed to constitutional checks and balances, remained committed to guaranteeing that madisonian democracy survived another four years regardless of the chaos going on outside the walls of their building. not just members of the united states supreme court but federal judges across america. this cannot be said enough, federal judges across america, federal judges across the country by democratic judges. liberal justices and judges that were federalist society. this they remain the most resilient part and remain really the last best hope to protect our democracy. >> it seems a lot of people thought it would go where it's going from the very beginning, a money-making venture the late yesterday the former president sent out a statement urging donors to give money to his save america pac. rather than to republicans he dubbed rinos. the committee is moving part of its spring donor retreat to mar-a-lago club in palm beach. wow. the "post" notes the decision to move part of the event to mar-a-lago comes amid a spat over the rnc and other republican organizations use of trump's likeness and image in fund-raising as well as anxiety about how trump plans to use his influence in the 2022 midterms. he really wants to completely own the republican party. and he's bringing it right to mar-a-lago. anne applebaum and associate editor of the "washington post" and msnbc political analyst, eugene robinson joins us as well. good to have you both. >> anne, not a strong man move at all saying i am the party and the party is myself. >> and must come to me. >> it is the final great grift deciding he is going to pull money away from the republican party and finish them off once and for all. >> your right. his venture into politics was always about himself, his family, his business, even his psychological needs. i think those around him understood that perfectly well. and the great unsolved mystery the past four years is why so many of them still continue to go along with it. he could bring down anybody. he could undermine anyone. yet they ton to make space for him, continue to recognize him as the leader. and so many of them still don't want to break away. it is mysterious. >> they are trying to work with this guy. it just doesn't work. i have been saying it five years. other conservatives that grew up in the movement have been saying it five years. this is a former democrat who has become a republican because he thought they were the easiest target. he could be a racist with birtherism, gain a foot hold, and just use the republican party. and that's exactly what he's done. and he has brought more ruin to the republican party than any aclu lawyer or any ghost of ted kennedy or any -- a legion of nancy pelosis. he has caused more damage to this party than anybody could have ever done. he lost the house, he lost the senate, he lost the white house. now hesitate trying to gut their fund-raising operations, a well-known frifter his entire life. . >>s this the definition of insanity. as you said, they lost the house of representatives, the white house, the senate. they will probably be the rare out of power party that loses seats in the first midterm if they keep keep following him down this path. it is only to feed donald trump's coffers and egos. you see more senators are just kind of bailing. roy blunt now is not going to run again. some of these republicans who know better should stand up to the bully and should try to take their paerpt back. but apparently they won't. >> gene mentioned roy blunt retiring. still waiting to hear about chuck grassley and ron johnson. they are for the most part establishment republicans. the kind of guys you came into congress with in '9 4 maybe. >> right. >> so who fills those seats now? there is this trump movement of candidates like josh hawley. people who run in the races to fill those seats. what you have in donald trump, that release he put out yesterday just explicitly saying give me your money. here's the link. give me your money because he is going to take out rinos. what is a rino to donald trump, anyone who crossed him ever at any point. someone who perhaps voted for his impeachment, who didn't support him in his effort to overturn an election. that's who rinos are to him. republican voters, 74 million of whom voted for him. >> well, it has been lately. it has been the past four and a half years. they have defined conservatism by whether you support the biggest spending republican in the history of the party. we saw ben sasse. he talked about this personality cult. he said it is not conservative. yet donald trump is taking us one step further to that personality cult. when i hear lindsey graham talking about he's capable of magic. what magic, lindsey? the magic that caused democrats to lose house elections in 2018 by a historic margin? is it magic? is it magic for donald trump to get in the way and actually seed the two seats in georgia and the control of the united states senate to democrats? is that magic? or to be so out of it, so amped up, so freaked out in the first debate that he cost himself the white house. he cost himself real action. it's a man with strong man tactics. anne, all of your works have described how strong man get in power and how they start peeling off the more talented, the more gifted, the more independent players all around them. we're now starting to see the establishment of the republican party peeling away one by one by one. they just don't want to work. in donald trump's republican party anymore. it is now donald trump's republican party. >> yes. and that's actually quite dangerous. because if you look back into history, whenever you see the emergence of extremist movements and you have to characterize a part of the trumpist movement as extremist, whenever you see that the antidote is the idealogically closest, most moderate. you can see this in europe right now. the german center right, for example, has finally begun to understand how dangerous the german far right is and has seen. there is a german far right party that has strange links and financial connections to russia that uses disinformation that has been very involved in anti-coronavirus, anti-mask kind of movements. and finally the center right moved itself and started to focus on this party and is conducting investigations and is seeking to push back. and of course they are the party that's in the best position to push back. they're the party of, you know, traditional german values, centrist values. and really what we need in america is more centrist republicans, more real conservatives who can attract other conservatives and who can keep them away from this extremism and remind them we live in a democracy and institutions, congress and the white house, are, by definition, shared institutions that you will always have to share with people who don't agree with you. and so the loss of moderate republicans i think is very dangerous for the entire country. . >> and, anne, you talked about real conservatives. i'm curious what your thoughts are on the judiciary, the federal judiciary, members of the federalist society who time and time again have voted to uphold the constitution and strike down donald trump's baseless claims of widespread voter fraud. republican-what pointed federal judges, as well as of course democratic-appointed federal judges. the federal judiciary and what it has done the last four and a half years and continues to do. what's your thought on that, and how important has that been to keeping this constitutional republic, keeping some of the institutional safeguards in place? >> you're really right to point to that. the federal judiciary represents a problem for a lot of progressives and liberals and even centrists. there are people on the supreme court and other courts who have views about, you know, that we don't all agree with or not everybody in america agrees with. but the point is, as you say, when it comes down to it, these are so far we're very lucky so far, these are people who believe in the constitution, they believe in the rule of law. and rule of law means that the law decides what happens and not people in power. this isn't a country like china or like russia where we have ruled by law where whoever is in power gets to decide what the law is. the law exists separately from whoever is in congress. it is the job of the judiciary to seek to enforce that la