to sell the american rescue plan to the american public. see, willie, he s still got it. he can sing! he s still got it. he s you know, mind s working great there. that s a great cover of johnny cash. i would like to see some of his others, maybe. maybe go all the way toward the end of johnny s career. do the full catalog. i like it a lot. good morning and welcome to morning joe. it is thursday, march 18th. let s get straight to the news. the suspect arrested in the murder spree at the three spas in atlanta has been charged. 21-year-old robert long faces eight counts of murder and one count of aggravated assault. police say he killed four people inside one spa, three people inside another, and one person inside a third. officials say he was arrested while on the way to florida to possibly carry out more attacks. six of the eight victims were asian women, leading to speculation that the spree may have been part of a rise in anti-asian hate since the coronavirus p
authorities say they are not ruling out that this was possibly a hate crime. president biden has ordered all federal flags to be flown at half staff in honor of the victims, and he will head to georgia tomorrow. and as the president said, as vice president harris said, as atlanta mayor keisha lance bottoms said, whatever the motivation here, the fact is attacks on asian americans are on the rise. people are rightfully scared and we need to do more to combat that bigotry and violence and stand together. to that point, today in congress a house committee held its first hearing on the rise of anti-asian discrimination in more than 30 years. but things quickly took a turn when republican congressman chip roy of texas first said that all americans deserve protection and to live in a free and secure society. then he said some more things, and i want to warn you, some of this language is offensive. we re only going to play it once, and we re going to play it once because it not
custody. there s a picture there. right now the motive is unknown. it is unclear if the attacks were racially motivated. but we should know police are ramping up security in asian-american communities as a precaution. president biden has been briefed on the shootings, and at this hour he returns to the white house. we ll bring you any live comments. also today, concerns of another covid surge. cases are climbing in more than one dozen states. the cdc is sounding the alarm on two variants in california. we ll get to that in a moment. let s begin on this tragic shooting spree. our ryan young joins us this morning in atlanta. what do you know about the victims, eight total, six of them asian. what can you tell us? reporter: so far, very little information is coming out about the victims except, besides their races. of course, what we ve been told so far is at least six of the people killed are asian. of course, we re trying to move forward with parts of this investigation. w
he considers a sex addiction and sees these locations as something that allows him to go to these places and it s a temptation for him that he wanted to eliminate. you heard him, a temptation he wanted to eliminate. but the atlanta mayor is praising police for acting so quickly because they say this could have been so much worse. the suspect indicated that he was heading down to florida perhaps to carry out similar crimes. we have much more on that. other top stories this afternoon, president joe biden is defending the administration s handling of the thousands of unaccompanied minors crossing the border, urging anyone considering migrating to the united states to stay home. i can say quite clearly don t come over. and in the process of getting set up, don t leave your town or city or community. and exciting news in the fight against the pandemic. access to covid vaccines is expanding to any person 16 or older in multiple states. as of now, all 50 states have fully va
motive. we have received a number of calls about is this a hate crime. we are still early in this investigation. we cannot make that determination at this moment. the georgia shootings do follow a wave of unprovoked attacks across the country of people of asian descent. president biden has just been briefed. vice president kamala harris also addressing the terrible shootings. we don t know, we are not yet clear about the motives. i want to say to our asian communities we stand with you and understand how this has frightened and shocked all people. and the shootings condemned. i want to mention what happened just a few hours ago in atlanta in which several women were killed, including, we believe, four women of asian descent. we are horrified. counterterrorism agents were sent to atlanta out of new york city out of an abundance of caution. i am joined with correspondents who have been working on the case. blaine, first to you, what is the latest? we have a lot of