sunset monday to mark the massacre. he and vice president harris will be in atlanta tomorrow to meet with leaders of the city's asian-american community. earlier today atlanta police insisted the investigation is far from over. >> we are not done. we're still working very diligently to ascertain all of the facts so we can have a successful prosecution. >> the investigation into a possible hate crime, is that still on the table? >> nothing is off the table for our investigation. >> is there any indication the suspect visited those spas previously? >> it appears he may have frequented those locations, yes. all we do know is he purchased the gun on the day of the incident. >> on that same line the fbi is assisting local law enforcement with the investigation. this was interesting. tonight the fbi director chris wray told npr, quote, it does not appear that the motive was racially motivated. the suspect who's charged with eight counts of murder waived an arraignment scheduled for today. the killings outpouring of anger in washington. today for the first time in three decades the house held a hearing on anti-asian violence and discrimination. the mood became tense after one lawmaker's comments. >> we believe in justice. there's an old staying in texas about find all the rope in texas and find a tall oak tree. we take justice seriously, and we ought to do that, round up the bad guys. my certain about this hearing is it seems to want to venture into the policing of rhetoric in a free society. now we're talking about whether talking about china, chi-coms, chinese communist party, whatever phrasing we want to use and some people are saying we think those guys are the bad guys. i think the chinese communist party, running the country of china, i think they are the bad guys and i think they are harming people. >> i want to go back to something mr. roy said earlier. your president and your party and your colleagues can talk about issues with any other country that you want, but you don't have to do it by putting a bulls eye on the back of asian-americans across this country, on our grandparents, on our kids. this hearing was to address the hurt and pain of our community, to find solutions, and we will not let you take our voice away from us. >> now, after that exchange, congressman roy, the rope and tree fellow from texas, later told nbc news that he had, quote, no apologies for his remarks. meanwhile, the federal investigation into the capitol insurrection, let's not forget, is focusing more intensely on those rioters who carried out some of the most vicious assaults on police officers that we saw that day. as nbc news correspondent tom costello shows us, the fbi has released new videos in hopes that the public can help identify those suspects. and fair warning here, it's violent and disturbing. >> more than two months since the attack on the capitol, dramatic new video enhanced by the fbi of ten suspects, what it calls some of the most egregious attacks on police officers that day. among the videos, an unknown suspect tried to pull the gas mask off a police officer in full riot gear. the assailant isolated in photos and videos. more video of an attacker beating officers with a table leg and nails. this attacker trying to smash his way through gas doors with a cattle prod, suspects spraying officers with an orange chemical. another assailant wanting for hitting and punching officers. here an older man breaks through a barricade and charges police. the fbi asking for the public's help in identifying all the attackers. the fbi has arrested two suspects for assault on brian sicknick, who later died of unknown causes. a d.c. grand jury has indicted both men on ten counts. >> tom costello with that report. as the white house continues its campaign to get all americans vaccinated, the president today announce that we're about to hit his goal of 100 million vaccines in the first 100 days of his administration. >> tomorrow, 58 days into our administration, we will have met my goal of administering 100 million shots to our fellow americans. in the last week we've seen increases in the number of cases in several states. scientists have made clear that things may get worse as new variants of this virus spread. getting vaccinated is the best thing we can do to fight back against these variants. >> the president will now have more help in his plan to carry out these next vaccination goals as well as his plans to strengthen obamacare. today by the narrowest margin, 50-49, the senate confirmed javier becerra to lead the department of health and human services. it's a lot. to talk about it, let's bring our lead off guest, peter baker, carol lenning from the "washington post," also the author of the forthcoming book "zero fail: the rise and fall of the secret service" which we're looking forward to coming out may 11th. and kurt bar della joins us, former spokesperson for the house oversight committee, former republican who has since joined the democratic party. he's also a contributor to u.s. today and the "l.a. times." peter baker because of your beat, i would like to begin with you. biden's approach along with his vice president to these atlanta murders is altogether different for those who have been paying attention these last four to five years. talk about his effort, something he feels genuinely, to fill the empathy gap and go down there and have a conversation about this tragedy. >> well, that's right. look, this is a president who is doing what presidents usually do, right, which is to try to bring people together in moments of turmoil and tum multilike this rather than try to divide them. president trump, of course, obviously played to racial divisions and was somebody who tended to stir the pot rather than pull people together. president biden came to office on a promise he would unite, on a promise he would appeal to better higher virtues, and this is, i think, an example of that. he wants to go to atlanta to demonstrate his concern over fears that many asian-americans have given the spike in hate expressions and violent assaults that have been experienced in the last number of years, particularly in the last year since the covid virus, which of course the last president used asian influence terms to describe, which a lot of people think actually stirred rather than bring people together. >> kurt, your piece in "the l.a. times" was very direct. you said trump and the gop put a bull's-eye on the backs of asian-americans today. kevin mccarthy was asked about his own past comments. we'll play his reply here. >> do you regret using terms like chinese coronavirus? >> i would wait to see why the shooter did what he did, but the virus came from china. and i think the knowledge we had at the time is exactly that. i don't think people from the standpoint should go after any asian from any shape or form, and i condemn every action to that. >> so, kurt, there's your republican leader in the house who, for the record, voted on the side of the insurrectionists. we've yet to hear from mitch mcconnell at all over in the senate side on this. the question to you is, are republicans unable or unwilling to recognize harm from the words they've used? >> well, brian, they're unwilling. and the best example of that was today when chip roy, at a hearing about violence and hate crimes against asian-americans, thought that that was the appropriate time to quote toby keith song -- toby keith, by the way, is from oklahoma, not texas, but be that as it may -- to quote toby keith lyrics and use the image about lynches. i shows the ignorance. chinese americans were the target of one of the biggest lynchings in american history in the 1870s. to use that type of imagery, rope and trees, at a hearing convened to talk about hate crimes and then to not even apologize about but it but double down on it, it shows republicans are not capable of understanding their rhetoric. they don't care. they don't value people who are not white. they have made a decision time and again to use inflammatory rhetoric like chinese virus and kung flu to talk about something that has created a situation where people are actively creating hate crimes against asian-americans. if the situation in atlanta hasn't happened it wouldn't change the fact there's been a 68% increase in attacks. we've had people attacked on the streets of new york, people spit on and called derogatory comments while eating at restaurants outside in the bay area. we've seen time after time, incident after incident of hate crimes and hateful rhetoric targeting asian-americans and it is 100% driven by the rhetoric of the republican party. >> indeed absent the atlanta violence there was still need for the hearing that was held today. carol, i want to take advantage of your years of reporting on and around law enforcement. how does law enforcement deal with the fact that there is enormous public pressure based on everything we can see about these murders to name this a hate crime while they're not comfortable with it yet hitting that mark? >> i think what is a problem for law enforcement is a concern amount of literalness in their criminal statements of fact. so, this perpetrator, this murderer, alleged murderer, alleges his motive was an addiction. and he did buy a gun in the midst of a falling apart of his life, his family kicking him out of the house. and he said that his shooting was basically because of this addiction that he had to these spas that he visited and he was taking out his violent rage against them. well, that's all very literal and fine. but the truth is that the majority of people killed were asian women. and you've got to have a connection between, you know, viewing those lives as less valuable to this particular perpetrator and hate crimes. why did he show up at something titled young asian massage. yes, he probably did frequent those or frequent something like it. but it's the challenge of law enforcement to stick to the facts but also see the bigger picture. and i think i would agree to one element of what the fbi director said, chris wray. it doesn't appear to be racially motivated at this moment, but let's see what the rest of the facts are. sometimes investigations take a little while, and we all should be patient. but it is a wonderful opportunity to discuss the hatred that lots of political leaders have sewn. and i think as peter and also kurt make so clear, these political leaders have worked this bone, and it has been to their benefit. president trump showed them the way, calling something and blaming something on china was very effective. it took it away from having to actually assess his own handling of the coronavirus because in a xenophobic way, he could decide to blame some country where a lot of asians live. and it has worked like a charm in terms of deflecting a lot of the responsibility. blaming is a great political tool. and unfortunately as grace meng pointed out, it also puts a bull's-eye on people. there's a reason why a man showed up with an assault at a pizza shop. he was urged by republican conspiracy theoryists to believe that the democrats had a pedophilia ring in the basement of this pizza shop. >> there was pressure on the left today on social media at the news media wondering why this wasn't branded the trump virus from the start. peter baker let's rely on a broad area of your reporting for years, the nation formerly known as the soviet union, now russia. here is a sampling of the interplay just in the last 48 hours between putin and biden. >> you know vladimir putin. you think he's a killer? >> mm-hm, i do. >> so, what price must he pay? >> the price he's going to pay, you'll see shortly. >> peter, is it because in recent years we are so not used to a president not praising the virility and strength of the russian leader that we've forgotten what quote/unquote normal relations between putin and an american president look like? >> yeah, it's interesting. the phrase, mm-hm, i do, is doing a lot of work there. this is not exactly a full-throated condemnation by president biden, but it's so in contrast with president trump who exonerated putin and said we're killers here too and made us equivalent to putin's russia back when he was asked about it. i think that even that small snippet of president biden, even that relatively modest, mild comment was seen as a sea change. russian media is lapping it up tonight. they love it. they're going after biden and making it a big to do. that's helpful to putin in his domestic audience, which he's having trouble in his own country. i think it's good from his point of view to have an enemy to focus on. biden and the united states has always been a good enemy. his comment is meant to pick up on trump's line from last fall about biden's age and whether biden lost a step or not. when he says i say without irony, if you listen to it in russian, there's irony in his tone. he means that as a jab. this is all talk. so far the biden administration has only taken relatively modest steps in terms of sanctions, sanctioning russians who aren't likely to come here and don't have assets here. they say they have more to come and we'll have to wait to see what that is and see if it takes the pressure. >> kurt, let's keep it in the world of politics. gop has been going culture war of late, but do you think they see genuine traction in this ongoing humanitarian crisis at the southern border? >> well, it's kind of back to the future here, brian. we saw for the better part of the last decade the republican party constantly used the issue of immigration and the border as their primary issue to talk about. remember when eric canter, the then house majority leader lost his seat in the 2014 cycle, lost to a guy named dave frat who ran on immigration. this has been at the heart of the republican party orthodoxy for so long. when they have nothing else to talk about and when things aren't going their way, often times they return to the issue of immigration. it was the issue that propelled donald trump to nomination in the first place, the whole build the wall, all immigrants are drug dealers and coming here from mexico to kill us all. and they're going back to that again. and what we've seen overtime is their messaging on immigration is code for racism. it is just another frontier on their effort to attack people that aren't white. this time when it comes to the border, it's that white people have to fear brown people. it's that they have to worry about them being drug dealers and cartels and gang members that are going to come and perpetrate violence and mayhem on them. it has nothing to do with the humanitarian elements on this, which are very real. it has to do with them trying to use this issue and use people of color to scare white people into voting for them. this is the playbook that we've seen so often and they're going back to it now because they can't talk about successes. they can't talk about a track record that's done anything positive for the american people. they can't talk about covid-19. 500,000 people were dead under their watch. they can't talk about a blooming economy. the economy fell apart on their watch. what do they do? they go back to culture wars. this time it's immigration, but it's really racism. >> and the last word from carol lenning. it was unprecedented the media presentation by the fbi today still looking for these suspects. we're reminded of the idea of americans sacking their own capitol was pretty unprecedented at the time. >> absolutely. these videos, sri to say, brian, they work. people who are neighbors and friends, this is tried and true. put out the videos and somebody's going to call that 800 number. it happened actually quite a bit this summer. you may remember the fbi put out pictures and videos of people who were desecrating federal monuments. but i'm reminded when i watch these videos i'm thinking of the statement that was released by george bush or made public today actually. he said it in february as part of a presentation. but in this remark, he said, basically watching the siege on the capitol made him sick to his stomach. and some of these videos do that for me now. >> yeah. in fact i want to play that later in the hour. i can't think our big three enough for helping along our conversation tonight. great thanks. coming up for us as our country takes on two stubborn deadly viruses at the same time, one medical, the other societal, we'll talk to two of our favorite guests about meeting them both and how. and later, why would anyone shoot down the idea of a shot in the arm? we'll ask some of the vaccine deniers about their reasoning for not getting it, all of it as "the 11th hour" is just getting underway on a thursday night. j underway on a thursday night this is worth. that takes wealth. but this is worth. and that - that's actually worth more than you 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yours. you can say whatever you want under the first aechlt amendment. you can say racist stupid stuff you want, but please stop using words like kung flu and ethnic virus. i am not a virus and when you say things like it hurts the augs american community. >> democratic congressman ted lieu of california former guest on this broadcast during today's antidiscrimination hearing. back to talk about that author, activist, comedian former producer of "the daily show" and mark mcken nonis back with us, former adviser to george w. bush. gentlemen, good evening and welcome to you both. today at a hearing on combatting hate and violence, just so we get this right, a congressman from texas equates justice and lynching in real time out loud we can hear him say it. it would indicate to me we're not all on the same page. would you like to take a whack at how much remains to go in 2021? >> yes, brian, we're not all on the same page, and clearly representatives roy's mask was not always on his face. he was sloppy in more ways than one. it's go tess grotesque to cite lynching in a hearing designed to honor and acknowledge the pain of a community subject to racial violence. if there is a resource that people would remember right now, check out stoppaapihate.org. this is an organization that has taken it upon itself to document some of the pain, the trauma, the struggles of the community of members of the asian deaccident in the u.s. for the past year since the president of the united states unleashed a fuselage of ugly upon them by weaponizing a global pandemic and putting a target on the backs of some of our own people in this country. it's ugly. it's sick. it's sad. and if i would just add, i know what it feels like as a black american to be excluded, to be overlooked, to be devalued by law enforcement and others. so, my own heart is open and out for my fellow americans who are suffering right now. you are not alone. >> mark mckinnon, it leaves me to ask you what has become of us. and because we are in a political realm, i have to ask the follow-up. how much had of what has become of us is because of republican actions and rhetoric? >> well, i mean, today roy's comments were a great example of just how low republicans have gone. they're just clawing their way to the bottom. the notion that somebody would go to a hearing that was being held to raise the issue of racial insensitivity, racism across america and then not only be sort of insensitive to the idea of the hearing but to turn it around and start defending racist practices in american history is -- it's -- it's embarrassing. it's humiliating, and it's indefensible. i work for a guy who talk about compassion and conservative, and for the life of me, brian, i can't find the compassion and conservatism in republican politics anymore. >> a republican whisperer on broadcast like this one, explain to me why in the last 7 to 14 days all we hear about now is communist china. i'm old enough to remember the cold war. i remember that term. it went away. it went into a long power save slumber mode. it's back. i don't go a day without hearing about communist china. where is that from? >> well, it's -- i mean, it comes from the same treasure chest as socialism. the socialism trope that the republicans tried to use against joe biden. joe biden famously said, do i look like a socialist? no, he's not and that's why he got elected. the china -- that's something chip roy talked about today. to me they're trying to flip the deck and say, no, we weren't talking about the china virus. that's not a racist thing. what we're really talking about is the chinese communist party. there's got to be a boogey man. got to be something to scare. it's page one of trump's republican playbook. it's others out there coming across our borders, changing the way of life. and i'm here to defend the american way of life, but leave it to the democrats, we're going to turn this into an arm of the chinese communist government. >> as both of you gentlemen know we like to be a viewers' guide and preview more of what you're going to hear in the coming days. our conversation will continue after a short break. coming up, he once praised efforts to bring undocument immigrants out of the shadows. and now mark's former boss is doubling down on that message. we'll talk about him and that right after this. t right after this you're on it. staying fit and snacking light? yup, on it there too. you may think you're doing all you can to manage type 2 diabetes and heart disease... ...but could your medication do more to lower your heart risk? jardiance can reduce the risk of cardiovascular death for adults who also have known heart disease. so, it could help save your life from a heart attack or stroke. and it lowers a1c. jardiance can cause serious side effects including dehydration, ...genital yeast or urinary tract infections, and sudden kidney problems. ketoacidosis is a serious side effect that may be fatal. a rare 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wideband. the fastest 5g in the world. this is the 5g that's built for you. this is 5g built right. only from verizon. there needs to be an overhaul, which means we need to get politics out of the system and get sober minded people focusing on what's good for our economy and our country. rather than ignore the situation, we've got to address it. i do believe there needs to be a path to citizenship. >> that is a view not widely held by today's republican party. the house today passed a new immigration that includes a pathway to citizenship. remember that quaint phrase for millions of dreamers among us. just nine republicans voted in favor, many pointing to the influx of migrants at the southern border. >> part of dealing with the problem is to first admit there's a problem, and president biden doesn't even want to acknowledge it. and then on the heals of this border crisis that has gone on right now, there's a bill on the house floor to create amnesty, to create a bigger magnet saying come to the southern border. >> still with us, bare ton day thurston and mark mckinnon, but wait there's more. i want to play more of george w. bush. this was on the subject of -- and we haven't heard this -- his reaction to 16. >> i was disgusted. i can't remember what i was doing, but i remember feeling a sense of -- i was sick to my stomach. and then 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. >> was the election stolen or not? >> no. >> so, mark, that right there is how people talk. and it used to be how republicans talked. how many republicans does he represent in those two statements, first on immigration, second on 1/6. how many men and women are behind him in saying we're right there with you, boss? >> not enough, and that's the problem brian. we love to hear him, especially on important issues like this. brian, 1999 and earlier when he was running for governor -- re-election for governor of texas, he drew people like me, independents and democrats across the bridge to become republicans because of his message about compassion and conservative. he was very immigration friendly and felt strongly about immigration reform and ran on that in 1999 despite a lot of republicans saying he shouldn't do it. he said it was the right thing. he fought for it his entire presidency. the timing wasn't right. 9/11 happened and things didn't happen. it's been almost a quarter century since president bush tried to push reforms and we're still fighting about it now. reagan provided amnesty for 3 million americans, bush says there should be a path to citizenship but there aren't enough. republicans say we don't want anybody crossing the border. democrats are saying bring us your huddled masses yearning to be free. >> barrington, on the subject of immigration, our friend eugene robinson was on last night and i neglected to quote the headline from his most recent column which bowled me over. going big on the border will neutralize republicans' line of attack. eugene is making the simple point that biden -- and yes, he's got a lot on his plate -- can go big, can react the in a big way, fly down there, mobilize the u.s. military and so on. and it is in biden's hands. it came with the job. how would you critique the job they've done so far in this -- what is it -- 58 days without a transition coming into office? >> first i need to acknowledge the former president george h.w. bush. i am not a member of this american's fan club. i will acknowledge the decency, the factual basis of his comments. and it is sad that that is worth mentioning and lauding. but i also remember the same george h.w. bush -- sorry, george w. bush, who put us into the iraq war and the afghanistan situation, which we still have not extricated ourselves and helped bankrupt us and put us in a spot making racism more attractive to the modern day republican party. i can't let that go unremarked. as for what's going on with the border and immigration, i am pro treating human beings as humaning bes and i do not pretend what's happening at our border is a simple fix either through hateful rhetoric or the imagic waving of some sort of wand. i am personally impressed and astounded that people are leaving their countries to walk through treacherous miles of gang-run territory. their economies are wrecked, climate change is making things worse. i don't think anyone's coming here because they think it's that great. they're leaving a place of their own that isn't doing so well. while i give the biden administration early partial credit is acknowledging part of the problem will be solved when the countries of latin america are doing better and to the extent we can engage with them on helping the situation at home be more hospitable. the people already here contributing to the economy, living by the rules, paying taxes, they deserve a pathway to become full members of society. >> thank you for all of that. to your first point, it wasn't iraq knocking down those buildings on 9/11 after all. good to see you both, we're in your debt for coming on. coming up for us, no matter what the doctors we talk to say, there are still a whole lot of americans who still insist the vaccine, however a medical miracle, is not for them. coming up, we'll hear from both sides. ll hear from both sides. thers. david: my grandfather, pinchas. michael: my great-great- grandfather, rachmaiel. gigi: pinky and rocky. simi: there was an uprising in poland. david: and then the family broke apart. michael: they scattered around in different places. gigi: they worked hard. simi: and built new lives. michael: but rocky and pinky's families didn't see each other again... all: ...until now. david: more than 100 years later, ancestry helped connect us to our ancestors and each other. ancestry helped connect us to our ancestors guy fieri! ya know, if you wanna make that sandwich the real deal, ya gotta focus on the bread layers. king's hawaiian sliced bread makes everything better! ♪ (angelic choir) ♪ and here's mine! well, this is something. tonight 23% of americans have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine. 12% of american adults have now been fully vaccinated. even as the administration works to quicken the pace of this, the issue of vaccine skepticism, specifically among republicans, subset especially republican males, and a lot of them trumpers, poses a difficult challenge. nbc news correspondent ellison barber joins us from jackson, mississippi, with more tonight. and ellison, i know you have been sampling opinion there on this vaccine. what have you found? >> reporter: hey, brian. yeah, we have -- we went kind of all over the eastern part of the state to try and get a sense of what people are thinking here. look, vaccine hesitancy has dropped in the weeks and months since the first covid-19 vaccine was authorized with emergency approval in the united states. there are still pockets of skepticism nationwide. one thing that we are seeing in polls and continue to see in more recent polls is that vaccine skepticism is stronger and holding steady among one group in particular, and that is republicans. we decided to head to one of the reddest counties in mississippi, smith county, and travel east to get a sense of what people think about covid vaccines. listen here. do you plan to get vaccinated? >> no, ma'am. >> how come? >> cause i'm an old country boy and i drink for what i need. >> i made up my mind 40 years ago never to get another flu shot. >> no flu shot, no covid vaccine. >> no -- it's the flu. it ain't a covid. it's the flu. >> i just got questions and i don't feel like my questions have been answered. we have news media outlets that say one thing and then we have another outlet that says completely the opposite and you don't really know the truth in the matter anymore. >> i just ain't never got no flu shot so i ain't planning on getting no covid-19. i wouldn't be wearing this here but you got to. mainly people that's got low immune system. i just say take some vitamins and move on. >> a lot of people think they're hiding what's really going on, as far as they're saying everybody's fine with it. a lot of people are scared that even though they're saying they're fine, they're really not. >> reporter: about 11% of mississippians have been fully vaccinated as of this week. this week the state also decided to expand vaccine eligibility and open it up to anyone living or working in the state over the age of 16. brian. >> ellison, thank you and your crew for your reporting. it's important. everyone needs to hear it. it's a part of our world and a part of this very compelling story. ellison barber for us tonight. and now joining our conversation is dr. vin gupta, critical care pulmonologist who specializes in this. he's on the faculty university of washington institute for health metrics and evaluation you heard the voices of those americans in the state of mississippi. we all have to live together in this one country we've been given. what do we do about what we just heard? >> well, brian, i think there's two things up front. number one -- and good evening, by the way. number one, i think there's just confusion on what these vaccines do extremely well regardless of the variant essentially everywhere in the world. and they will keep you out of intensive care. that is the critical piece here that we've lost when we've communicated about vaccine effectiveness. we delve too much into effectiveness percentages and numbers that are confusing to people, that are frankly confusing to me, when the bottom line here is whether you're talking about j&j or astrazeneca or pfizer-moderna, they all are 100% effective and those who receive them and keeping those individuals out of the hospital and out of intensive care and avoiding death. that's all that matters. number two, i would say to your point and from ellison's reporting there, if that doesn't reach people, how do you reach those people? and that's where i think we need to introduce some friction into the system. once vaccines are broadly available, brian, we need to make -- we need to tack a page out of what other countries are doing and say, you know what, the vaccine is available, it's safe, it's very effective. if you're not going to get it and you want to go on a flight or you want to go out to dine or you want to go out to the ball park you're going to have to show us a negative covid-19 test and you're going to have to mask. we're going to have to introduce some friction here premised on some degree of personal responsibility at that point. otherwise we're not going to reach where we need to reach which is herd immunity. hopefully 75% to 80% of the country is going to be willing to accept the vaccine. if we don't get there, we're in a tenuous balance. >> all goes back to the picture of elvis getting the vaccine. we had the head of the ad council on this broadcast talking about their campaign. i think that point you just mentioned is when they have to be on the air with a killer public service campaign along those same lines. couldn't agree more. dr. gupta has agreed to stay with us. when we come back he'll explain why our path to normalcy -- and that's the goal remember -- is tenuous, may look at times a bit more like a mine field. mine fied [typing sound] i had this hundred thousand dollar student debt. two hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars in debt. ah, sofi literally changed my life. it was the easiest application process. sofi made it so there's no tradeoff between my dreams and paying student loans. student loans don't have to take over for the rest of your life. thank you for allowing me to get my money right. if you have postmenopausal osteoporosis thank you for allowing me and a high risk for fracture, now might not be the best time to ask yourself, 'are my 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to hang in a few more months. we are extremely vulnerable. 1500 to 2,000 deaths a day. italy is locking down, ontario is doing something similar. we are surrounded from chaos and crisis from the the virus. the most likely scenario is that we come out of it. we will come out of pandemic after having experienced the worst crisis possible. that is not a fore gone conclusion. warm weather and vaccines are our friends right now. that is great right now. we are not seeing the vaccine confidence. and the variants what is terrible is bad public policy. governors following the lead of the governor in texas. loosening mask mandates too soon. we can use the end prize here, normally since july 4th. until most of us have the vaccine. >> to your point, a friend of nine london says they are over there looking at our spring breakers from padre island, to lauderdale, wondering what has gotten into us and what we don't understand about this? >> thank you for reminding me. what a disappointing lack of calling or -- by the university presidents across the country, to say their students should not be going on spring break. if you're about to embark on spring break, think about it twice. i have seen 18-year-olds pass it on to elderly family members, loved ones. this is serious. university presidents should be messaging the students should not be traveling. just a few months. or we go by the way of italy and france. it's very tenuous, the situation we're in. >> dr. van gupta has been been our guest. thank you for your time, and thank you for taking our questions. coming up, tonight's reminder that words have consequences right after this. se and we want you to see yourself in your new glasses and think, "ooh!" but if you get home and your "ooh" is more of a "hmm..." you have 100 days to change your mind. that's the visionworks difference. visionworks. see the difference. ♪ ♪ ♪ when it comes to your financial health, just a few small steps can make a real difference. ♪ ♪ ♪ learn, save 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shrines that have skom to life outside of local businesses in the atlanta metro area, to mark the senseless, twisted and tragic loss of life, and the toll of innocent asian americans killed for showing up and work and going about their lives, trying to make a living and doing the best they can. while the election may be over, the folks over at the lincoln project put together a video compilation with an unmistakable message -- that words matter. >> a deadly shooting at massage parlors in the atlanta area could be linked to a wave of attacks. >> chinese virus. >> kung flu. >> a disturbing surge of racist attacks. >> the china virus. >> asian hate crimes surged in 16 cities. >> the china virus. >> the china flu. >> a man spit not once but three times in the direction of a 25-year-old asian american woman and our baby, calling them quote, the chinese virus. >> the chinese virus. >> powerful message to take us all the air tonight. that is our broadcast for this thursday evening. with our thanks for being here with us. on behalf of my colleagues at the networks of nbc news, good night. in november, right after the presidential election, a postal worker in erie, pennsylvania, a letter carrier at that postal service, that post office made an alarming public claim. this letter carrier from erie, pennsylvania said he had overheard his supervisor at that post office talking about doing something really illegal, planning to do something really illegal. he says he overheard his supervisor talking to another senior person at that post office about changing the date on ballots that had been mailed