time in nine months, restaurants can resume indoor dining in some parts of california, and museums, zoos and even sports stadiums can reopen for limited in-person crowds over the next few weeks. in just moments california governor gavin newsom is going to join me live to talk about his state's reopening efforts and the recall effort against him in part over his handling of the virus, but we're going to start today with cnn's nick watt in los angeles and a closer look at the push to roll back restrictions. >> bars and gyms will close effective midnight tonight. >> reporter: one year ago today california's pay area announced the first stay-home order in the land. this week a new dawn in the golden state. >> we're thrilled. we're thrilled to be back open. >> reporter: angelenos in limited numbers can now eat inside restaurants again. >> we hope that the state doesn't yank it us from again. >> reporter: some movie theaters in tinsel town reopened after 362 days. >> we've watching "tom & jerry" and, well, we know it's going to be really funny. >> reporter: meanwhile in mississippi, starting today anyone 16 or older can get a covid-19 vaccine. get your shot, friends, tweeted the governor, and let's get back to normal. moderna just injected the first children in a late-stage trial of its vaccine in the baby to 11-year-old demo. >> i think if we're going to get to 80% population immunity at some point children will need to be vaccinated. >> reporter: in part because nearly half of republicans say they won't try to get a shot. >> we've politicized mask usage which was obviously absurd and now we're politicizing vaccine, you know, taking the vaccine. it's -- it's crazy. >> reporter: something else the mayor of miami beach is worried about. mask-shy spring breakers. >> every time we open up without the mask mandate, we've had a surge that has caused more people to die. >> reporter: average new case counts are now rising in as many states as they are falling. a month ago nebraska was the one and only state where cases were climbing. the country now nearing 30 million confirmed cases. the real number of cases likely double that according to a study published today in a leading medical journal. how many more? now every time we hear a governor roll back restrictions, they say, well, we trust our people to make sensible decisions. exhibit a, the sweet butter kitchen here in los angeles, the governor says they are allowed to have people eating inside, but they say not yet. we don't think it's safe quite yet. now, listen, governor gavin newsom is getting it like all governors from all side. some people saying he hasn't been strict enough. more people saying he has been too strict. jake? >> all right, nick. thanks so much. let's take that up right now with the democratic governor of california, gavin newsom. governor newsom, thanks for joining us. you're facing a recall effort in part because of your handling of the pandemic. recall organizers say they have more than the 1.5 million signatures needed to meet tomorrow's deadline to get the recall on the ballot. i covered one of your recalls before in california, and at the end of it there was a brand-new republican governor. are you worried? >> yeah, i mean, look, we have the lowest threshold of the 19 states that allow a recall in the country and all you need is a quarter of the people that voted for donald trump getting this recall petition to the voters this november, so i'm an tis tis pating that it goes on. we're taking it very seriously. this is the sixth recall effort in just 25 months since i've been governor. this one appears because they got an extension from a judge to have the requisite signatures and absolutely we're taking it seriously. >> you've been characterizing your -- the recall supporters in a certain way. recall backers say more than 2 million people have signed the petition. you can't think all 2 million are, as you a characterize them, anti-vaxxers, qanon conspiracy theorists and anti-immigrant trump supporters, can you? >> just the lead proponents. the lead proponent -- the lead proponent of this recall effort, by the way, pre-dates the pandemic, is someone that believes we should microchip immigrants. you have people that are part of the lead coalition that started this petition that are avid proud boy members. they are part of the 3%ers, the right wing militia group. they are supporters of qanon conspiracy theorists, white supremacist groups, that's not -- that's factual. and so at the end. day that's the origins of this, and you combine that with newt gingrich and mike huckabee and devin nunes and now the rnc nationalizing this recall, time and money, you're going to get something on the sglalt what do you think of the 2 million or so californians who have signed this petition and i'm not talking about the leaders you just went after. certainly all 2 million californians who signed this aren't all trumpsters. i mean, we have interviewed people who were supporters of yours who are now supporting the recall effort in large part at least according to anecdotally from the interviews the reporters on the ground are doing because they think the measures you took were too harsh, too aggressive. >> look, i respect that. it's been a difficult year. in hindsight, you know, we're all experts. the reality it was a year ago this week california was the first state to initiate a stay-at-home order. i think we saved thousands and thousands of lives. at the end of the day though we're making progress now. i'm just at a school. 9,000 plus schools have either reopened or about to reopen. we've administered 12.6 million doses of vaccine, 464,000 just yesterday, a record amount. we're investing billions of dollars to help get our small businesses back on their feet and now 47 out of our 58 counties have reopened. there's a bright light at the end of the tunnel, but i'm deeply mindful and deeply respectful to all the anxieties that people have felt over the last year. >> it's been observed that the recall petition had only around 50,000 signatures until you infamously attended that dinner with multiple other households at that fancy restaurant, french laundry or whatever it's called, a birthday party for a lobbyist no less all while you were telling californians that they should be staying at home. so 50,000, 55,000 signatures before you had that dinner and a month later that 50,000 signatures had become something like 500,000. i know, governor, you have apologized for that dinner. you called it a mistake to go, but what i was wondering at the time, and i don't think you've answered is what on earth were you thinking? >> well, as a friend of over quarter century, his having his 50th birthday, restaurants were open in the state. i wasn't suggesting people should not eat. where i was wrong and own this and held myself to a high level of accountability, the critics, too many people at table. this petition recall was aided not just by that but aid by a judge who ultimately doubled the amount of time that they could get this recall supported, and ultimately on the ballot, and they received almost $3 million of money, some coming from different parts of the country, not just from the state of california, so at end. day it's complicated as to why this is on, but that's not determinative. >> so you don't regret going to the dinner. you regret the fact that there were too many people at the table, like would you have gone if it had been six people or something or four people? >> restaurants were open in the vast majority of the state. that was neither here nor there. i should have gotten up to left when i sat down at the table and there were too many people at the table and that was inconsistent with what i was expressing. i've made this crystal clear ad nauseum occasions. it was a mistake and i haven't made had a mislike that before or since. i own that. we're human. i've been moving on doggedly to fight every single day to get our kids back into school, get people vaccinated and get this economy moving again. >> let's talk about the economy. california's unemployment rate is the second highest in the nation right now at 9%. before the pandemic the number was at 4%. do you think that any of your covid restrictions went too far. i understand that hindsight is 2020 and we're all experts a year into it and we weren't a year ago, but looking back ton were any of your covid restrictions too tough? >> we have 1.8 positivity today, that's lower than all but three states in the country. we have lower death rates than the vast majority of death rates, much lower than places like florida and texas. i believe we've saved lives. we're led by science and held and led by data, not ideological, open argument. interested in evidence. there's no question, jake, to your point, the hospitality and leisure industry, two industries i know well as a small business person myself, have been disproportionately impact and that's been reflected in the unemployment numbers. here's the good news. we're running record reserves in the state. we're running one of the highest surpluses in our state's history. we just led the nation once again in our innovation index and our economy is going to absolutely come roaring back. you talk to me in six months, those numbers will be radically different than they are today. >> recall supporters also fault you and your administration for presiding over $30 billion in suspected unemployment fraud while obviously so many californians were suffering economically. i understand you weren't signing off on all of that, but you are in charge as the governor. this was taxpayer money, apparently billions of it going to scammers. what went wrong? do you take any responsibility for this? >> yeah, it's happened all across the united states. international rings. it deserves a lot more attention than it's getting. the difference in california, we did an audit, and we present all of the evidence. most other states have not done that by no stretch of the imagination, mark my words, what happened in california unique to california. what was unfortunate, however, is there wasn't a focus on this and it had to come out of the pandemic unemployment assistance, unemployment insurance that there was a modest amount of fraud but the poa program was novel and new and this is something that every state, most states, that is, have experienced, and -- and the difference is we got ahead of it. we've been able to push back and at least push back against $60 billion of additional fraud. we put a program in called i.d. me. this is difficult stuff and i can assure you if we don't get our arms around this today and we made it crystal clear with the biden administration through a national coordinated effort we'll see the international rings downto defraud the american people. >> you were heralding the vaccine progress you're making in california. you yourself have not gotten the vaccine. you say you want to wait your turn. i can respect that. i can't imagine the reaction if you jumped the line. but do you plan to get this vaccine, and when you do, will you show yourself taking it since hesitancy is frankly an issue all over the country, and in california it's not just the maga folks who are anti-vaxxer, but you have a bunch of liberal progressive anti-vaxxers in your home state so are you going to show yourself getting the shot? not different than most of the states, anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers. i look forward to that. my turn comes up hopefully by may 1st, everybody's turn will come up by may 1st and i look forward to taking whatever vaccine isible have a. one of the vaccines i do look forward to taking to the extent that i will a choice by that time is the j&j vaccine, one shot and done. that said i think at the end of the day, politicians matter but no one matters more than peer to peer. no one matters more than someone that someone else trusts and we need to deal with hesitancy that is changing but also deal with people who are inclined not to do it, just declining the vaccines. that's a more challenging and vexing issue us a suggest and now that it's becoming more of a partisan and ideological issue as opposed to originally it was an issue based upon history of racism and ethnic and racial lines. >> and so you talked about that may 1st deadline. president biden has directed all states to open up vaccine eligibility for all americans by may 1st. some states have already done so. will you make the may 1st deadline? some states investigation seeded it. will you get there? >> we just increased the opportunities for everyone 16-67 who have certain pre-existing conditions as well as people with intellectual disabilities, and this is something we need to talk more about as well as it relates to vaccine allocations in this country, but, again, we're looking at scarcity still. 1.7 million vaccines were delivered dozed last week. we administered 2 million. our only constraint is supply, manufactured supply. as that manufactured supply over the next five, six weeks presents itself then i we can remove the limitations and hopefully we can do that before may 1st. >> you talked about schools reopening. you set the april 1st classroom for young children by offering financial incentives for schools. when do you expect most students, k-12, to return to in-person learning, and what do you see as the single most important holdup to that happening since we have seen so much science suggesting that with masks and ventilation, et cetera, there's no reason for schools to be closed. >> yeah. look, i've been a strong advocate for safely getting our kids back in person for instruction. i have four young kids myself. i've been living through zoom school and all of the challenges related to it. >> it's brutal. >> put out a detailed proposal to our legislature. it's brutal, and one has to be mindful, the social and emotional impacts, not only of the kid but the parents themselves, so we prioritized our teachers in terms of vaccines. one of the first states to do that, zo% of all of our first doses going to our educators. over 400,000 now have gotten at least one shot. we also provided 6.6 billion to deal with the issues of learning loss and to safely reopen our schools. we finally got that done. 9,000 of our 11,000 schools now either have a date or are open already for in-person instruction. we won't be satisfied until we close that gap and get all 11,000 schools open. >> governor newsom, stick around. i have more questions for you. i'm not going to let you go yet. i want to discuss senator dianne feinstein's response to some news you made about a possible replacement. stay with us. we'll be right back. plant-based surfactants like the ones in seventh generation detergent trap stains at the molecular level and flush them away. it's just science! just... science. seventh generation tackles stains. we're back with our politics lead and continuing our conversation with democratic governor gavin newsom of california. governor, thanks so much for staying with us. just one more question on the schools issue. the what is the reason that they are not open? is it because you haven't been able or the school districts haven't been able to provide the mitigation efforts with the masks and the ventilation? is it because of teachers very understandable fears that they are going to get coronavirus even if it doesn't hit kids as much and their unions are standing up for them and in some -- in the view of some people preventing this from happening? like, what's the biggest impediment? >> yeah, i think it's a combination of all of those factors. just consider the size, scope and scale of california. we have a thousand plus school districts, 11,000 schools in the state, unlike any other state in the united states and each and every circumstance, each district you have unique challenges and criteria of things you need to overcome, fear, doubt, anxiety. people are obviously concerned, not only teachers are concerned, but custodial staff is concerned, and obviously parents are still concerned, but, look, we provided three months of free ppe. put up $6.6 billion to address learning loss issues related to ventilation. we were the first state in america to get a waiver from the federal government just recently to provide testing through medicaid, through our medical system and prioritized our teachers 10% priority off the top for teachers to get vaccinated as well as educators. we think we're overcoming it. it's like a muscle. people have to start the small cohorts pre--k to 2 and forgive me to extending this. here's the critical point. we gave them man to reimagine the school year and continue the prospects of looking into the summer a little bit differently and moving away from the calendar and looking at the school day differently. we give them flexibility and resources. you add that to 16 billion coming from the federal government. i'm confident you're going to see things move pretty quickly here. >> i hope so because as you know the emotional and psychological damage, the kids that are dropping out of school all together because of remote education section acting its own health toll. i want to talk about the situation on the border. there are more than 4,000in accompanied my grant children in border patrol facilities. i'm not sure how much this is affecting california versus other border states. do you consider this a crisis? >> it's going to become one unless we address it head on. a few weeks ago i put $30 million in emergency appropriation because we started to see activity on our board earning the southern border here in california, and while it's impacted, you're right. texas disproportionately, we anticipating it impacting our bothered and we want to get ahead of it. here's what we got ahead of and here's what i consider to be concerned about, is not only providing for safe accommodations for these asylum seekers, but we have a lot of people that weren't getting tested and those that were being tested positive weren't getting isolated or karen teed so we put up state money to provide to jewish family services, catholic charities and other non-profits, wrap-around services and accommodations. we'll do everything we can with an open hand, not a closed fist, to support the biden administration. we're pleased to see them moving with fema who are experts in logistics and can help at least temporarily with the accommodations. there's $100 million coming from the next stimulus. that should help, but it won't be enough i think to ultimately address what will be a mounting challenge through the summer, and so we are looking forward to engaging the administration more collaboratively and closely, but this is a serious issue and it's not a partisan issue. we have to address it head-on. >> there's the increase in unaccompanied minors in the san diego sector, it's up something like 64% in the last year. the how much do you think this is because there's a new administration with more lenient border and immigration policies? how much is just because of the human rights crisis going on in central america? what more does the biden administration need do? i remember during the obama years the secretary of department of homeland security jeh johnson flew down to the triangle countries and said stop letting these people come to our country. we can't handle it. it's a crisis. these people obviously fleeing poverty and fleeing human rights issues, and fleeing violence in many cases but he tried to keep it down there with aid, with other efforts. what does biden need to do? >> i did the same thing. i flew down to el salvador to make the same case, and at the end of the day you've got to deal with root causes, issues related to the northern triangle and to start re-engage and reinvest in that area. by the way, when i was down there we saw china investi