county official with a post erased in which he shared a t-shirt blaming china for the coronavirus saying the suspects in the shooting just had a bad day. >> he does claim it was not racially motivated. i spoke with investigators that, yes, he understood the gravity of it and was pretty much fed up, at the end of his rope and yesterday was a really bad day for him and this is what he did. >> this was a really bad day for the victims too. >> today, celebrities are speaking out. testifying on capitol hill after speaking to nbc. >> this man targeted places where asian-americans were working. you don't have to peal the layers back far. >> i'll speak to activist coming up and with president biden and vice president harris. the president has addressed the shootings on wednesday. >> i know americans are very concerned. as you know, i've been speaking about brutality against asian-americans for months and i thinks it very, very trouble some. >> joining me now from atlanta, nbc news correspondent and in new york, attorney and legal contributor. welcome. you've been following this so closely. let's talk about the suspect facing eight murder trials now. the arraignment was supposed to happen today. it has been postponed. what more do we know about the victims? >> reporter: we don't know why that arraignment was postponed. we got a simple statement saying it is not happening today. the victims, we know eight people were shot and killed. one person did survive. we only know the names of four of those victims so far. i want to read a few of them to give you a sense. xiaojie, daoyou feng and the gentleman injured is mr. ortiz. one more victim i spent time speaking with her family. her name is delana ashley yan. she spoke about the fact that she was really the rock of the family. mother of two, including a new born. a newly we had. on the day of the shooting, she and her husband had gone there for a getaway. her husband was uninjured and she was unfortunately killed. one of the tragic stories we are learning about the profiles and the lives we are hearing about this shooting spree. talking about this big question and what his motive looked like. law enforcement has said it is too early to rule anything out. in the asian community, there is fear and pain. >> regardless of the motive, why is this so troubling for you and so many people in the aapi community today? >> we know at the root of it is deep seeded unconscious bias internalized like systemic racism and white supremacy. >> so that really is a lot of the conversation as we continue as officers and investigators continue their investigation here. when you look at crimes like these and you look at the majority of the victims, so many people who were unfortunately taken from their families. andrea. >> blaine, thank you so much. former fbi official said gender is a part of the hate-crime law. so singling out women is already a hate crime. >> sure, unsurprising to you, it is the image ard, sheppard hate crimes act of 2009. this is a law that expanded that would be classified as a hate crime. the act is the first statute to allow federal persecution of hate crimes motivated by the victims tum or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. in this case, could it be something applied? perhaps, what you need for that is some k50i7d of direct evidence. you'll need to get inside this shooter's mind. robert aaron long, age 21 from woodstock, georgia. try to get to what he's said sto far to see if this was specifically targeted towards women and any other evidence whether communications or discussions of individuals he's spoken to in days leading up to this. any statements he's made in the act of shooting or conducting this crime. those are the things you would need to check that box. to get inside somebody's motive and behind what they were thinking about when they were doing is very difficult but it is something to frank's point that is on the books and is a law that perhaps could be used here for a type of federal prosecution, andrea. >> katie, the police press conference is getting a lot of push back including the captain baker who said the shooter had a bad day. >> so, sorry. i wasn't sure if you were running the audio from that presser. my apologies. we have a lot of problems now. we have a spokesperson for the cherokee county sheriff's office who himself has taken down a facebook post that used to be public in which he was advocating the sale of t-shirts that said coronavirus is from china. you end up editorializing the mind or intent of the shooter by saying he had a bad day. why don't we focus on the fact that the shooter confessed and say we are going to conduct an investigation. that is what is supposed to be done. in the absence of stating the fact and not allowing the investigation do what it needs to do. interview people, family, friends, the survivors of the shooting? did he announce as we have heard in other korean media that he was going to kill all asians? we need to do a preference and state that he was having a bad day. had a sex addiction but it was not racially motivated. it is a problem. there is also a georgia hate crime statute that just ended up on the books last year. became effective july 1 of 2020 after the amad arbery murder includes a race. if there is a finding by a jury that this killer was targeting the victims because of gender or race, then you definitely have a hate crimes enhancement for the punishment for him. >> thank you, so much katie, alexander, tom winter. joining us now is actress and activist. quoting a uc berkley professor saying, quote, killing asian-american women to eliminate a men's temptation speaks to the history of the object indication of asian and asian-american women as variations of the tempt res. i wonder your response to that? >> hearing so many people talk about the shooter as a sex addict and using that as some kind of justification or why this has happened has been so troubling. as an asian-american, asian-american woman, when you shoot up and kill eight people, you are not a sex addict, you are a mass murderer, point blank. right now, just the very idea that people are conflating sex addiction with asian-american women is the problem itself. that is the fet isization of asian-american women in our country. >> just the fact that this cherokee county captain saying he had a bad day, it would seem to me you are already poluting the evidence base in this case. you are expanding on what was said in an interview, supposedly. >> to hear this captain actually try to humanize the shooter in this way, it just dehumanizes all of the victims and then to find out that he had been posting racist facebook posts about blaming the pandemic on china, i don't even know why this guy still has a job. he made those posts in april 2020. today, the sheriff's department removed those. we still have the receipts and know what was done. it's mind boggling and makes so much sense once you see where he stands. he is a racist. he shouldn't have that job. how can he protect and serve all of us when he has view points and hates a large portion of us? >> these are really questions for the georgia police department and the prosecution as well. i'm glad you are raising it. it seems so striking olivia. i wanted to share with you something said, the state senator, the first asian-american to serve as a georgia state senator. she had warned just the day before about hate crimes of asian-americans in this country. tragically, her forecast was immediately born out there in atlanta. this is what she said last night. >> it is not just this insurance debt and not just this last year, this is the latest chapter in a long story in racism and violence in the united states. no, we are not surprised those it is still shocking to see. it happened so close to home. >> it isn't really shocking. it's something asian-americans have been living with for generations, for centuries, really in this country. >> since the pandemic has weaponized asian-americans, we've had a target on our back. it can't be open season on asian-americans. we've been begging for people to help with this. finally, yesterday, people are taking notice. we are finally getting stop asian hate to trend on twitter and other people in my business to speak out against it and say that this is not okay. >> what have you experienced personally in your business? in your career. >> sorry. say that one more time. >> what have you experienced in your career in a business that is supposed to be so open and embracing of diversity? >> for the longest time, it has been that white people can tell everyone's stories. they can tell black stories, asian stories, latin x stories. we can only support them. the fact that their stories have been whitewashed for so long and it is acceptable. whenever i see an article come out with a cool movie with a great director that happen to be a period piece, i have said, hey, can i meet on this movie, it sounds like a really great concept. i'll hear back that it is a period piece. no other explanation. my asian face does not fit into a period piece. i cannot tell those stories. that's a really interferating thing because everyone else is allowed to tell our stories. not just in front of the camera, it's behind the camera. look at the tiger woods documentary on hbo, it is directed by two white men. it starts with his dui. yes, tiger had a lot of tra mattic moments but also a black asian-american man who reached to heights you never could have dreamed. when you watch, it is so negative. i think it is because it was told through the eyes of two men who do not know what it is like to live life in a black man's skin or see the world through the eyes of an asian man's eyes. it is just the systemic white washing that is happening goes so deep and so far back and still happening even to this day. >> you bring such an important perspective. thank you for speaking out and joining me today. >> thanks, andrea. and we have breaking news today from the fbi. new videos released from the january 6 riots. investigators want to know if you can help identify the people in this footage. top biden officials holding first meetings today with china. what it considers its biggest challenge. s its biggest challenge. kevin bacon here. you know me from six degrees of well... me. but it's time to expand. see, visible is wireless with no surprise fees, legit unlimited data, powered by verizon for as little as $25 a month. but when you bring a friend every month, you get every month for $5. so i'm bringing everyone within 12 degrees of me. bam, 12 months of $5 wireless. visible. as little as $25 a month. or $5 a month when you bring a friend. powered by verizon. wireless that gets better with friends. my plaque psoriasis... ...the itching ...the burning. the stinging. my skin was no longer mine. my psoriatic arthritis, made my joints stiff, swollen... painful. emerge tremfyant™ with tremfya®, adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis... ...can uncover clearer skin and improve symptoms at 16 weeks. tremfya® is also approved for adults with active psoriatic arthritis. serious allergic reactions may occur. tremfya® may increase your risk of infections and lower your ability to fight them. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms or if you had a vaccine or plan to. tremfya®. emerge tremfyant™ janssen can help you explore cost support options. tired of clean clothes that just don't smell clean? what if your clothes could stay fresh for weeks? now they can! this towel has already been used and it still smells fresh. pour a cap of downy unstopables into your washing machine before each load and enjoy fresher smelling laundry for up to 12-weeks. for nearly a decade, comcast has been helping students get ready. we've connected 4 million low-income students to low- cost, high-speed xfinity internet. we're working with hundreds of school districts across the country to sponsor free internet and laptops. and parents are seeing an impact. and now we're turning 1,000 community centers into lift zones - wifi enabled safe spaces to study. so more students can be ready for anything. i'm trying to do some homework here. these videos have been enhanced to highlight the people that they are seeking. how many people are they still trying to find here? they are showing some of the other videos of violent, grainy footage. the fbi has isolated very compelling facial shots of thes them and asking if anybody knows these people to call the fbi's tip line, 1-800-call-fbi and they would like people to go on the fbi's website and school through those 250 photos to see if they know any of these folks. while we may think we live in the state of technology where the fbi can immediately take a picture and identify someone on social media that's not the world we live in. they need the public's help and they're asking for people to look and call. >> thank you very much. thank you for sharing. that's why we are playing them as violent as they are. secretary of state antony blinken is on his way to alaska where he and jake sullivan will be holding the biden administration's first meetings with top chinese officials as the white house calls china its biggest foreign policy challenge. in japan and south korea this week, blinken and defense secretary lloyd austin blasted china for what they were calling its coercion and aggression towards american allies and its human rights abuses against their own people. china still holds the key to any hopes of moderating north korea's rapid increase in nuclear weapons. the arsenal there, despite former president trump's summits with kim jong-un and all the rest of the letters he calls love letters. joining me victor cha, senior vice president for international studies, professor at georgetown and former director of asian affairs and the national security council during the george w. bush administration, it's god to see you. despite the trump administration's summits and all of the letters he was describing, the beautiful letters with kim jong-un, north korea has really increased its arsenal. it's growing threat for cyber capability. how would you describe the threat? >> i think that's right. all of these beautiful love letters and the three meetings that took place did nothing to stem the tide of north korea's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile development. they have between 20 and 30 nuclear weapons today, which is more than they had at the start of the trump administration and they have fissile material, the material for making, way more, and they've greatly advanced their missile launch capabilities in terms of both something called solid fuel and mobile launch capabilities which makes it very hard for the united states to preempt these if they were ever to roll one out and launch it at korea, japan, guam, hawaii or the continental united states. the threat is severe and worse than it was four years ago. >> is and victor, the head of the u.s. owner command said the u.s. may start flight testing and improved intercontinental ballistic missile, that the regime possibly has three missiles to threaten the u.s. what is your research show? >> i think that's -- i think that's right. our research shows that north korea does like to do provocations to welcome new u.s. administrations in. they did it after president obama, they did it after president trump, and i don't think we're outside the window of their possibly doing it. we had some threatening statements from the sister of the north korean leader directed mostly at south korea, but also at the united states, and, you know, the u.s. and south korea are in the midst of scaled down military exercises and north korea has always used those exercises as a pretext for doing something. now having said that, the press reports are the administration has -- to north korea and they have not responded and we get threatening statements from the sister of the north korean leader. >> do you consider her statement a response to the biden overtures? >> it's hard to say. i think it's a response to the trip, the two plus two trip, taken by secretaries blinken and austin to japan and korea. i think it's mostly in response to that. but sure, i mean the fact that they have -- their first vice foreign minister came out and said that they thought these -- the so-called outreach was some sort of, quote, dirty trick unquote, i'm not sure what that's in reference to, shows that they're not really interested right now. north korea's kind of in lockdown mode right now because they are very fearful of the covid virus entering their country. they have no public health infrastructure to contain it and no vaccines and they don't really have a very good testing capacity. >> you have been studying the new satellite images of the south shipyard. what are you learning from those photos about how they may be advancing in submarine launch missiles? >> right. thanks. it's a great question. one of the areas, you know, that we're worried about the shoe dropping is one is an icbm, intercontinental ballistic be -- launch, the other a large ballistic missile capable submarine a sea launch, operational sea launch capability, that makes it difficult for the united states to target if you have a sub rooming down at the bottom of the ocean. our antisub capabilities are good but the resources devoted to find those subs would be a new burdenen in terms of trying to deter north korean activity. >> victor, given all of the tensions with china right now, how likely is it that the u.s. can get china to help rein in north korea? >> yeah. it's a hard question. yes, i mean i think the meetings that are taking place in alaska as we speak, i imagine are not sort of friendly get to know you, let's re-set the relationship. i think it's brass tacks, really difficult discussions about everything from human rights to trade. north korea will be one of the topics. even here i feel like the u.s. and chinese interests on north korea do not overlap as much as they did let's say 10 or so years ago when i was working on the issue before. there's a gap there. it's going to be hard to close and the broader context of u.s./china relations doesn't really help to facilitate closing that gap. >> victor cha, thank you so much for all of your expertise. and there was a long scary night down south. dangerous and destructive tornadoes across the area impacting more than 60 million people in the last two days. the latest from the storm zone coming up next. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. rea mitchell reports" on msnbc. i need indeed indeed you do. the moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a shortlist of quality candidates from a resume data base claim your seventy-five-dollar credit when you post your first job at indeed.com/promo got it? 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