it's moving day. and while her friends are doing the heavy lifting, jess is busy moving her xfinity internet and tv services. it only takes about a minute. wait, a minute? but what have you been doing for the last two hours? ...delegating? oh, good one. move your xfinity services without breaking a sweat. xfinity makes moving easy. go online to transfer your services in about a minute. get started today. tonight police in georgia say nothing is off the table in the investigation into the shootings at three atlanta-area spas that killed eight people, including six asian women. they have not yet confirmed a motive but also say they haven't ruled out filing hate crime charges against the suspect, who is already charged with eight counts of murder. and they say it appears he frequented the spas. also president biden and vice president harris traveling to atlanta tomorrow to meet with asian-american leaders who are reeling from the deadly violence that has struck their community. we're going to go live to atlanta for the very latest on the shooting investigation. we'll do that in just a moment. first i just want to talk about the congressional hearing on driscrimination against asian-americans that went off the rail today. i want to bring in john avlon and ana navarro. good evening to both of you. i appreciate you joining here. yeah, ana, my sentiments exactly. but there was some wild moments on the hill today. the gop rep chip roy brought up lynching at a hearing focused on violence against asian-americans. watch this. >> we believe in justice, all right? there's old sayings in texas about, you know, find all the rope in texas and get a tall oak tree. you know, we take justice very seriously, and we ought to do that. round up the bad guys. that's what we believe. my concern about this hearing is that it seems to want to venture into the policing of rhetoric in a free society, free speech, and away from the rule of law and taking out bad guys. >> i'm not going to be ashamed of saying i oppose the chinese communist party, and when we say things like that and we're talking about that, we shouldn't be worried about having a committee of members of congress policing our rhetoric. >> john, what is he saying there about a rope and a tall oak tree? he's describing a lynching. that's not justice. how is that okay? >> he's talking from a perspective of total cultural myopia. he's thinking of some western because he doesn't understand apparently how when folks talk about trees and ropes, they're talking about lynching. it didn't even occur to him. but he dug an even deeper hole by going off, making it allegedly about political correctness and then attacking the chinese communist party, which has nothing to do with the purpose of the hearing at all. this is about a community that's grieving after murder and an increase in violence in the wake of covid, and he wanted to make it about the chinese community party and policing language and then used a lynching metaphor so cluelessly because that's the lack of perspective he's got where he's coming from. it's pathetic. it's embarrassing. as mike hogan, the republican governor of maryland said, it's disgusting. >> ana, you know what's next. huh, what? see? i can't say what i want. i'm going to get canceled. you can't see anything anymore. i mean really? >> right. and that's -- look, it's so offensive that it's happening at a time when all over the country, there's been an exponential spike on hate crimes against asian-americans where we have just witnessed this week the killing of the asian-americans, the targeting of asian-americans. you hear this guy, this congress member, chip roy, and first he makes no sense. the word salad coming out of his mouth, you look at him and you think to yourself, this guy has got to have failed reading comprehension on the s.a.t. there is no way that he understands that he is at a hearing about anti-asian sentiment, fighting it. can we just roll tape a minute silent on him again? don, just look at the way this guy wears his mask, please. >> i saw that earlier. >> okay. if you have -- if you need any further proof that this man is an idiot, just look at the way this man wears his mask and pray to god that's not how he wears his underwear. i mean he's just -- he is an embarrassment to congress. he's an embarrassment to texas. he's an embarrassment to the republican party, and these days that's a very, very high bar. >> john, we're also hearing from former president george w. bush. he is speaking out on the capitol insurrection. here's what he told the texas tribune. >> i was sick to my stomach to see our nation's capitol being stormed by hostile forces. and it really disturbed me to the point where i did put out a statement. and i'm still disturbed when i think about it. it -- it undermines rule of law, and, you know, the ability to express yourself in peaceful ways in a public square. this was an expression that was not peaceful. >> so what do you think about that because this is a former president who has largely stayed out of politics. >> a texas republican talking about the rule of law for real. that's the kind of rhetoric we need to hear from republicans, about clarity, about defending our democratic institutions, about compassion for communities that are under distress, and total moral clarity flowing all through it. chip roy could learn a lot from george w. bush. so could the republican party right now. >> bush was asked if he thought the election was stolen. he said no, and then he also said this. >> look, politics has always been rough, evan, and right now we're at a period of time, though, when there's a lot of anger in the system, which then causes people to worry about the future of our democracy. i think it's going to eventually work its way out of the system. history in the united states has showed these populist movements begin to fritter over time. and so i'm optimistic about democracy. >> yeah. ana, i'm curious. is he being overly optimistic or not? >> you know, if you know anything about the bush family, that's kind of their nature to be optimistic and believe in the institutions. he also said, don, if i can just read, i am appalled by the reckless behavior of some political leaders since the election and by the lack of respect shown today for our institutions, our traditions, and our law enforcement. it made me think of the interview you had yesterday with officer dunn. i have to tell you i think george w. bush was talking, yes, as a former president. this is a family who has a deep connection with the capitol and with institutions in washington for generations and generations. his grandfather served as a senator there. but i think he's also talking like an american. look, january 6th is going to be one of these days that's going to go down in history for all of us. you know, like 9/11, like the day the challenger exploded, the day john f. kennedy was shot, for those who were alive then, where you remember how you felt, where you were, how you learned about it because it was an attack on so much, on our values, on our democracy, on our institutions, on our congress, on people, on our law enforcement. i mean it's something that just, you know, should break the heart of every american and should make every american, not just former presidents, sick to their stomach. >> yeah. thank you, ana. thank you, john. i appreciate it. the fbi releasing new video clips of the capitol insurrection showing the horrible violence directed at capitol police officers. i want to bring in now representative katie porter, a california democrat. representative, thank you. appreciate you joining. so let's talk about this. i want to ask you about the fbi releasing this new video footage of officers being assaulted during the insurrection on january 6th. what do you think as you watch it? it's so violent. >> well, it was a violent attack, and i think we are not benefited from looking away from a problem. i think we have to understand that this was a direct attack on our democracy. people were physically harmed and killed because of this, and we have to take it very, very seriously, both as to understanding why it happened and to curing some of the racism and hatred that gave rise to the event. >> yeah. so representative porter, during the capitol attack, representative alexandria ocasio-cortez ran into your office to hide from the insurrectionists. let's listen. >> i go into her office, and i'm at like a 10, right? like i am at a full 10, fight or flight, thought i was going to die like ten minutes ago, then thought i was going to die again. i start, you know, ripping through katie's office like a madwoman and, you know, poor katie. i'm like opening every closet. i'm opening every nook. i'm opening, like, every cranny, looking for where i'm going to hide when they get into this office. >> so we hear that, representative, and we see the latest fbi video showing the violence. what do you think when many in the gop are trying to rewrite history, the history of what happened that day? >> no. look, it was terrifying, and a lot of the fear came from not knowing where the attackers were. we were able to see only what the television cameras showed us, which was the attackers were inside the building. we didn't know where they were inside the capitol complex. we didn't know how to get in touch with the police, and we were barricaded in our office. and that was literally the instructions from the police were to hide in your office. barricade yourself. make it dark and make it silent and wait. and that's exactly what we did. but it was really, really terrifying not knowing where they were, what they were coming for, what they were going to do, and if we had adequate security presence to protect us. and we clearly did not, and that's something we have to figure out how we're going to correct going forward. >> i have to ask you about the rise in anti-asian attacks. you spoke at a rally about the crisis this past weekend. you represent many asian-americans. what are you hearing from constituents about how to tackle this crisis? >> well, i think we have to start by recognizing our asian-pacific american community as being a vibrant part of our country. they've been here for a long time. some have been here for centuries. some are new arrivals, but these are our neighbors. these are our friends. these are our colleagues and we have to stand up for them just like we would for anyone else who was being attacked. asian-americans are not protected from the forces of racism, from the forces of hatred. they are too often victims of it, and i think we need to see more leadership calling out, condemning it, and working to find solutions. and, you know, i'm really proud of what both president biden and vice president harris have done on this front, providing both the leadership and the willingness to listen to the api community. >> speaking of, the president and the vice president are going to head to atlanta tomorrow to discuss the spa shootings. the president is also meeting with stacey abrams presumably to discuss the attack on voting rights across the country. how do democrats plan to outmaneuver republicans' efforts to both restrict voting access and block legislation from democrats? >> yeah. we definitely need to pass h.r. 1, the for the people act, which has now moved over to the senate and has the support of every democratic senator. and so that bill would go a long ways toward providing baseline federal protections against abuse of elections. so we need to pass that bill, prevent things like automatic purges of voter rolls. it will protect people's right to the ballot box. we need to do that, and we also need to be organizing on the ground. and i think that the conversations and the work that stacey abrams has done is really inspiring and uplifting to want to make sure that every american's voice can be heard in an election, that we have free and fair elections. that's what she's fighting for, and i can't think of anything more fundamentally patriotic to be engaged in but that fight. >> representative porter, thank you so much. i appreciate your time. the mayor of atlanta says it is hard to see the shooting spree that killed eight people, six of them asian women, as anything other than a hate crime. so why do police say it's too soon to say? hi sabrina! >>hi jen! so this aveeno® moisturizer goes beyond just soothing sensitive skin? exactly jen! calm + restore oat gel is formulated with prebiotic oat. and strengthens skin's moisture barrier. uh! i love it! aveeno® healthy. it's our nature.™ investigators are still trying to determine the motive of the 21-year-old suspect who went on a shooting spree at atlanta area spas, killing eight people, six of them asian women. police say nothing is off the table, including whether the killings will be considered a hate crime. cnn's ryan young covering all the angles of this story for us. ryan, i appreciate you joining us. what's the latest you're hearing from investigators tonight? >> reporter: well, don, we are getting some new details, some chilling details. an incident report was released, and we do know three of the women who were shot in the atlanta spa were actually shot in the head. now, investigators have been painstakingly going through all this information to try to put the pieces together. but the toughest part of this, don, is they're having trouble notifying family members of these victims. that's why their names haven't been released. in fact, take a listen to the deputy chief talking about that today. >> we wouldn't be doing justice by putting a lot of this information out in the public and especially if, in our cases, where the next of kin has not been notified. so i know it's tough. i know there are a lot of questions that want to be answered. but, again, we just ask that you just respect the families that are still mourning and some who may not even know yet. so that's the real key part for our victims, that our victims' next of kin have not been officially notified. >> reporter: don, you can feel the difference in tone today. a lot of questions about how this investigation is progressing. and one of the things that we do know as well is that the shooter bought the gun on the same day of the shooting. and i can tell you police are going through mounds of video evidence as well. one of the things they're trying to do is piece together an exact timeline of everything that happened. now we also realize that that suspect did waive his first court appearance today. you know the reason that makes so much sense is obviously no judge was going to grant him bond in a case like this, but there still remain so many questions, especially with a deep dive in this and whether or not he is talking to investigators at this point is a big question. we do know he was placed on suicide watch shortly after this shooting. he did indicate to police before that he wanted to commit suicide. we know that's not what he did at this point. don. >> ryan young, live for us in atlanta. appreciate your reporting. thanks so much. i want to bring in former federal prosecutor shan wu. law enforcement has not ruled out calling this shooting a hate crime. mayor bottoms says it's hard to see it any other way. do you have any doubts about how this case should be prosecuted? >> i don't have any doubts, don. the police are being too cautious, too hesitant. they're saying they're still looking for motive. motive is right in front of their face. the hate crime statute is very plain. it allows prosecution if the crime is motivated by sex as well as race. and here he murdered eight women. there's the sex. and he selected six of them were asian women. there's the race. it's a no-brainer. they should prosecute it as a hate crime. >>vy to ask you about this because it's been ruminating since this happened and there was the first press conference. captain jay baker is no longer the spokesperson for the cherokee county sheriff's office on the spa shooting case. baker is being criticized for his description of the suspect's actions and he allegedly posted a photo to facebook last year of shirts with the message "covid-19: imported virus from chyna. you say this demotion is not enough. why is that? >> if that allegation is correct, that man has no business being a police officer. and frankly he sounds more like a defense counsel offering these motives almost sim thaympathizih the defendant saying he was at the end of his rope. it was a bad day. that's not the actions of a police officer. >> let's listen to that and then let you finish. pardon the interruption. >> he was pretty much fed up and kind of at the end of his rope, and yesterday was a really bad day for him, and this is what he did. >> go on. >> that kind of language sounds like he's offering a defense for the guy. he wants to almost engender some sympathy for his situation where obviously there can be no sympathy for a person who did that. and it really raises this question of do they treat white defendants differently? i mean it raises this whole specter even from the capitol riots of some police fist bumping members of proud boys, letting them into the capitol. and you have to wonder why is this man so empathetic towards the defendant? now, maybe those posts, if they really are his, give pretty good reason as to why. >> where do we go from here, shan, and how do we stop these anti-asian attacks on the community? >> i don't think there's one easy answer to that, don. certainly all of the awareness being given right now is so important, and we have to raise that awareness. but i think from the law enforcement prosecution side, the prosecutors have to show some courage. they have to have a backbone bringing these cases. t to have these hate crime laws on the books and not to use them, they need to bring these cases, and most importantly i think, as we talk about these issues, we must not fall for the trick of letting people be divisive, of pitting one group against the other. this is a time to come together and not to be trying to let people point fingers at each other. >> amen. thank you for your expertise and thank you for your thoughts on that. i really appreciate that. shan wu. house minority leader kevin mccarthy trying to claim that he didn't back former president trump's efforts to overturn the election, but that's not what the records show. r get a dog. you said you'd never do a lot of things. but you never knew all the things a dog could do for you. and with resolve you never have to worry about the mess. love the love, resolve the mess. hi. i'm wolfgang puck when i started my online store wolfgang puck home i knew there would be a lot of orders to fill and i wanted them to ship out fast that's why i chose shipstation shipstation helps manage orders reduce shipping costs and print out shipping labels it's my secret ingredient shipstation the number 1 choice of online sellers and wolfgang puck go to shipstation.com/wolfgang and get 2 months free - if you want a rockstar team like ours, you need grammarly business. 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(microphone whooshing) - [announcer] learn more at grammarly.com/business. the house minority leader kevin mccarthy getting defensive today when questioned over his support for the former president's efforts to overthrow the election. let's discuss now. manu raju is here and amanda carpenter as well. good evening to both of you. manu, you had a combative exchange with representative mccarthy today when you tried to ask him about his support for former president trump trying to overturn the election. how did this all go down? >> yeah. the backdrop being actually what's happening right now in the house. there is actually a contested race for iowa, a house race, a republican who was certified the winner by just six votes in november, the closest federal race in the country. the democrat who lost that race, rita hart, is challenging that race and going through the house a very unusual process to get the house to essentially overturn her loss because she says 22 legally cast votes were not counted appropriately. democrats have not made a decision on what to do, but they are still reviewing the case and the evidence before them. now, at the same time republicans are saying that democrats are trying to steal a seat, a certified election, and they are trying to steal a seat. so today i asked kevin mccarthy how what's happening in the house right now is any different than his support of donald trump's efforts to get congress to overturn his loss. >> i disagree with the premise of your question. if you challenged arizona and pennsylvania, would that have changed and lowered president biden's numbers below 270? >> you supported the -- >> wait. i asked -- you ask me questions every week. i just asked you a question. if you removed arizona -- but you weren't removing it. you were just asking the question about it. if arizona and pennsylvania were removed in the electoral college, would president biden's number lower below 270. >> no, but -- >> you're asking me the question. i'm answering your question. let me answer your question since you asked me. let me follow through. so you gave a premise that's not true. >> donald trump tried to overturn the results in congress and you support that effort. >> now you're saying something that's not true so let me answer your question and show you how your premise is not true. i'm showing where your question doesn't hold merit. let me show you another answer. >> you supported the texas lawsuit too. do you regret supporting that lawsuit? >> no, i don't. you know why? because it's -- >> did you or did you not support donald trump's effort to overturn the election in congress? >> no. >> manu, my head hurts. >> this is complete revisionist history, don, because kevin mccarthy, not only did he support that lawsuit in texas that would have invalidated millions of votes across several battleground states, he was tacitly and publicly supporting efforts to try to get donald trump to win the election. remember, even though he says there were just two states that they voted to overturn, the electoral results, they failed in that effort, but arizona and pennsylvania, those state votes occurred after the riot happened on january 6th. but he still voted to overturn those states. the republicans in the house actually tried to object to six states and had they succeeded, which was very unlikely to happen, that would have overturned the entire results of the election. the only reason they didn't vote on those six states is because senate republicans didn't join them on those efforts to force both chambers of congress to vote. mccarthy here is making a complete different case about what the actual facts are, which is that he supported what donald trump was doing and he certainly did not object in any way during the course of the run-up to january 6th. >> listen, manu, it's logic. i mean come on. you're speaking -- oh, my god. i don't know how you do it every day. amanda, help me understand what kevin mccarthy was just saying because he supported overturning the election. he refused to recognize biden as the president-elect. why is he trying to rewrite history and then playing this silly semantics word game with manu? i don't get it. >> yeah. number one is because as a democrat who is now treating -- he wanted to take the congressional option to try to get an election, just like the republicans did for trump. so, look, no wonder it only took a couple weeks for a democrat to want to try it. but i do think there's something else going on here in that he wants to retake the house in 2022, and there is a lot of pressure from corporate america not to donate to republicans who supported these conspiracy theories that resulted in an insurrection. that is something that is very real that is happening. it is something that kevin mccarthy is watching while at the same time, he's still trying to keep all of donald trump's support. like okay. after the insurrection, he's still flying down to mar-a-lago to make up with him and make sure that he stays inside the republican tent and campaigns for congressional candidates in the midterms. so you see him struggling here because he's trying to have it both ways, and it's just impossible. you cannot say that you didn't play a role in this because it's all on tape as manu pointed out over and over again. it wasn't just the texas lawsuit. he was on camera with fox news saying president trump won the election days after. i mean he was there from november all the way to january. >> manu, there's another exchange that you had with kevin mccarthy from last june that is so relevant to the moment that we are in right now, and here it is. >> the president has been describing the coronavirus, he's been calling it the kung flu. do you think that's an appropriate way to characterize the coronavirus? >> do you think that's the most pressing issue you have about the coronavirus? what i'm thinking about is why that is your most pressing issue as a question. >> can you answer the question. >> when we've just seen a spike in the coronavirus you're concerned what they name it. that's appalling to me. it's interesting to me if that's what your viewers care about. you know what my constituents care most about? their safety and their health. >> he's just -- he's so smug about it and so self-righteous. again, he doesn't have an answer, so he goes on the attack. but isn't this what really leadership or lack of leadership is right now because look at where we are, manu. >> yeah. look, i mean the question today has been -- was political receipt reich like that, saying the kung flu, the china virus, has that not contributed to the rise in hate crimes and violence against asian-americans. that's what we heard in testimony that happened before the house today. that's what people have said who have studied this issue, that in fact it is. but a lot of republicans are not willing to go there. we heard what championship roy said earlier today in that hearing, saying this is first amendment rights of people to say what they want. today mccarthy in fact was asked about that rhetoric that occurred last year. he downplayed all of it, saying, you know, we still need to understand what happened in atlanta and the shootings down there. he would not accept at all that such rhetoric contributed to it. but that's why i asked him last year because at the time, people were saying this was racist rhetoric, saying kung flu and asian-americans feel that way and there's concerns about the safety of this community. but of course he didn't want to address that because he didn't want to criticize donald trump who at the time was saying kung flu over and over again. >> amanda, do you think he looks at that and he's embarrassed by it or has second thoughts now looking back? >> no. and if he does, i'd like him to say oncise, and you are correct. thank you very much. manu, i don't know how y'all do it. i'm glad i'm here in new york because they would kick me out of everything, the white house, the senate, the congress, wherever, the capitol because i'd have to tell somebody off. thank you both. president biden touting his progress on covid vaccinations, but there are concerns a surge could be right on the horizon. i got this mountain bike for only $11. dealdash.com, the fair and honest bidding site. we sold an ipad worth $505 for less than $24. a stand mixer for less than $20. a 4k television for under $2. a macbook pro for under $16. as well as a playstation 4 for under $16. and brand new cars for less than $900. dealdash.com offers hundreds of auctions every day. all auctions start at $0 and everything must go. and don't forget, we offer a full 90 day money back guarantee on your first bid pack purchase. i won these bluetooth headphones for $20. i got these three suitcases for less than $40. and shipping is always free. go to dealdash.com today and see how much you can save. there are auctions going on right now, so what are you waiting for? it's moving day. and while her friends are doing the heavy lifting, jess is busy moving her xfinity internet and tv services. it only takes about a minute. wait, a minute? but what have you been doing for the last two hours? ...delegating? oh, good one. move your xfinity services without breaking a sweat. xfinity makes moving easy. go online to transfer your services in about a minute. get started today. as of tonight, about 12% of the u.s. population has been fully vaccinated. millions more americans have received at least one dose of the covid vaccine, and officials are racing to boost those numbers because a surge in cases may be looming. time for our nightly house call, and who is that with? cnn medical analyst dr. jonathan reiner. good evening, doc. so president biden announcing today that the country will meet his goal of 100 million vaccine shots well ahead of his first 100 days. so what is the next goal? >> well, i think we need to get to 3 million shots a day, and i think we should try and get the vast majority of adults in this country vaccinated by the beginning of the summer. we have the ability to do that. we have the vaccine supplies. we have enough vaccine on order from the three approved vaccines to vaccinate 400 million americans. there are only 330 million americans, so we're going to have enough vaccine. the vaccine is excellent. now all we have to do is get it into arms. and we have the infrastructure to do this. so right now we're averaging about 2.5 million shots per day. let's boost that a little bit, 3 million shots per day, and we'll get to herd immunity sometime this summer. >> okay. you talked about you're currently in a race between vaccines and variants, right? 17 states are reporting a rise in cases. are you worried about another big surge? >> no, i'm not worried about a nationwide surge. i think we're going to see mini surges in regions or in states. for instance, right now hospitalizations and cases are up in michigan, you know, for the first time in over almost three months we're seeing cases rise in a state like michigan. michigan has a good proportion of variants in the patients that have the genomic testing. and they're having some trouble getting vaccine into folks. so it's a cautionary tale. but in other parts of the country like in the southeast and the southwest and out in california where cases have just dropped dramatically, things look better. still a lot of cases in new york. flat in the pacific northwest. so it's going to be patchy, and i think we're going to see sort of fires spring up from place to place, which is why we have to keep wearing masks and keep getting shots into arms. but overall we're in a much better place than we were at the beginning of january. >> meanwhile, states all over the country are easing their covid restrictions. do you think that it's happening too soon? do you think we can do it safely because i know people have covid fatigue, right? they've got mask fatigue. they've got quarantine fatigue. what do you think? >> i'm worried about it. look, i think there should be things that fully vaccinated people can do. but i'm worried about this notion that we're just going to open restaurants and we're going to start filling them. like new york going to 50% occupancy in restaurants, this is not the time. you know, there are still almost 5,000 cases a day in new york city, way too much to increase occupancy in restaurants. everyone is tired. i get it. believe me, i get it. i am really tired. but we don't have that much further to go. it will take longer to put this out if we have to start shutting down again because we're having surges in more places because we just couldn't wait long enough. we did this last spring, and we saw what happened over the summer. >> real quick, though, doctor, please. what if they start increasing access to vaccine and then saying, okay, we're going to increase access to vaccine and we're going to open the restaurants 50%. do you think that would offset -- is that a possibility? i don't know. >> you know, what i would love to see -- there's this great idea of having nights in restaurants where restaurants can fill to 100% if the clientele are all vaccinated. so you have, you know, vaccine nights in restaurants. a way to increase the, you know, business for our really struggling retail establishment and start to open the economy. >> dr. reiner, thank you as always. >> my pleasure. >> we'll be right back. when we started our business we were paying an arm and a leg for postage. i remember setting up shipstation. one or two clicks and everything was up and running. i was printing out labels and saving money. shipstation saves us so much time. it makes it really easy and seamless. pick an order, print everything you need, slap the label onto the box, and it's ready to go. our costs for shipping were cut in half. just like that. shipstation. the #1 choice of online sellers. go to shipstation.com/now and get 2 months free. tonight a former state senator in florida stands accused of financing a sham candidate for a hotly contested state senate race last fall with the intent on taking away votes from a legitimate democratic candidate. here's cnn's senior investigative correspondent drew griffin. >> today we are alleging that november's florida senate district 37 election involved crimes. >> reporter: miami-dade state attorney says -- masterminded a plot to help a republican win a key florida state senate seat. >> he knew then and we are alleging he knows now that he was blatantly thumbing his nose at the law. >> reporter: last november, incumbent democrat jose javier rodriguez lost his senate seat by just 32 votes, a race that he tells cnn he would have won. >> there's no question that this had an impact on a race that was ultimately decided by 32 votes out of nearly a quarter million cast. >> reporter: but jose javier rodriguez lost. there was a third candidate, a sham candidate in this race, with the same last name as his, who siphoned away democrat votes, alex rodriguez, who is also charged in the plan. >> we've been looking for alex. is he around? >> no. he'll be back tomorrow, though. >> reporter: that's actually alex rodriguez behind the door, lying to a reporter from cnn affiliate wplg about his own identity last year. alex rodriguez told officials frank artiles paid him nearly $45,000 to be a so-called ghost candidate. he was promoted as a liberal in advertising mailers but never campaigned and never debated. in addition to the same surname, there was a very well orchestrated and funded last-minute campaign to persuade voters and frankly trick them. >> reporter: while entering a sham candidate into a political race isn't a crime, the funding of one is according to prosecutors. both artiles and rodriguez are charged with three felonies each. >> what is a crime is making illegal campaign contributions to get a candidate to run. >> reporter: the republican challenger, who won the election by just 32 votes, is eliana garcia, a founder of latinas for trump. prosecutors say there's no evidence she knew anything about the plot to get her elected. her spokesperson telling cnn she's never even met frank a artiles. ar tiles attorney says his client is cooperating and we fully intend to defend any ch charges in court. three races with ghost candidates supported by political action committees that all registered at the same time and had similar donations and similar spending on nearly identical mailers. >> there was also hundreds of thousands of dollars of dark money. we still don't know where it came from. sending mailers to voters in the district to confuse them with democratic-leaning messages. >> reporter: alex rodriguez's attorney says his client deeply regrets being used in this way for this election. as for frank artiles, he has a history of controversies. he had to resign from his state senate seat in 2017 after using racial slurs in front of two black lawmakers. drew griff in, cnn, washington. >> thank you for watching, everyone. our coverage continues. of illness-causing bacteria detergents leave behind. proven to kill covid-19 rely on the experts at 1800petmeds for the same medications as the vet, but for less with fast free shipping. visit petmeds.com today. ♪ president biden heads to georgia today, just a few days after six asian women were shot and murdered. rhetoric flies across the table as two of the world's super powers meet for the first time since joeden became president. and the other big worry for the administration, the situation at the u.s. border with mexico. i speak to a humanitarian worker from the mexican side of the border. live from cnn world headquarters in atlanta, welcome to all of you watching here, in the united states, canada and around the world, i'mim