good morning! and welcome to "way too early," the show that wants to hear more about this four-day workweek idea. we're going to tell you about that little bit later on in the show. i am kasie hunt on this tuesday, march 16th. we'll start with the news. europe's fight against coronavirus just hit another snag as more countries hit pause on the astrazeneca vaccine due to concerns about side effects. germany, france, italy and spain have halted use of the vaccine after reports of blood clots in some people who had recently received shots. denmark and norway halted the shots last week. astrazeneca says a review of 17 million people found no increased risk of blood clots and the world health organization is urging countries to continue using it. this comes as europe faces a third wave of coronavirus amid a slow vaccine rollout. the shot, which was developed with oxford university, has not yet been approved for use in the united states. the fda is still reviewing data to determine if the shot is safe and effective for use here. and president biden kicked off his campaign to promote the benefits of the covid relief package with an event at the white house yesterday. >> help is here and hope is here, in real and tangible ways. we're just days away from 100 million shots in the arms of millions of americans, 100 million checks going into the pockets and/or direct deposits, going into the pockets of americans, on the way to a million more -- millions of more americans. that's real progress. we have a lot more to do. we have to prove to the american people that their government can deliver for them and do it without waste or fraud. >> the president travels to delaware county, pennsylvania, today, delco, the first stop of the administration's nationwide tour to promote the plan. and after majority leader chuck schumer praised president biden's handling of the recovery from the pandemic, minority leader mitch mcconnell took to the senate floor yesterday and gave this decidedly different review. >> the president announced another supposedly audacious goal on thursday, that all adults in all 50 states should be eligible to schedule vaccinations by may 1st. here's the problem. dr. fauci said a month ago we'd be there by april. that was dr. fauci's prediction last month. so, the president's announcement of may 1st wasn't ambitious, good news. it was actually a walkback. president biden also made news with a big proclamation that maybe, maybe, if citizens behave themselves, we'll be able to have small outdoor gatherings by july 4th. this was bizarre and problematic on several levels. number one, let's be clear, the federal government does not instruct free citizens how they may gather in small groups with their own families. number two, this strange proclamation was out of step with science. current cdc guidelines say it is already safe right now, right now, for fully vaccinated people to meet in small groups, not just outdoors, but indoors, and they can be joined by an unvaccinated household if they're low risk. that's the cdc's advice, talking not about july 4th, but right now. right now. so, the president went on national tv to move the goal post way beyond what his own cdc is saying. that brings me to point three. the president's proclamation was far out of step with what's already happening across the country. it was advice for an alternate universe. the president and his advisers may need to get out more. >> joining us now, nbc white house correspondent mike memoli. mike, good morning. >> reporter: good morning. >> you and i have both watched a lot of mitch mcconnell over the years. he was trying to attack president biden there. i couldn't help but thinking his heart really just wasn't in it, because things seem to be going relatively well. >> reporter: well, kasie, i think this really shows the divide in the republican party about how to deal with president biden. attacks on this new president, just like in the campaign, were difficult for republicans to really find a strategy that would stick to him. and that's why, as you see president biden going on this don't call it a victory lap tour of benefits of the recovery plan that they just passed, you look at what the leader of the senate is doing, which is to try to go attack at the heart of why the president is still enjoying a little bit of a honeymoon -- the broad perception in the public that he's done a good job of handling this pandemic. and then you look at the leader of republicans in the house and you see a very different strategy, which is to look at a completely different topic to try to raise the specter of immigration as a midterm issue especially, something that does unite republicans at a time when they are looking for things that unite their party. but for the president, and as he embarks on this tour and you look at what the first lady was doing yesterday, focused on school reopening, the vice president yesterday focused on vaccines, this tour does two things -- one, talk about lessons learned from 2009. the white house knows that they need to continue to impress upon the public what's in this plan, to continue to talk about it ahead of what they know eventually will be more targeted republican attacks. but two, kasie it buys them time. they need to figure out what their next legislative priority is going to be. is it a huge infrastructure package, a smaller thing in the hopes of getting bipartisanship? that is what they're deciding in the building behind me as the weeks come ahead. >> as we speak. or maybe they haven't gotten up yet. we can imagine. mike, on the school question, that does seem to be one place where they are actually struggling. they made promises to reopen schools. and i know there are a lot of frustrated parents out there. what is the plan to try and actually deliver on that promise? >> reporter: well, it was interesting to see the first lady and what she did yesterday, and she's going to do another event later this week. of course, dr. biden, herself, a teacher, which is to address the issue of teachers, themselves. this white house, obviously, is closely aligned politically with teachers' unions, and that's been one of the other sources of attacks from republicans, that this white house is very well aware of and concerned about, because their allies are some of those resisting efforts to put teachers and students back in the classrooms quickly. what they've tried to impress upon the public is that this rescue package was necessary to deal with this. now there will be resources and money for schools, to give them things that are required, to have social distancing, to have more teachers in the classroom. but very clearly, we're also going to see next week a summit hosted by the new education secretary to talk about ways in which this can happen. but clearly, the white house knows there's more work to be done. >> all right, nbc's mike memoli, thank you, as always, for getting up early with us. >> reporter: you got it. >> really nice to kick the show off with you. and on the topic of schools, a new study suggests that a shorter social distance for masked students might be enough to stop spread in schools. the study, which was published last week in the journal "clinical infectious diseases" suggests that public schools may be able to reopen safely with three feet of social distancing in the classroom, instead of six. for the shorter distance to work, students would need to wear masks as well as take other safety measures. the cdc has yet to issue new guidance for schools, but dr. anthony fauci said the agency's studying all data before making new recommendations, and we are going to hear more from dr. fauci when he joins "morning joe" coming up later on this morning. also this morning, the director of the cdc is warning that the united states could experience another spike in covid cases as states ease restrictions and more people begin traveling for spring break. >> with the coming warmer weather, i know it's tempting to want to relax and to let our guard down, particularly after a hard winter that, sadly, saw the highest level of cases and deaths during the pandemic so far. i'm pleading with you for the sake of our nation's health. these should be warning signs for all of us. cases climbed last spring. they climbed again in the summer. they will climb now if we stop taking precautions when we continue to get more and more people vaccinated. all right, still ahead here, new charges stemming from the assault of a police officer who died after the january 6th capitol riot. plus, a group of republican lawmakers travel to the southern border and blame president biden for a surge in unaccompanied migrant children. we'll show you how democrats are responding to that. those stories and a check on your weather when we come right back. when we come right back tired of clean clothes that just don't smell clean? what if your clothes could 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title, this year's tournament is wide open after five different teams were ranked at number one in the ap poll this season. that includes uconn, which finishes the regular season as the poll's top team for the 16th time. but the lady huskies will play without coach geno auriemma for at least the first two rounds of the tournament, as he isolates for ten days following a positive coronavirus test taken on sunday. the team's head physicians had contact tracing protocols indicated he did not have close contact with any other team members since friday. according to the school, all other tier one members of the team and staff tested negative for the virus in the last two days. auriemma can rejoin the team as early as march 24th. meanwhile, six referees have been ruled out of the men's tournament because of positive coronavirus tests. an ncaa official tells "usa today" that one official tested positive yesterday and five other officials interacted with the person the day before were identified as exposure risks due to prolonged close contact. four replacement officials have previously been approved and meet the pretournament testing protocols. two of those officials will not be replaced. this news comes a day after the men's bracket was revealed and three days after virginia and kansas had to pull out of their respective conference tournaments because of health protocols. both teams made the field and must return negative tests on seven straight days in order to participate. teams must have five players test negative to remain eligible. and finally, there is no better way to heal division in our nation's capital than the return of america's pastime. the d.c. government has approved the attendance of 5,000 spectators at washington nationals home games when the regular season begins next month. the figure represents about 12% capacity for nats park, which holds more than 41,000 people. the nats will host the mets in the first of a three-game series on opening day, which is followed by another three games in washington against the braves. the team said it's going to start talks with city officials this week about increasing the number of fans permitted to attend games starting with the series that begins april 15th against the visiting diamondbacks. i cannot wait! cannot wait to go to a baseball game. all right, time now for weather. let's go to meteorologist bill karins for a check on your forecast. bill, do we have any baseball weather anywhere today? probably not yet. we haven't quite gotten to opening day. >> we're getting there. but eventually. maybe in the south a little bit it will be okay where they're doing all the spring training still. so, kasie, we're transitioning from winter with our big, last huge storm that nailed wyoming and colorado with feet of snow. and now we have a new storm coming through california. this is going to be more like a middle of the spring type of storm. this one's going to have a lot of severe weather with it. we're going to be talking tornadoes over the next couple days. so, for severe weather, you need a couple of ingredients. you have to get the warm, humid air coming off the gulf of mexico. that's already happening. and then, once the storms form, in order to get, you know, severe weather, you have to get winds kind of colliding. and that gives you the lifting mechanism. then to get tornadoes, you need that lifting air to start spinning. and we're going to get what we call wind shear with those storms, too, significant wind shear, especially on wednesday. so, me's how it sets up. during the daylight hours today, no problems. but this evening, severe weather will formulate today and then through the overnight hours. watch out in oklahoma for showers, maybe dallas to austin to san antonio, some wind damage and hail. then tomorrow's the big day. that looks like the best chance of a severe weather outbreak and possibly even tornado outbreak. heads-up for our friends from little rock to memphis, all of northern mississippi, including tupelo, then from huntsville to montgomery. and then finally, this severe weather threat will last all the way into thursday as these storms will plague us throughout areas of the southeast. so, kasie, you know, we're jumping right from our big winter storm over the weekend to what we expect to be a significant severe weather outbreak. and you've probably heard of tornado alley? there's a new term for this area, alabama and mississippi. they call it dixie alley. there's a trend with climate change to increasing tornadoes in that area. >> all right, well, fingers crossed for all the folks living in the potential path of that. bill karins, thank you very much. we will see you tomorrow. and still ahead here, amid accusations of racism, republican senator ron johnson is, get this, defending comments that he made last week about black lives matter protesters. we'll be back in just a moment. we'll be back in just a moment did you know that 70% 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