have much of a future, in donald trump's republican party. welcome to tuesday, it is meet the press daily, i'm chuck todd. president biden approaches the halfway mark in his first 100 days in office. facing a prior of different crises that's going to test his presidency in different ways, facing tremendous pressure to keep the momentum going on what is clearly an improving covid outlook. to hold the positive trends that we're seeing. cases going down, deaths going down, hospitalizations down, and most importantly vaccinations up, up, up. but health officials continue to urge caution and there's already a bit of brewing confusion over the cdc's recent guidance, which okays a fully vaccinated americans to potentially see their families but discourages the kind of travel required for many to actually see their families, diving into that coming up. and there's biden's signature piece of covid legislation, $2 trillion in relief that he is expect today sign into law this week after the house formally passes the senate's version. now contrast the improving covid crisis with the brewing crisis at the border. right now the white house is facing difficult questions about both the cause and the remedy for a surge in unaccompanied migrant children in border patrol custody. two sources confirm that nearly 3,200 children are being housed in holding facilities, nearly half held beyond the current three-day legal limit. the cells are not designed for children, concrete rooms with concrete metal benches and no beds. jen psaki acknowledged during "morning joe" that they're in a tough spot. despite the baggage from inhumane policies. gop leaders are seizing on it, calling it a crisis of the president's own making. >> i watched this morning, i saw the white house press secretary jen psaki say that she was heartbroken by what's happening at the border. and to that i would say policy has consequences. when you say that you're not going to enforce our immigration laws, that you're not going to build a border wall, it has consequences and we're seeing the tragic consequences of that right now at the border. >> in a moment i'm going to talk with former congressman cedric -- one of the most trusted advisers in the west wing. let's bring in our chief white house correspondent. peter alexander. i know right now the focus of this white house is to let the country know what's in this covid bill, very specifics, president biden out there talking up ppp loans today, he's got a speech to the country on thursday. but this immigration issue is turning into the -- you have planned events that you worry about. this is turning into an unplanned, unplanned problem that is confronting this administration. >> yeah, chuck, i think you're exactly right, and in conversations from this white house it's clear that at least for the moment they're doing their best to try to blame the previous administration, the trump administration for its cruelty, in their words, that they say in effect has tied their hands on this issue. but the issue is very clearly now in their hands as they try to combat this. but there is a very different policy that they're embracing right now. they believe it would be inhumane to return these children back to their previous countries for the treacherous journey as jen psaki describes it. their desire is to take in these migrants, within 72 hours, get them into these shelters, get to the families that sponsor them. they're trying to do that in 72 hours. as you just reported, the numbers are rising dramatically, joe biden, i'm told, the president, was briefed on this issue just last week, with dhs communicating their expectation that it could be 117,000 unaccompanied migrant children in the u.s. this year alone. the president deploying top advisers and aides and even the homeland security secretary to a border patrol station, into one of those shelters in texas to see the issue firsthand as they try to deal with it. but clearly, chuck, as you note, this is a very significant challenge as they describe it. the president just moments ago as he was trying to raise the focus on covid relief bill was asked by a reporteder whether this is a crisis, what he would do about it but he didn't answer that question. chuck. >> i'm going to move to the cdc guidance for fully vaccinated. his big fear was you get to the point and maybe the delay is they're trying to strike the balance of still keeping up some precautions. but at the same time acknowledging the reality that, hey, you're vaccinated, you obviously are in a much better place to circulate in society. these are -- i think some people look at this and think they're pretty strict for a vaccinated person. are folks in the white house nervous this is going to be discouraging to people getting vaccinated? >> well, it's clear that in some parts of this country the white house agrees that some people are playing by their own rules already. it was the president who said to me that it was in effect neanderthal thinking. in places like mississippi and texas. if they lock things up too strictly, but most people where they are adhering to the restrictions they want the best information why this white house believes the consistency of its messaging with covid briefings they have on a near daily basis is really helping here. chuck, you're right, it's a real challenge, as more and more people get vaccinated, more and more people feel like they can return to their lives. you're dealing with separate populations, how do you communicate a singular message to all of them where you don't risk a rebound as it were, another surge in this virus, especially given those variants that have produced so much concern in large parts of the country with the potential to be spread more easily but also in some places perhaps more deadly as well. >> peter alexander getting us started on the white house north lawn. our chief white house correspondent, peter, thank you. i want to dig deeper into the situation at the border. i'm going to turn to my colleague julia ainsley who of course has been covering this for a few years now through the trump administration and now here. so let's do this in layman's terms, julia, why is there a surge at the border? is this due simply to the election? >> no, it's not simply due to the election. i think that that is a part of it. one thing that i'm hearing internally at dhs is that they are worried about false narratives getting out through spanish media, or through cartels that are trying to convince people to make this journey, telling them that it's okay, there's a new slf sheriff in town, biden will let people in, the borders are open. there is concern about that internally within dhs. that's not the case. if you show up to the border now you are not guaranteed to come in and be able to claim asylum. they have a number of people ahead of them who have been waiting during the trump administration to come in and make that claim. but the other piece of this, chuck, that's so important is that under the trump administration the trump administration used the cdc authority known as title 42 to keep out all immigrants, to very quickly expel them because they said it was protecting immigrants and americans from the pandemic, from covid-19. now, a judge in november put an injunction on that for children and the biden administration has kept that going saying we're not going to turn children back away, which is why we are now looking at a larger number simply of unaccompanied children because they're no longer being expelled and some of them were waiting to get in, fleeing desperate situations and they are now at a point where they can come in, claim asylum and be processed but they are coming into a country that hasn't been able to revamp systems for them. a lot of these border processing facilities were built in the early 2000s dealing with migrant men. what's more, health and human services facilities, much better equipped to take in children are at a decreased capacity because they too had to go to smaller numbers during the pandemic. >> so, julia, president biden did make three changes at the border via executive order and i'm just curious how you would say these have impacted what we're seeing there down there, he ended the remain in mexico policy. he ended the metering policies that limited the asylum seekers. you brought up the cdc role with that in there as well. by ending the asylum seekers it's pretty obvious you have those that were sort of in the front of the line as you brought up. they now want their shot and we're treating them as normal asylum seekers, new poem are coming in thought i couldn't do it before but now i can. explain how the remain in mexico policy is impacting this now. >> i'm so glad you brought that up. what the remain in mexico policy did is it created camps, tents, cities along northern mexico right across from some of the main ports of entry into the united states where people were living sometimes more than a year in terrible conditions where they could be kidnapped and held for ransom, all while trying to get into the united states just to have their day in court. sometimes they would show up at the bridge for the day they were going to get their hearing only to be told, no, it's been cancelled, come back at another time. right now one of those key cities, matamoros, mexico, they were able to process all of those people are waiting and anyone who did remain they've put in other facilities. they've been able to move them to different places along the border. what that does is yes it means many of those people are being processed, but it's also an optics thing. someone in central america about to make this journey and they find out their family member who left a year ago is still waiting in that condition where they're being kidnapped and having to stay in tent cities in mexico, not able to get in, that's a different message back to central america and often times we can see one policy have an effect that has nothing to do with the specifics of that policy simply because of the mood and the messaging and i do think that that could potentially be more of what we're seeing here, but what we really need are those february numbers, which should be coming soon, which should show, and we expect it to show, a very large spike in overall migration, not just with those children and we're going to want to know how many of those immigrants just recently left their countries and how many have been waiting to get in. >> because that's something we don't yet know. julia ainsley is on top of this story for us, thank you. joining me now is white house senior adviser, a former member of congress from louisiana, cedric richmond. cedric, thank you for coming on. but first let me start with covid relief bill. is there any reason to believe you're going to have any problems in the house or is all systems go that you expect to see this bill signed, and i guess the question i have for you is, when should somebody who's expecting a $1,400 check see that $1,400 check? >> well, thank you, chuck, the answer to both, one, we don't have any evidence or reason to believe that the house is not going to pass this historic piece of legislation. it is progressive, it is transformational and we think it's going to happen. the second question about checks, i think that our goal is for people to start receiving checks by the end of the month if we can hurry up and get the bill passed and the president is able to sign it then we're going to workday and night to make sure that we get checks out as quickly as we possibly can. >> is that -- what is realistic? should people assume by the end of the month, is that sort of a realistic timeline? >> yes, i think people -- i think some people will start to receive checks before the end of the month, absolutely. >> okay. let me move to immigration, i'm sure you heard our report there from julia ainsley, i know you're on top of this story. last week president biden was asked if this was a crisis and he was like no this isn't a crisis yet. you still feel that way? >> look, i do agree with the president that it's not a crisis yet, look, it is something that we are dealing with, and we have procedures in place to help. we're trying to do it in a different manner, a more humane manner. so when children present themselves at the border unaccompanied we take them into cbb custody and we try to get them into hhs custody as quickly as possible because that way we can put them into a setting where they can receive educational services, mental health services, legal services and then we can place them with a family or in a place full-time. but part of the process in terms of housing is the fact that we were sticking to covid-19 guidelines in terms of not inundating the place with a number of of people, trying to have social distancing and all those things. it's something we're monitoring, working on and we're concerned about but we're going to keep working to see if we can get it right. >> let me ask the question in this way, cedric. do you believe there is a limit into how many of these unaccompanied minors we can place in the united states? >> well, i'm not sure, chuck, that that's the question. the real question is, you know, what are they fleeing from? two tornadoes, gangs. and we -- we assume, and look, i have a 6-year-old. we assume that it is easy for a parent to make the decision to ship their kid off a thousand or so miles with the hopes that they land in america because it's a better place because they know that if they keep them where they are they will probably not make it or they will be killed or they'll die or they'll end up in human trafficking. that's the real question. so we have to put some real emphasis and the weight of the country into all of those things because, look, if they come and they present themselves at our border we're not going to turn -- we're not going to turn an unaccompanied minor around. there's a procedure to do it and that's what we're going to do. >> you know, i feel like you're in a trap here, cedric, and the trap is this, is the previous administration didn't care if they were seen as inhumane on how they handled this. they just didn't care about it. and they had a -- whatever you want to call it so it didn't bother them, whatever, for whatever reason, maybe individuals it bothered but for whatever reason it didn't. and you also have a political party that has no interest in helping you fix this. so it feels as if you're on this alone but you can't fix it alone. so that's what i mean when i feel like you guys are in this, in a no-win situation. are you going to be stuck dealing with this by executive order because you're just not going to get the cooperation of the republican party? >> look, we would hope to get the cooperation of the republican party. we were hopeful we would get it on the american rescue plan that is going to help so many millions of americans, 185 -- 158 million americans will get a check. but on this issue, we're going to try to go at it in a bipartisan manner. but again we will not let obstruction get in the way of values and progress. and this is something we're going to have to work on. no one said that any of this stuff would be easy. and we accepted that but we also accepted that we're going to work, work, work until we make progress and get things right. i think the american people are okay with the fact that we're going to work to get it right. and that we're going to do it in a humane way because that's who president biden is, and vice president harris. and so it's a work in progress. but it's something we're dedicated to getting right. >> let me get you to respond to henry -- a former colleague of yours in the house. border congressman, democrat. take a listen to what he said. >> the administration in my opinion is listening to the immigration activists. that's okay. but they're not listening to the border communities, the people there at the border, they're being affected, that's what's missing in this agenda, they need to talk to not only the public officials, the mayors, the ngos, but they need to listen to the men and women in green and blue at the border. they know what's happening. >> senator, do you think that's a fair criticism? that you guys are listening to the activist community too much? >> well, no, i don't think it's a fair criticism. i think we've been listening and talking to everybody. that's what we do as an administration, we search for facts and we engage our stakeholders. i think congressman quaia is one of those. to some extent i understand his frustration but we have to weigh a bunch of different interests, a bunch of different sides and engage with a bunch of different stakeholders. of course he's one of them. he's been a leader for a long time. he's a valued democrat and valued friend but i don't think that that criticism is totally accurate at all. >> and finally, before i let you go, and look i know you've got a lot of things on your plate, i want to ask you about vaccine issues in the south. there was this headline in kaiser health and it caught our eye. an alabama, south carolina and louisiana, your home state, cvs is saying its vaccine appointments are going unfilled. do you have a good explanation as to why that is? >> no, i'm not. to tell you the truth if cvs is saying that then the people they should be saying that to is us and i just left jeff zients office a few minutes ago talking about vaccine and reports of what happened in community health centers yesterday which was a good report. i'm just not sure on what cvs is saying but i can tell you this, we've left no stone unturned in what we're willing to do to get vaccines out to communities of color, why we went to pharmacies and community health centers. my statement would just be that, you know, we will contact cvs, we will find out what it is they're talking about but we're seeing demand and african-american communities, even in the south, and so maybe there's some glitch in between that demand getting to cvs. so the major point is, we need to get it right. >> senator richmond, senior adviser for president biden in the west wing there, former member of congress, good to have you on and your perspective, thank you, sir. >> thank you. coming up house democrats say they are 110% confident the covid relief bill will pass when it comes to a final vote tomorrow as house republicans continue to stand against it unanimously. what does that $1.9 trillion in stimulus mean for the average american? we'll answer those many questions out there after the cdc guidance is released. why hugging grandparents is okay, but flying to see them, not so much. (vo) starting today, nobody has to settle for less than the very best. because only verizon gives you 5g from america's most reliable network at no extra cost. and plans to mix and match, so you only pay for what you need. the plan is so reasonable, they can stay on for the rest of their lives. aww. (vo) and on top of that, nobody gives you more entertainment you love like disney+, hulu and espn+ on select unlimited plans. we can binge that stuff all day. you even get a galaxy s21+ 5g when you buy one. only from verizon. dad, it's a video call. hold the phone in front of you. how's that? get...get mom. [ding] power e*trade gives you an award-winning app with 24/7 support when you need it the most. don't get mad. get e*trade and start trading today. woman: i have moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. now, there's skyrizi. 3 out of 4 people achieved 90% clearer skin at 4 months after just 2 doses. skyrizi may increase your risk of infections and lower your ability to fight them. before treatment, your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms, such as fevers, sweats, chills, muscle aches or co