atlanta area spas late yesterday. 21-year-old robert long has been charged with eight counts of murder, will make his first court appearance tomorrow. police say the gunman told them he was not motivated by race, but they of course have not ruled that out. >> we've received a number of calls about is this a hate crime. we are still early in this investigation. so we cannot make that determination at this moment. >> the shootings come amid an alarming escalation of crimes against asians in this country. and yes, it coincides with ugly rhetoric from former president trump and others linking the coronavirus and china as the pandemic worsened across our country. one group tracking anti-asian hate say they've received some reports of 3,800 incidents with over two thirds of the attacks reported by women. today the vice president, president, atlanta's mayor all condemned such crimes. >> whatever the motivation here i know that asian-americans are very concerned. we've been speaking about the brutality about asian-americans for the last couple of months and i think it is very, very troubling. >> i do want to say to our asian-american community that we stand with you and understand how this has frightened and shocked and outraged. >> this is an issue that's happening across the country. it is unacceptable. it is hateful, and it has to stop. >> just today the director of national intelligence, the dni, released a new report about extremist violence compiled with the help of the justice department and homeland security. it warns, quote, racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists and militia violent extremists present the most lethal domestic violent extremist threats. it adds increased last year and that it will almost certainly continue to be elevated throughout 2021. meanwhile politico is reporting the talks to create that 9/11-style commission to investigate the 1/6 capitol riot have all but collapsed amid partisan troubles. there's now a plan in the works to turn the entire inquiry over to three house committees as the white house boosts its vaccination campaign at the same time. the cdc today dubbed two new strains out of california as variants of concern. something to keep an eye on. the agency added that early data are showing variants could be up to 20% more transmissible. they warn some coronavirus treatments may not protect as well against all the mutations. experts are also keeping a close eye on cases. at least seven states in the district of columbia have now seen a rise ipinfections over the past 14 days. today the white house announced it will spend $10 billion on testing for k-12 opportunities to help schools reopen and keep them open safely. as for the covid relief act rollout, the treasury department said it's sent out about 90 million of those $1,400 checks so far. meanwhile the irs is giving everybody extra time to file their taxes. may 17 is the new deadline. the agency cited of course the ongoing upheaval from the pandemic as the reason for this decision. as all that unfolds the administration is trying to manage the surge of migrants over the southern border while also trying to contain the political fallout. "the washington post" reports more migrants were allowed into the u.s. last month even as thousands were still being expelled. today the homeland security secretary defended the administration's actions during a hearing on capitol hill. >> wouldn't it be fair to call it a crisis because that's what your agents are calling it. >> i'm not spending anytime on the language we use. i'm spending the time on operational response to the situation at the border. >> two months ago we didn't have problems. we had agreements with other countries, and we were able to make a very terrible situation much, much better and much safer. >> if we look at the 2019 numbers in february, we take a look at unaccompanied children and the numbers in 2021 are slightly greater than they were in february of 2019. if we look at individuals and family units the numbers were far greater in number in 2019 than they are in 2021. >> one more story from the world of politics that caught our attention today. the republicans are fund-raising off the fantasy notion that donald trump would run against meghan markle for president in 2024. last night trump told fox news she hopes he launches a campaign for the white house because he'd be even more inclined to run. that was all the republican congressional national committee needed to hear because they heard a way to raise money. they are asking donors who they would vote for in such a matchup and who they think would win. the committee also tells supporters trump is waiting to hear from them before he makes a decision. and so it goes. with that let's bring in our lead off guests on this wednesday night. jonathan carl, chief washington correspondent for abc news, long time correspondent. in fact his book is now in paper back with a new afterward that includes new reporting. also back with us dr. kavita patel, now a nonresident fellow at brookings. and frank figliuzzi, former fbi assistant director of counter intelligence. also the author of the recent book "the fbi way inside the bureau's code of excellence." and frank, indeed, because of the events of last night i'd like to begin with you. and from your trade tell our audience what's the justification -- what are the underpinnings that await a declaration perhaps that this was a hate crime? >> brian, we should be listening to what this suspect, long, has told the police because essentially he's already confess today a hate crime. here's why. in 2009 congress passed and president obama signed into law the shepherd bird act. that added for the first time the element of gender as a protected class for purposes of hate crimes. so crimes based on gender now qualify as a federal hate crime. i know we're getting all wrapped up around the asian component to this and absolutely ethnicity and race play a role and are enumerated in the hate crime but that's going to be difficult to show perhaps. but let's not forget these women targeted were women who happened to be asian. they were asian women. here's why this is significant. he says i was addicted to sex and i was acting out of vengeance against that which embodies -- literally embodies my addiction. he's essentially saying i was targeting women, even perhaps women at establishments he might have actually frequented. i don't know what else would be a gender-based crime than saying i am lashing out at what embodies my addiction. it is women, and that's who i've killed. so that can be corroborated even through investigation of his electronic devices, his communications, friends and family interviews, his history, his track record, his spending. all of that points to a hate crime and that's where this should be headed. for those who are at home saying i'm not understanding this debate. he's going to spend the rest of his living days in prison for murder, what does it matter? it matters a lot. we have hate crimes. we distinguish them because they strike against everything we stand for as a free and equal democracy. skin color, gender, orientation, that's who we are as a free people. when you commit those crimes for those reasons we attach extra penalty to it. we call it something different. it does matter and it should be called a hate crime. >> john carl, in your book you talk broadly about the national environment created by donald trump when he was in the white house. talk about that in relation to this. >> well, look, how many times did we sit there as we were going through the pandemic, the emerging pandemic and hear donald trump use incredibly racially charged incendiary language to describe what was happening? talking about the china virus, the kung-flu, openly targeting one of my colleagues in the white house briefing room, a chinese american of cbs. just spitting the name china out as he was talking about this and responding to her. that's the context here. we don't know, again, we have to see exactly what was going on in this case. but clearly there is a rising problem really an epidemic of its own in this country of anti-asian violence. >> dr. patel, here we are. this is the life we're living in 2021. we have over half a million of our fellow citizens dead from the coronavirus. do you perversely add these deaths as a kind of collateral damage? the virus didn't kill them. a firearm did. but so did everything else we're talking about tonight. >> yeah, absolutely, brian. and this just illuminates something that we saw before the pandemic and just as john and frank pointed out, violence against women has not only been on the rise since the pandemic began but frankly turned a blind eye against. and the actual notion of systemic racism as a public health problem along, brian, with gun violence, that's all wrapped up into what we're seeing. and it hasn't started today. this started -- or in the last 48 hours. this started in charlottesville. this started in 1982 with a man named vincent kim who was killed because he was mistaken for a japanese-american. and his murderers were not sentenced to anything but basically a fine and probation because they were fine men. and how many decades have we heard that? and it's deplorable. this is something that's been decades in the building, brian. the pandemic is just revealing much more of this, and it's time we put it to a stop. as frank said this is something that's been on the books in the laws. it'll be interesting to see how this unfolds. >> frank, indeed this dni report on extremist groups is chilling. they rarely put out good news, but it takes us right back to our last conversation about the new world being faced by your former colleagues at the fbi. when you read something like this, do you fear they know something that we don't? like an active and obvious threat? >> i do. i think they're warning us that the intel they're getting indicates that we're in for the long haul, that there are organizations, groups and even more disturbingly lone offenders that they are having trouble tracking. they've lost control of that right now. this threat is out in front of them. and i see that reflected in this report. you know, if you change just a few words, some of the verbiage, slap a new date on it, this thing could have been written back in the '50s and '60s in the deep south, in the ku klux klan era and civil rights and violent era of lynchings. have we changed at all? it seems we've not made progress, that we're back almost to where we started in the civil rights movement. and now our own government is telling us we're in this for the long haul. this threat's not going away. in fact, it could become exacerbated. and there's hints of, you know, the political and societal elements of this. that's code word for conspiracy theories, fabrications, political leaders who fan and fuel this movement. it's here for a while. if there's one good news piece out of this it's that our government is finally saying here's the truth, here's the intel, we're sharing it with you. >> frank, it's bracing to hear you talk like that. we are at least fortunate to know there are more good people on the home team than there are bad actors out there to do us harm. jon, contained in the new reporting in the paper back edition of your book is a section about the temper of the former president. tell our viewers the story about how and where it affected a prominent pacific northwest governor. >> yeah. this was -- this involved the navy ship "mercy." decided to send to the west coast in the middle of march and the navy actually put out a press release in the middle of march saying it was going to seattle. but the press release also noted the governors of washington state and california had both requested it. and i learned in the course of my reporting of an oval office meeting where the president was meeting with one of his political supporters, mike pence came in to give the president an update on the movement of this navy ship saying it was ready to take off to seattle but they were also noting that california had requested it as well. and trump said to them, wait a minute, wait a minute that jerk in washington state he's been awful, gavin -- meaning gavin newsom the governor of california, has been saying the nicest things about me. let's give it to gavin. and then he actually, brian, yelled out to his secretary sitting right outside the oval office, molly, get gavin on the phone. and sure enough gavin newsom is on the phone in a few minutes. he puts them on speakerphone and says, gavin, i've got this navy ship. are know you want it, that jerk in washington wants it. you've been saying the nicest things about me. don't you think i should give it to you? and to his credit i'm told gavin newsom said, look, your people, the navy, they'll give it to wherever it can be used most effectively. but ultimately, brian, the kicker here is that ship did not go to seattle. it went to los angeles. and the navy had announced it was going to seattle. the president had the outburst and this massive naval hospital ship ended up going to the governor that was saying nice things about the president. >> and they accused trump of having no empathy and being transactional. dr. gupta, one last question for you. i want to read you a quote from "the new york times" and set it up this way. dr. patel, forgive me. and it's about the astrazeneca vaccine. we have it in some amounts here in this country. the fda has not approved it for use on americans. there's an op-ed in "the new york times" to this extent. "one argument for holding onto all the vaccines here seems to be a version of better safe than sorry, that it's preferable to have an excess rather than a shortage. this isn't right or moral." and the op-ed goes onto make that point. so, doctor, with the caveat that the russians may indeed be out to hurt the reputation of astrazeneca, and on social media they have been seen seemingly boosting any and all bad reports or rumors because when you think about it that would help their sputnik vaccine and their business in the european market. where do you come down on this, dr. patel? is there a moral problem with us housing this here unless and until the fda speaks up? >> i think, brian, the moral problem is really in the fact that up until the biden administration we had no participation in any of the global efforts including the world health organization to try to eliminate or at least minimize the effects of covid around the world including thinking about vaccine supply. so sitting on our shelves this was something dr. fauci addressed during his testimony and will likely have to address again in the testimony before the senate tomorrow because there's increasing pressure rightfully so. i do think it's a moral problem to hold onto doses especially when we now know the biden administration has negotiated adequate supply for americans. having said that, i do not think that we should try to say that this supply is now necessarily all going to 100% go to a certain country only because, frankly, brian, we're expecting novavax, astrazeneca, these are going to get read outs shortly within a month and that would mean extra supply well before the may 1st deadline president biden has said. so the question is morally we should be participating giving this vaccine supply where it's necessary especially considering how low the percentage of vaccination is in the eu. but i don't think we should just be -- there's no reason to say that our shelves should be laid bare. recall a year ago we thought we had a stockpile of ppe and other supplies and lo and behold we found out our shelves were laid bare. our supply promised to us from the three current authorized manufacturers is not all here in its entirety. it's entirely conceivable we could see a manufacturing error, a problem with batches. having a conversation about the supply we give to the world is also parallel important, and i think that's exactly what we should be continuing to put pressure on the biden administration to do. >> great points and the first time i've all heard that laid out and explained that way. our big three guests tonight, jonathan karl, frank figliuzzi, dr. kavita patel. hook emhorns. can't thank you enough for starting your evening with us. coming up for us after the first break, the georgia state lawmaker who knew anti-asian violence was only going to get worse and sounded the alarm on the statehouse floor the day before the mass shooting. she joins us next. and later the president says the "f" word but not that one. fires up the filibuster fight. two veteran political watchers standing by to join us for that. 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>> i'm hoping if anything good comes out of that is the public awareness. and that's actually why i went to the senate well on monday and spoke about this issue. you know, i think it's been coming to a head for some time now. i think probably over the last month or so more attention has been paid to this issue. but it's been mostly stories reported out of cities like new york and los angeles and in the bay area where there's a higher density of aapi americans. the reason i went to speak in the well to my senate colleagues is because i did not want people in the state of georgia to feel that we were immune to this same epidemic of racial violence against asian-americans. you never want to be right about these types of things so the wiftness of which we saw this shocking attack literally the day after i went to give the speech floored me. but i think that if anything good comes out of it is that we increase awareness of this problem and that we have more allies to stand with us, because it can't simply be the members of the aapi community deciding to stand up and finally speak out for ourselves against this violence. we need more people to also stand with us and fight against this kind of hate. >> we pray your colleagues heard your words. we certainly did and wanted to repeat them tonight. thank you so much for staying up with us on top of your day job and adding your comments to the record we've been covering in this story. dr. michelle au, state senator from the great state of georgia. thank you very much for being our guest tonight. coming up for us, another lawmaker from georgia this time in d.c. took to the well of the senate to argue against what he called the unabashed assault on voting rights in our country. it's a lot. it's also urgent. we'll talk about when it when we come back. o urgent we'll talk about when it when we come back. i'm a verizon engineer, part of the team that built 5g right. the only one from america's most reliable network. we designed our 5g to make the things you do every day, better. with 5g nationwide, millions of people can now work, listen, and stream in verizon 5g quality. and in parts of many cities where people can use massive capacity, we have ultra wideband. the fastest 5g in the world. this is the 5g that's built for you. this is 5g built right. only from verizon. my wheat farm in utah pays for my potato farm in idaho which complicates my taxes. wish i could hand 'em off to an expert. i'll file those taxes for you. hand 'em off. thank you! let an expert file for you. intuit turbotax live i think the sketchy website i bought this turtle from stole all of my info. ooh, have you looked on the bright side? 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(giggling) that's my turtle. fraud protection. discover. something brighter. today senate democrats introduced the for the people act, a voting rights measure similar to the one passed by the house earlier this month. in his very first remarks on the senate floor georgia senator raphael warnock, a cosponsor of the legislation, argued there's an effort under way to threaten the principle of one person, one vote around our country including in his home state of georgia. >> we are witnessing right now a massive and unabashed assault on voting rights unlike anything we've ever seen since the jim crow era. this is jim crow in new clothes. since the january election some 250 voter suppression bills have been introduced by state legislatures from georgia to arizona, new hampshire to florida using the big lie of voter fraud as a pretext for voting suppression. >> if he seems like a veteran speaker he preaches from the pulpit of dr. king. back with us tonight eugene robinson and bill kristol, the author and writer and thinker political veteran writer of the bush administration. this knocked me out, too. senator warnock tweeted this out tonight. the last time the voting rights act was re-authorized george w. bush was president, it passed the senate 98-0. now it can't even get a vote. we have our differences but there should be 100 votes to make it easier for americans to make their voices heard in our democracy. and gene, it doesn't mean we love you any less but we have another friend over here named eugene. eugene daniels over at politico covers the white house, newly minted contributor on this network. he made the point elemental point but so important if voting rights isn't the next big thing for democrats this is existential. without it, with measures to reduce the votes from black and brown americans everything else is endangered. every issue important to that party and its followers. so i want to hear from you on this. >> well, i think every issue important to our democracy too because what is going on in an attempt by the republican party to disenfranchise a large segment of the american electorate. that's not the way our democracy is supposed to work. yet, you know, reverend warnock said there ought to be 100 votes for encouraging everybody to vote and letting everybody vote. but there are not 100 votes for that in the senate. it is -- it is incredible. you know, georgia has experience with voter suppression. georgia has been at this for some time yet through the efforts of people like senator warnock and stacey abrams and others, democrats managed to overcome that in 2020. and joe biden won the state, reverend warnock and senator ossoff won their seats over incumbent republican senators. and georgia has freaked out and decided the republican authorities there have decided this can never, ever happen again. so they are not doubling down but tripling down on voter suppression that are just simply un-american. it's not the way our democracy is supposed to work. and the democratic party stands for anything, if it intends to do anything has got to fight this with not just both barrels, with everything it has. >> bill kristol, as we ping-pong to another issue on another border, our southern border, jill colvin writes this for the associated press tonight. the gop is leaning in on the highly charged issue of immigration amid a spike in border crossings. they hope immigration can unite the party heading into next year's elections when control of congress is at stake. bill, if you watch any fox news it is apparent they have dusted off the sean hannity caravan is coming package of coverage. is that going to be enough in two years to change the balance in the house of representatives? >> i mean it could be. you don't know. if the situation gets worse and worse in a few months and the biden administration has no way to combine much greater compassion and openness in the trump administration with strength and determination to make sure they can handle people coming illegally across the border and handle the unaccompanied children coming in a humane way, so it's a tough situation and real challenge to the biden administration. i don't think it matters too much politically what people think this week or next week, but they do need to deal with it over the next year. i do think i should say on the voting rights matter which i do think is an urgent existential question. we have a systematic attempt to roll back and suppress the voting rights on a state level. a lot of it is pretty good but part of it is on voting. i wonder whether they should pull out the voting stuff. there's dark money provisions, some of it pretty good, some of it not so good, but it makes it look like a giant wish list of a bill, 600 pages instead of a focused bill to not allow the suppression of voting rights. if you combine that with the john lewis bill, hr-4, make that a voting recognizes bill, anti-voter suppression bill i really wonder if they'd be better off politically. i think they need to break the filibuster on an issue that is an urgent one and really a fundamental one to democracy. anyway, that's an interesting tactical challenge they'll have over the next few months. immigration is a real policy challenge and a political challenge. >> to our audience, it's notable that both of these gentlemen see this as an existential threat to the continuation of our democracy. both these gentlemen have agreed to stay with us. we're going to fit in a break here and coming up the debate over the fate of the filibuster to break the legislative logjam inside that building. legislative logjam inside that building wealth is breaking ground on your biggest project yet. worth is giving the people who build it a solid foundation. wealth is shutting down the office for mike's retirement party. worth is giving the employee who spent half his life with you, the party of a lifetime. wealth is watching your business grow. worth is watching your employees grow with it. principal. for all it's worth. with the massive relief bill victory under his belt the president emphasis nex fight in congress may be -- president's biden call for a return to the old school filibuster think jimmy stewart is elating activists who want to gut the impediment to majority rule. yet the movement to scrap the chamber's 60-vote requirement is way ahead of democrats' whip count. remaining with us eugene robinson, bill kristol. right off the top here i'm going to remind you and our good audience what your good friend -- i'm kidding -- mitch mcconnell said yesterday and we'll discuss on the other side. >> no one serving on this chamber can even begin -- can even begin to imagine what a completely scorched earth senate would look like. this chaos would not open up an express lane to liberal change. it would not open up an express lane for the biden presidency to speed into the history books. the senate would be more like 100 car pileup. >> so bill, i'm not sure how much hoar scorched earthy it could ever get than under mitch mcconnell, but he's trying to argue be careful what you wish for. you had fascinating thoughts on this today and i'd like you to share them with our audience. >> i was just struck. mcconnell usually likes to keep his cards close and low-key, let his actions speak for themselves and he can be pretty effective. i think he's worried. he wouldn't have used that rhetoric if he weren't really worried the democrats could get the momentum to succeed in getting rid of or modifying the filibuster. and he's trying to bluff i'd say it's going to be a nightmare, i don't think they can get away with that in a real world. voters would say what are you doing here. but it is why the democrats need to lay the predicate for this in a compelling way. it can't just be that a lot of activists got together, they don't like the filibuster, they want to pass 15 big pieces of legislation with 50 votes. and they're going to ram it through. i think this is where the voting rights thing is special, and i really think a focus -- if they need to break the filibuster to defend peoples right to vote, that's different from just passing, you know, one tax bill and another tax bill. as you said, brian, i might not have predicted this a couple months ago but this issue the filibuster and voting rights is going to become a very important issue the next several months. >> eugene, where do you come down on this one? >> i've long thought the senate today is not the senate of 30 or 40 or 50 years ago. if it's just going to be a smaller less efficient version of the house where everyone votes along party lines and tries their best to thwart anything the other party wants to do then the filibuster is inacroinism and should go, period. and along with some of the other rules that mitch mcconnell wants to use or threatens to use to create this scorched earth senate. as a practical matter i think a potential real world first step would be as bill suggests perhaps a carve out for voting recognizes is so essential, so fundamental to our democracy that that is a class of legislation that you could define that is not subject to the filibuster. you do something like that. you can modify the filibuster. there's going to have to be some kind of intermediate step because, no, the democrats don't have the votes right now to get rid of the filibuster in its entirety. but this voting rights question is existential. and it has to be addressed by congress, and the only way to do that it looks like is to at least for this legislation get rid of the filibuster, period. >> i am indeed sensing the fierce urgency of the issue. two friends of this broadcast for good reason, two guys who have read all the books behind them, our thanks to eugene robinson and bill kristol for being our guests tonight. another break for us. coming up an update on the progress and problems in efforts to get more shots into more arms across our great country. acrossy this is my body of proof. proof of less joint pain and clearer skin. proof that i can fight psoriatic arthritis... ...with humira. humira targets and blocks a specific source of inflammation that contributes to both joint and skin symptoms. it's proven to help relieve pain, stop further irreversible joint damage and clear skin in many adults. humira can lower your ability to fight infections. serious and sometimes fatal infections, including tuberculosis, and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened, as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. ask your rheumatologist about humira. go to humira.com to see proof in action. if you can't afford your medicine, abbvie may be able to help. this is the planning effect. if you ask suzie about the future, she'll say she's got goals. and since she's got goals, she might need help reaching them, and so she'll get some help from fidelity, and at fidelity, someone will help her create a plan for all her goals, which means suzie will be feeling so good about that plan, she can just enjoy right now. that's the planning effect, from fidelity. four, five, turn, kick. so good about that plan, she can just enjoy right now. we got chased by these wild coyotes! they were following her because she had beef jerky in her pocket. 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can you take his phone number. there are about 25 stutters i continue to work with. i can tell you the things that helped me. i know the hardest thing is talking on the telephone. when i stutter, i used to talk like this. and it took a lot of practice, but i promise, promise you that you can do it. i promise you. >> so that is how it started. here is how it is going. this is braden on this st. patrick's day. >> it is my honor today to president joe biden with a famous poem. president biden, you might remember the last time we were together in person, you signed this book of yates for me. thank you again. thank you again for all you have done for me and helping with the stutter. i will rise and go now and go to endless free. in the small cabin built there of clay and models made, nine bees will have their hive for the honeybee. >> braden harrington reading yates for the president of the united states as one does to close out the closing seconds of st. patrick's day for us, 2021. that is our broadcast for this on this wednesday night. on behalf of my colleagues at the networks of nbc news, good night. >> it has been a little over 24 hours since police say a 21-year-old man entered an atlanta area spa with a gun, killed four people there and injured one other and drove 45 minutes down the road to enter two more spas and shot and killed four other people at the two locations. eight people dead. all three of the spas targeted by the suspect were staffed by people of asian descent. 7 of the 8