>> breaking news on pope francis. the vatican out with a new update on his condition. and nbc's claudio lavanga has the very latest from rome. claudio. >> on sunday evening, the vatican said the pope's condition remains critical, even though since saturday he hasn't had any further respiratory crises. at the same time, the vatican says he continues to receive a high flow oxygen therapy through his nostrils to help him breathe better. now, the vatican also says the blood transfusion he received on saturday helped, worked and helped to increase the hemoglobin levels to the point that now that's under control. but the latest blood tests revealed an initial light stages of kidney insufficiency. this is what the vatican is calling it. but that is also, the vatican says, under control for now. it also says the pope is alert.

this morning he followed from his apartment on the at the gemelli hospital here in rome, the holy mass that took place in the morning here in saint peter's behind me, where a lot of the faithful were praying for him to get better. >> all right. claudio langa, thank you so much for that. and in moments, a woman with a story to tell. she's an iraq vet who just lost her job in the sweeping cuts. you're going to hear from her in minutes. good day, everyone. from msnbc world headquarters here in new york, welcome to alex witt reports. we're beginning this hour with some new reaction to the whiplash of orders coming out of the trump administration. on saturday, billionaire advisor elon musk issued an ultimatum to all federal employees fill out a productivity report within 48 hours, or resign. then, just a few hours later, the fbi and state departments issued memos to employees telling them to ignore musk's order.

>> there is no such thing as the department of government efficiency. the fact that everyone keeps going around pretending like this exists doesn't actually wish it into creation. you have to create by law, by an act of congress if you are going to have a department. so instead what is happening is he is acting lawlessly at the president's direction, or at least allowance to show up agency by agency on an ad hoc basis, firing people. it is wrong. it is illegal. >> meantime, the debate over the president's efforts to dramatically slash the federal government is sparking heated discussions on the sunday talk shows today. >> donald trump is a chaos agent who promised to lower costs, lower the high cost of living in the united states of america. and he's doing the exact opposite because he's not focused on it. >> i think american voters like the intensity and the focus that they've seen from 30 some days of this administration going

about doing the things they told the voters they were going to do. >> well, also new today, ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy said he's willing to give up the presidency for peace in ukraine or nato membership. and here's a key member of the senate foreign relations committee earlier on the trump administration's proposal to seize half of ukraine's minerals. >> for the president of united states to extort the people of ukraine when they're under the gun, under fire from putin is outrageous. i mean, can you imagine fdr saying to churchill while the nazis were bearing down, you know, just give us half your coal reserves and your mineral reserves and then then we'll help you out in the face of these attacks. it's just outrageous. and, you know, people around the world are understandably worried about american leadership. i mean, this is not america first. this is america in retreat. >> also new a poll on president trump's task force for cutting federal spending. 42% support.

it's 53% oppose it. and here's nbc national political correspondent steve kornacki on meet the press today. >> look at the personalities now, the public faces of this administration, not just the president, the vice president. and, of course, you were just talking about elon musk. what you're measuring here is just basic popularity. do you have a favorable or unfavorable view of these people? again, that trump number looks just like his approval rating does. you can see vance. it's about evenly split with musk. it is now 50% unfavorable. and then when you ask folks just about that job that musk has taken inside the government here trying to find trying to make cuts here again, you can see 49% disapproval. only a third approving. >> and breaking news. germany's elections wrapped up just hours ago. conservatives are leading in the vote count, with the far right alternative for germany party in second place. we're going to have more on this in just a moment for you. we have a number of reporters and analysts in place ready to go over all

these new developing storylines. we're going to go to nbc's vaughn hillyard first. so, vaughn, what new are we learning today about the role the white house is playing in the talks between russia and ukraine? >> right. actually, in just a few moments ago, president zelensky addressed specifically the negotiations that are taking place, making it clear that the americans are imperative to any sort of cooperation agreement and end to the war, and acknowledged that the mineral deal that the administration has wanted to strike. and president trump yesterday, just outside of d.c, during his cpac speech, explicitly said that we want meaning the united states minerals, oils or anything that for a deal to take place between ukraine and the united states. president zelenskyy made it clear that it must be good for the ukrainian people, insisting that a security agreement or nato membership must be included as part of the deal, and that could potentially be even an exchange for him, as president trump has suggested, potentially, he should no longer

be president. it would potentially include him stepping aside as as president of ukraine. of course, so much of that is at stake here comes down to the willingness of the trump administration to work under ukraine's conditions. and i want to let you hear from steve witkoff, because the special envoy for the trump administration, who has engaged in middle east peace talks, but now is engaged with the russians in the ukraine, again, openly suggested that it was ukraine that provoked russia to initiate the war three years ago. take a listen. >> the only way you're going to end the carnage is if you have a relationship with the leaders o, of both countries that are involved. i was i went over to russia, i had a meeting with with president putin. it was a long meeting, positive, constructive, lots of good things got discussed. and then there was a positive conversation with president

zelensky. so i think you've got to have these relationships. you've got to have communication. that's the only way you get deals done. >> now president zelensky this afternoon noting that eu leaders are set to meet in brussels in the coming weeks, that he is also set to meet with canadian prime minister justin trudeau. but of course, as these negotiations move forward, the difficult part for the ukrainians is that not only has president trump been audible in his frustrations with the ukrainians, but also vice president j.d. vance and marco rubio, the secretary of state suggested that they had a meeting about the potential rare earth mineral deal that they had put on the table for the ukrainians, and that it was not until after the meeting, as rubio and vance have suggested, that zelensky said, that he and ukraine would not be open to such a deal. but again, here in the last hours, now suggesting there could be a potential partnership on the line, but that ukraine would need security agreements in order to move forward with such concessions. >> still negotiations underway

then. thank you very much, vaughn hillyard, for that. and let's head overseas now. in the breaking news in germany's snap elections, the exit polls show the center right opposition is in the lead and then the far right party, it's known as the afd, is in second place. but this is the strongest support for the far right in that country since world war two. joining me now, nbc's raf sanchez in berlin. so talk about what you're hearing, raf, from the exit polls and from anybody with whom you're speaking. >> so, alex, we've had these exit polls for about three hours now, and based on the real results we're starting to see, it looks like these polls are pretty accurate. as you said, the center right christian democrats appear to have won this election. it is likely that they are going to lead the next government. but the real political earthquake here is how well the far right the alternative for germany, known as the afd, has done. it is looking like one voter in five cast their ballots. for the afd. that is a result we have not

seen since the second world war in the history of modern democratic germany. and we are starting to hear, alex from the leaders of the different parties. we're at the headquarters of the social democrats there, the incumbent center left party. they lead the government right now, just a few feet away from me. chancellor schulz, the leader of germany, gave a speech a little while earlier and he acknowledged his party was badly beaten. this is a new era and the fight is on for democracy. it actually reminded me a little bit of the speech that vice president harris gave when she lost to donald trump in the election last year. we're also hearing from alice weidel, the leader of the afd. she is saying this is a historic result for her party. she is saying her party has never been stronger, and that it is the will of the people that they get a role in government. now, so far, all the mainstream parties center right, center left are saying they will not, under any circumstances allow the far right to join the government. but we are just at

the very start of what is going to be a complicated coalition negotiations. alex, it's quite interesting. i'm just looking off camera right now because all of the party leaders are currently in a single television studio, basically doing one big roundtable interview together. these people who have been tearing chunks out of each other on the election trail for the last couple of weeks, just a couple of hours after exit polls. they are now all sitting together. they're reflecting on the election. they're talking about the coalition negotiations to come. it's known as the elephant round. and it is a peculiarity of german democracy seeing these election rivals all in one place. the leader of the cdu, frederick mertz, the head of the christian democrats, is saying he is hoping to form a government by easter. and we are already hearing from president trump, who is saying that the people of germany voted for common sense, in his words, on both immigration and on energy. alex. >> let me ask you quickly, quickly, the government that he formed, is there a proportional

representation for the way the votes come out, party by party, in their version of a parliament? >> yeah, exactly. so that's why you have these complicated coalition negotiations to come. so the cdu looks like it's going to win about 30% of the vote. they're not going to have a majority in parliament on their own. they're going to have to cobble together some of the smaller parties. potentially, you're going to see the big center right party and the big center left party going into government together. and the far right is going to argue that that is a real crisis of democratic legitimacy and potentially the next election. they will try to capitalize on that, saying that they are the only alternative to these mainstream parties. >> extraordinary. okay. ralph sanchez, thank you so much for the latest there from berlin. joining me now, ben rhodes, former deputy national security advisor, the co-host of pod save the world and an msnbc political contributor. welcome, ben. always glad to talk with you. first, i want to get your reaction to the german election results that we're seeing that ralph was just talking about.

look, we see the center right cdu, that's the christian democratic union win. but the far right afd, it close to doubled its votes from the last election. what does this mean for the future of germany's government and more broadly, ben, europe? >> well. >> alex, it tracks what we saw in the public. >> opinion polling, which. >> is certainly a shift. >> to the right in germany. >> and i think there are a couple of pieces to that. the first is, you know, germans are upset by cost of living, just like people in the united states were. they're upset about immigration, just like people in the united states were. so there's not a huge surprise that the incumbent party, the social democrats, lost. and you had the cdu, which was, you know, the party of angela merkel win in this election. however, the other factor here is that this is a movement to the right, more consequentially in germany than we've seen before. so first of all, the cdu moved to the right from angela merkel to her right on issues like immigration. but the afd, i mean, people need to

understand the united states. there are leaders in the afd who have been deemed extremists by german authorities themselves. this is a party that has roots that date back to kind of neo nazi ism. they've called into question accounts of the nazi party and of the holocaust. so this is essentially a party that has been ostracized from the german mainstream now reaching 20%. and i think that speaks to a kind of growing far right politics across germany, across europe, that is going to make it harder for europe to speak with one voice at precisely the time that vladimir putin and donald trump and others are seeking to divide europeans against one another. so i think what we're seeing is a kind of fracturing of european politics. as you see, these far right movements grow, not growing all the way to gain power in big countries like germany and france, but knocking on the door. and that's going to make it harder for europe to stick together on issues like ukraine. and obviously that's happening at a crisis point for ukraine when we have the united states essentially switching sides to take russia's view of

that conflict. >> well, let's remind our viewers that elon musk endorsed the afu. i mean, he said, great. there you go. it is a pretty small, actually. the afd is what it is. let me talk about what happens tomorrow, which is french president emmanuel macron visits the white house to meet with president trump. i'm curious what you expect from this meeting, what it will look like given trump's recent attacks on president zelensky and on the aid to ukraine and his envoys criticizing europe. >> well, yeah, i think what you've seen from emmanuel macron since trump made this outreach to russia, since jd vance flew to munich, alex and endorsed the afd and further kind of stirred the pot in european politics. you saw emmanuel macron have an emergency summit of european leaders to try to muster support for ukraine. now, both europe and ukraine have been iced out of the key negotiations. thus far, the u.s. has been negotiating bilaterally with russia, so macron brought together european leaders. he said that both french and british troops might be on the

ground in ukraine as part of a peace settlement, to provide a security guarantee to the ukrainians that has not been forthcoming from the united states. i think what macron would want is essentially a pledge from trump that europe and ukraine can be at the negotiations about the end of the war in ukraine, which is not an unreasonable demand. europe has provided more support to ukraine than the united states has, and obviously the ukrainians are the ones fighting and dying on the front lines. the question for us, alex, is will we see donald trump work with macron to try to bring him in the europeans into the fold as it relates to the end of the war in ukraine? or will we see him talk down to macron? will we see him continue to express a preference for these dictatorial leaders like vladimir putin, that seem to be more in line with trump's view of the world? i think the entire world is waiting to see whether these two leaders find common ground, or whether europe continues to be on the outs in this white house. >> monday is a sobering day, as it marks three years since russia invaded ukraine, and we are in early stages of possible peace talks. but trump this week

alone has gone from calling zelenskyy a dictator and blaming ukraine for starting the war, to then later saying russia attacked ukraine and then pushing for a mineral agreement to be signed as some sort of a payback for u.s. aid already given and a down payment on support in the future, we hope. i don't know that that's been made perfectly clear, though. what do you make of trump's shifting stance? >> well, i mean, he's viewing this as some kind of transaction where he wants to repair relations with russia. he's obviously had this affinity for putin. he's been essentially putting forward russian talking points about how the war started, but also russian proposals, the idea that ukraine should somehow have an election while they're being bombarded by russia is very much a russian desire, because it would destabilize ukrainian politics. trump seems to be trying to pressure zelensky into signing this deal, which i'm just going to say alex is completely grotesque to me. the idea that a country that is fighting for its survival is being essentially told by the united states of america that the only way that

we will include you in negotiations about your future, the only way that will provide any support to you whatsoever, is if you sign over your rare earth minerals to us, that that's just kind of not the kind of leadership that people expect from united states of america. but that is what we're getting from the kind of transactionalism of donald trump. i think what worries me here, alex, is essentially what trump is pushing for is an end of the war completely on russia's terms. they get to keep about 20% of ukraine's territory. there's no nato membership for ukraine, so they continue to be vulnerable to russian invasion in the future. and what, so that we can get some rare earth minerals from ukraine? i don't think that's exactly the game changer for the united states that donald trump seems to think it is. meanwhile, underneath that, the whole world order is unraveling. u.s. alliances are unraveling. europe is fracturing. russia is going to be emboldened. china is going to be emboldened. you have taiwan looming as another place in which a big country, china, may seek to take action against taiwan. you have russia

threatening other countries in europe. so it has to be seen in that context. and that's why it feels like such a dangerous moment that the united states is abandoning any sense of moral high ground, but also seems to be empowering this collection of autocratic countries, from china to russia to saudi arabia, who hosted the talks between the us and russia. so it's a very uncertain moment, alex, right now. >> yeah. it is. let me get a question in on israel, because in just the last hour, we have learned that israeli tanks have moved into the occupied west bank. it's for the first time in decades. so with the defense minister saying troops will remain in parts of the territory for a year, and tens of thousands of palestinians who have fled can't return. what do you make of this escalation by israel? >> well, i think it's connected to what we were just talking about in a way, because obviously the attention has been focused on gaza. there continues to be the question of who will administer gaza. will israel continue to have kind of a security presence in gaza going forward? but the west bank has always been territorially at

least the main event. and there are people netanyahu's coalition in the far right in israel, who would like to begin to annex parts of the west bank, not only continuing settlement building, but taking greater security presence in the west bank and potentially move to annexation. and again, if we're moving to this world in which the rules don't apply in which might makes right, in which, you know, things like sovereignty and international norms and rules and laws don't apply anymore, i think the west bank is an area that we have to watch very closely, because if you're in the israeli far right, you're probably thinking there's not going to be a better opportunity for us to try to seize and claim and potentially annex territory. then the four years of donald trump's second term. and so i think we're in for a pretty bumpy and uncertain ride when it comes to the west bank in the coming months and years, as well as this uncertainty around the future of gaza. >> i always appreciate our conversations. ben rhodes. come see me again soon. thank you. coming up next, we're going to talk about this article. trump's presidency is a mess of

contradictions. its author joins contradictions. its author joins me in 90s. (man) got one more antoine. (vo) with usps ground advantage, it's like you're with us every step of the way. ♪ (man) cooool. ♪ (man) right on time! (vo) stay in the know. from your dock... to their door. if you're frustrated with occasional bloating or gas, your body's giving you signs. it's time to try align. align probiotic was specifically designed by gastroenterologists to help relieve your occasional bloating and gas. when you feel the signs, it's time to try align. planning to move? join the 6 million families who discovered a smarter, more flexible way to move, with pods. save up to 20% now for a limited time. whether you're moving across town or across the country.

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that every agency and department is effectively and efficiently doing their job. >> what the head of management, the state department, said is elon musk doesn't have the authority to require state department employees to answer these questions. that has to happen in the chain of command. >> for more. joining me now is molly ball, senior political correspondent at the wall street journal. and peter nicholas, nbc news.com senior white house reporter. welcome to you both. molly, since elon musk's post so far, we have seen federal workers unions, the fbi and the state department all telling workers, do not answer this email. do you expect to see more resistance? >> yes and no. i mean, i think we've seen mixed results across. the government. and that's kind of been the response to elon musk. >> writ large. >> i think, you know, federal workers are very uncertain about what exactly they should do here in. >> this situation. >> they want to do what they're supposed to do. they want to

follow the rules. and it's just not clear what the rules are right now in so many ways. so i one dynamic that i think is interesting that, as you pointed out now that more, more and more of these agencies have confirmed heads in place and those confirmed heads. are trump supporters, are people like kash patel, who want their workforces to be happy. they don't necessarily want their workforces to be as uncomfortable and in pain and traumatized as some in the administration have expressed. so there may be a little bit of a tug of war there, right, with the cabinet secretaries wanting to actually protect their workers at the same time as musk and doge are trying to clear out as many of them as possible. >> i guess some workers must be wondering who's actually in charge. is it my department head or agency head, or is it doge? and they've got to struggle with that. this email thread, peter. it is similar to the one sent by musk to twitter workers back in the early days of him buying

that company. do you think musk checked in with donald trump prior to sending this? >> well, i. >> think musk feels is he has a. >> lot of latitude. >> from trump. that he has trump's confidence. >> and feels. >> that he's acting. >> with trump's permission. >> but i agree with molly in the sense that this might be very demoralizing for federal employees, and it might also create some resentment towards musk at high levels of trump's government. i mean, you have some trump appointees, political appointees who've been confirmed by the senate who are saying, no, let's pause on this. you don't have to respond to this request to describe what your week was like. and you can kind of understand why some of these employees, particularly at the fbi, state department, are involved in sensitive investigations, sensitive diplomatic work, and to list five things that they've done all week could be in conflict with the agency's goals. >> and, molly, the washington post reports that some of the actions by musk and doge, they

have been blindsiding many of donald trump's senior advisers. here's the quote. basically, every cabinet member is sick of him, but nobody feels like they're in a position to do anything about it, said one person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. and trump said yesterday he wants musk to be more aggressive. so how far is too far? >> i don't think we've gotten there yet. and you know, as peter pointed out, it is clear that musk still has the confidence of the only person who matters in this equation, and that is donald trump. and trump likes what he sees so far. i think that the approach that musk has taken is obviously discombobulating to people like, you know, federal workers who are used to a high degree of certainty, a high degree of procedure, a lot of rules to follow, and things can only be done in a certain way. musk, of course, coming in, taking the opposite approach of that is understandably destabilizing and confusing and demoralizing. but trump is very much on the same page as musk in terms of he

wants to be destabilizing, he wants to be disruptive, and he likes that. musk is, as the saying goes, moving fast and breaking things. so as long as that's the case, you know, any kind of grumbling from around trump that other people are not getting this degree of latitude or that other, you know, advisers to the president don't have visibility into a lot of the things that musk is doing. i think none of that is really going to have much purchase until trump himself decides, for some reason, he doesn't. he's not on board with everything musk is doing, but so far he seems to really like what he sees. >> i want to get to what you wrote, peter. the piece called trump's presidency is a mess of contradictions. and you said in part, the start of trump's second term has been a blur of activity. each week brings fresh white house directives, orders and statements. yet a parallel of trump's perpetual motion machine is that policies and pronouncements may collide head on. fulfilling one could snuff out another. do you think voters

are going to care about contradictions? do you think we might have started seeing that in those town halls, where people have gotten pretty heated over the last couple of days? >> i think they do care. i mean, trump is talking about an array of tariffs on foreign countries, but there's a lot of data out there that shows that tariffs are tend to raise prices in trump's first term, for example, tariffs that he imposed raise prices on washing machines and dryers by 12%. trump was elected in no small part because of popular discontent with high prices. and joe biden paid a huge you know, there was a big cost to that for democrats. if trump doesn't reduce prices, he could be in trouble in these midterm elections coming up next year. and there's already some evidence. consumer. consumer confidence is down. inflation is ticking up. so yes, some of these policies that trump is putting out are not complimentary. in fact they're in conflict with one another. tariffs and prices are one

example. so he has to pay attention to this. and we know from the town halls that you mentioned that voters are quite concerned with what they've seen. >> yeah. okay. molly ball and peter nicholas, thank you very much, both of you, for the conversation and what we know about the measles. measles rather outbreak. it is now in rather outbreak. it is now in two states. we'll be our heart attack was... scary! never want to go through that again. but we could... with heart disease, you never know. so we made changes. green juice. diet, exercise... ...statins helped. but our ldl-c (bad cholesterol) - it was stuck! - stuck! just couldn't lower it enough. and high ldl-c meant a real risk of another attack. so i said, “let's ask our doctor about repatha.” what can i say? listen to your heart. repatha plus a statin dramatically lowers ldl-c by 63%, and drops the risk of having a heart attack by 27%. do not take repatha if you're allergic to it. serious allergic reactions can occur. get medical help right away if you have trouble breathing or swallowing,

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contagious diseases known to humans. are we just seeing the tip of the iceberg here? >> it is alex, and we are seeing the tip of the iceberg. >> this is how contagious. >> it is. if you. >> have one person. >> infected with the measles. and there. >> are ten. >> unvaccinated individuals around that person. nine out of ten of them will get the measles. it's almost 100% hit rate, which is pretty effective for a virus. unfortunate for us in terms of tip of the iceberg. we're all trying to figure out, like, when does this kind of plateau? this is the highest outbreak texas has seen since 1992, and we hope it doesn't get to the point where it reaches those numbers of cases. and then it was in the thousands, and now we're at just 90. we want to keep it that way. but when you think about how many people you can infect and how quickly it can spread, and i hate to say it, alex, we're coming up on spring break, kind of big gatherings, times when people are going to be around other people. pretty easy to see how this could spread. >> you should have seen my face. my jaw dropped when you gave that. i mean, the success rate of measles being passed along. that's incredible. the bulk of these cases are in gaines

county. it does have the highest vaccine exemption rate in the state of texas. that's nearly at 18%. and the wall street journal reports that rfk jr. is preparing to fire members of the cdc committee that decides whether and how to recommend vaccines for the public. the first cdc vaccine meeting under the trump administration has also been postponed. big picture. what are your thoughts? >> yeah, i. >> think. >> the big picture here, alex, which is unfortunate, is that the institutions with which i've always held, regardless of administration, very high regard, even during the first trump administration, the cdc mostly, let's be honest, because of the efforts of thousands of federal workers inside these agencies, that trust is in jeopardy right now, not just because of what you were talking about previously with firings or checking in on what people are doing in their jobs. but to your point, these advisory committees, these are committees that are not stacked with just someone's friends. alex, these are people who have decorated careers and have real expertise that we, the public, need in these areas of vaccine safety

and effectiveness. so when you think about replacing them, replace them with whom and with what purpose and how can you trust that? and then the recommendations coming out of that committee go to a cdc director, whom you also probably should question the trust in, because he has been a known anti-vaxxer since he was in the house of representatives decades ago. so this is a pattern that's developing that is unfortunately going to not just affect our kind of time right now. alex. however, this administration lasts, but well beyond it. >> yeah, exactly. the research, those people that have devoted their life to trying to prevent disease down the road that are being cut, and all the research that goes along with them is either gets suspended or goes away. it's actually stunning, all of this. let me talk about measles specifically, though, because in 2000 it was declared eliminated from the us. what happened? because that's no longer the case. and is today's medical community prepared to deal with this outbreak if it goes from new mexico and texas into other states?

>> yeah. great question. so very briefly, like what happened after 2000 was a series of combination of misinformation. there was an article in a very prominent medical journal that had a link between vaccines and autism. and you and i know that if you tell a mother or a father or anybody that their child could be at risk of something like autism from a vaccine, you could imagine kind of what happened in the years following that. that journal has since retracted, and even the author and others have kind of been impugned for what they did and wrote, which was inaccurate. but the damage was done. and then i think that just unraveled a thread. alex, that and some other studies that were also, unfortunately, not accurate, unravel the thread that brought forward people's kind of personal rights, which i'm in favor of. anything we do to individuals, it's their right. however, i will say that many people have exerted their individual rights in environments like schools, like children, like crowded environments where they're putting others at jeopardy. and i think that's what we are now seeing. and so we're seeing these pockets of resistance. and

it's a problem for doctors because many of us don't recognize measles. we haven't seen it in so long. >> doctor kavita patel, i know unfortunately, you're going to have to come back soon. although i'm always glad to see you, but thank you very much. kamala harris has thoughts on the state of america. it is new and it's of america. it is new and it's worth seeing next. i got this wow skin from olay body wash. it's new super serum: sink into my skin with 5 powerful ingredients. 5 benefits in 1! look at this olay difference. so luminous! olay super serum body wash. —hi! —hi! ♪♪ chocolate fundraiser. ♪♪ with the chase mobile app, things move a little more smoothly. ♪♪ deposit checks easily and send money quickly. [coins clinking] ♪♪

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history. but we know exactly what to do because we have done it before and we will do it again. we use our power. we organize, mobilize, we educate, and we advocate. >> former vice president kamala harris sending a not so veiled message directed at the new administration after she was honored as an naacp image award recipient. this is. federal workers have until midnight monday to respond to elon musk's ultimatum, telling them to justify their positions or resign. joining us now is juanita tolliver, msnbc political analyst and author of the new book, a more perfect party the night shirley chisholm and diahann carroll reshaped politics, which i cannot wait to talk with you about my friend, but will do so in just a minute, because i do want to get to this latest order by elon musk, right? it seems like he and the

president, they're on the same page, but not so much for the heads of other departments. how much does an order like this complicate their jobs? i'm talking about the department head jobs. >> well, it. complicates it for the department. >> heads. because they don't know. >> and oftentimes. >> don't have full clarity on where. >> elon musk. >> and this doge. >> entity can intercede. because the first thing i saw was in. >> response to this. >> type of email. order that. >> came. from opm or. >> government tied. federal unions responding, saying, you don't have to. >> do this. >> document the message and the harassment you're getting from musk and doge through opm, and stand still understanding. >> and. >> reminding the people that there are protections in place for. >> their roles. >> that trump and musk cannot just fire them indiscriminately, especially as it relates to responding to an email. and as your guest mentioned earlier, that could compromise what we know are some of the duties of some of these administrations and their department heads probably feel a responsibility to cover some of their

employees, as well as their work patterns with this type of moment. and so i think it just points out additional confusion coming from trump and musk that is ultimately potentially going to be their downfall. >> yeah. and by the way, opm, the office of personnel management for anyone who doesn't know. but there has been pushback by republican constituents against these rampant firings of federal workers. but there's also pressure on democrats to do something. is this idea of using litigation in the courts to contain the administration, those actions? is that enough? >> i think it's a first step, alex. i think it's the first step, because what we've seen is state attorney generals and governors form that first line of defense when it comes to responding to the executive orders that came from the trump administration within the first few days of his after his inauguration. but that's the first step. and i appreciate the people, the public organizers applying pressure to democrats who sadly, at this moment are saying, hey, we don't have control in congress and the people are rightfully saying, then what are you doing there in

the first place? and so what i expect to see is that pressure to continue to ramp up, as you mentioned, for republicans and democrats, as more and more people are impacted, as more benefits are denied from veterans, as more farmers risk losing their farms because federal aid is not coming through as it was previously contractually promised and promised by congress. and so i think that this moment requires democrats, especially, to shift their playbook and reject norms, because this is anything but business as usual. and something that was asked of me a couple of weeks ago is this there's this clear sense and desire by the public for democrats to put themselves between the people and the harm coming from the trump administration. i think that's going to be something that people are going to be watching for, especially as we approach the midterms. >> you heard what former vice president harris had to say earlier. will she continue to be a leading democratic voice? i mean, where does she go next? does anyone know? does she know? >> well, there's been rumors,

alex, of a potential gubernatorial run. there's been rumors, you know, and so i think we're all waiting to see what she ultimately decides and announces. but if her message is going to continue to provide a split screen like we saw with her at the naacp image awards, compared to trump, musk and republicans at cpac. yes, please. more because what the vice president, the former vice president, did was remind people of their power in a moment when trust, trump and musk want them to feel as though they have no power, as though they're defenseless. but the reality is the people have the opportunity to upend government with their vote every two years, to force their representatives and elected leaders to respond to them by staying on them and reminding them that who puts them in their position of power in the first place, it's the people. >> all right. we have to get a question about your book, shirley chisholm. i love this book. was the first black woman elected to congress, representing her brooklyn district for seven terms. actress diahann carroll hosted a star studded beverly hills party for chisholm. that was in april 1972, after chisholm had

announced her bid for the presidency, the first black woman to do so. why was this party so important to chisholm's presidential campaign and her overall career? and just start with some of the famous names who were there and why you can name drop. >> so this party was magical for the guest list, which of course, diahann carroll opened her fabulous home in benedict canyon to people like berry gordy, the industry music industry icon and leader activist revolutionary huey newton, renowned british journalist david frost, superstar flip wilson. all of these people were in the same space. oscar award winning actress goldie hawn. they were brought together because diahann carroll said, you need to learn about the first black woman to run for president. you need to learn about her. and diahann carroll made that statement publicly in the press and in her home that evening, at a moment when chisholm's campaign was being dismissed as a frivolous exercise by the press, by her colleagues on capitol hill, by members of the democratic party. and she stood up there with the mission of uniting people across age, across race, across gender,

all under the guise of responding to their needs in a way that they didn't feel their elected officials had been responding to. and i hope everybody reads this book and understands that that coalition building model still has a role to play today. >> yeah, it's called a more perfect party. and i tell everyone, read the read the chapter about barbara lee, our friend. you were talking to the commercial break. you can't believe what she was doing. i was like, nice. all right, juanita tolliver, congrats on the book and we'll see you again soon. thank you. a former national park ranger is going to join me next. and why? she says join me next. and why? she says she is not just a number t prilosec knows, for a fire... one fire extinguisher beats 10 buckets of water, and for zero heartburn 1 prilosec a day... beats taking up to 10 antacids a day. it's that simple, for 24 hour heartburn relief... one beats ten. prilosec otc. (♪♪) hi neighbor! you switched to t-mobile home internet yet? trim your hedge. it's $35 bucks a month with no price hikes! bam!

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♪ have a little fun ♪ country, cutting hours, canceling tours and closing down visitor centers after the trump administration abruptly fired thousands of national park service workers. those layoffs were raising concerns not just about the future of public lands, but also the safety of visitors. and joining me now, former interpretive park ranger at alaska's denali, now mount mckinley national park and preserve. kristen. jen, welcome, kristen. and i'm really sorry about the circumstances under which we are talking, but bring us back to the moment when your job offer was rescinded. and what did working at that gorgeous park in alaska mean to you? >> so i was a. >> seasonal employee for denali national park and preserve for two seasons. >> on january. >> 10th, i actually accepted a permanent. >> position at a new park.

>> it would. >> be. >> my first permanent position, but. >> two days after. >> the inauguration, my new manager and i received a form letter saying, management has rescinded your job offer. management being someone in washington, d.c, because it was definitely. >> not at the park. >> they were desperate. >> to get. >> me started so that i could. help train the. >> seasonal workers who would be coming in in a couple of months. so yeah, devastation. i was so excited to start working for the national park service as a full time employee. i had been in the private sector for 17 years, making a very good living, but once i hit middle age, i took a look at myself and said, what's your legacy? what do you want to leave behind? and i have always respected the national park service. i had worked in and around the national parks my entire career. i finally decided i'm going to pull the trigger, make the financial sacrifice to be a public servant, and become a full time permanent national park ranger again. >> my heart breaks for this for so many reasons. but let me ask

you about anticipating this mass layoff. when donald trump took office, did you have any inkling or did it come out of left field? >> people had been talking about it, and i'm a natural pollyanna in my mind. i once i got that job offer, it was two weeks of glorious joy. and then suddenly just a kidney punch to be like, okay, we don't know if that job still exists on a spreadsheet line somewhere. like everybody who got fired during the i call it the valentine's day massacre. everyone who was fired, they they were lines on a spreadsheet that said they were probationary workers. yet they received letters, official letters saying they were being fired on the grounds of poor performance. >> i we've had a lot of people push back on that because because it doesn't make a lot of sense. right. but can you quickly tell us people that want to go to these national parks, what are going to be the consequences of cutting this workforce?

>> in the very beginning of the season, all those people who were fired on on february 14th were the people who were going to train all of these seasonal workers. because these seasonal workers are young people usually, or they're retirees, they bounce from park to park. they don't know what they're doing. they have to be trained by the permanent staff. so delayed programs i used to do campground programs, dog sled demonstrations. are we going to have enough? maybe we only do it like once or twice a week instead of every day. you never know of safety out on the trails, clean up everywhere. >> yeah, there's a lot you're responsible for. let me just congratulate you, kristen, for having such a half full, you know, half glass, full kind of attitude. it will serve you well. and i wish you the very best of luck. meantime, for all of you, the latest. yeah i'm glad to have you latest here now from me on this edition of alex reports back next saturday and sunday, 1 p.m. eastern deadline. white house weekend. next.

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