good evening. we are tracking those shootings. we will bring you more information as it comes in. it is a busy night. we begin with this just in, president biden for the first time addressing the surge on the southern border and criticism his break on policy from the last administration is to blame. we spoke with abc news's george stephanopoulos. >> a lot of the migrants are coming in are saying they're coming in because you promised to make things better. it seems to be getting worse by the day. was it a mistake not to anticipate this surge? >> well, first of all, there was a surge the last two years in '19 and '20 there was a surge, as well. >> this one might be worse. >> no, well, it could be. here is the deal. we're sending back people -- first of all, the idea that joe biden said come because i heard the other day that they're coming because i'm a nice guy and i won't do -- >> you're saying this. >> yeah, here is the deal. they're not. >> do you have to say quite clearly don't come? >> yes, i can say quite clearly don't come and what we're in the process of getting set up, don't leave your town or city or community. >> more now from cnn phil mattingly who joins us. phil, does it seem like president biden is or the white house, do they grasp the severity of the situation on the boarder? >> i think white house officials do and you heard the president try to compare it to 2019 or 2020 and i think the reality is from his own homeland security secretary today they are seeing a surge they haven't seen in nearly two decades. it's a significant problem. it's also a confluence of factors right now. it's not any one thing. from the policy side, the biden administration made a change from the past administration. they are allowing in unaccompanied minors. that is a shift. they are doing that because they want to take a more humane approach to immigration. they are turning away any adult that comes to the border on covid-related grounds. however, they were not prepared based on the system they say they inherited to handle the surge of migrants over the course of the last several weeks, and it's only growing. you also have the issue that the president was asked about, whether or not he is part of the reason that migrants believe that the borders are now open. one of the issues administration officials have seen, they seen coyotes, the individuals taking money trying to escort individuals through the dangerous journey saying they believe the policy changed. they are dealing with that and the northern triangle countries. that are dealing with their own hardships. obviously there were hurricanes down there, own issues with their own governments. that's driving a lot of the surge you're seeing right now. so all of this coming together is creating a significant problem and while administration seems fully aware from now the president on down that they have a problem right now, they're also cognizant of the fact that it's going to take time to fix in terms of ramping up facilities, ramping up the ability to move the unaccompanied minors out of the border patrol facilities where they don't belong and aren't supposed to stay more than 72 hours. given that they're overwhelmed right now, they are falling short of that. they're working to address that, but they're saying it takes time, anderson. >> does the president have plans to travel to the southern border? >> i asked him that today as he departed the white house on his way to pennsylvania for his covade relief bill, if you will that just passed arranged he said no, not at the moment. right now i haven't talked to an administration official urging the president to go down there. he had senior advisors go down a couple of weeks ago. they came back and gave him a report while they were down there. many of whom speak spanish and had multiple conversations with minors in custody down there. he's having his officials go down and report. obviously his secretary of homeland security is very deeply engaged right now. no sense in the president going down relying on his team at the moment to try to fix what is becoming a growing problem every single day. >> phil mattingly, stay right there. i want to bring in abby phillip. abby, what do you make of president biden's comments? >> well, i think he is trying to do two things at once. he's trying to get ahold of the narrative here that republicans are trying to use for political reasons to attack him for what is going on the border. and there are i think good reasons for the biden administration to say not so fast. this is in part a result of the trump administration creating a backlog of immigrants who have been waiting in mexico to come over. but at the same time, what he said there, don't come has taken two weeks virtually for this administration to get to that place. a couple of weeks ago, the now department of homeland security secretary said quite the opposite. he said we're not saying don't come. we're saying don't come right now. i think this is an administration that is struggling to settle on where they need to be both in terms of messaging and in terms of policy to not only deal with the long term issues but also to deal with this immediate problem, which seems to be escalating by the day as more and more of these children show up and they need to be housed and they need to be put into homes with sponsors and if they're not put into homes with sponsors, they're being kept in conditions that their lawyers are telling us are just simply terrible. they're just waiting for opportunities to get out of these situations where they should not be in. >> abby, we heard president biden say quote, we're in the process of getting set up, don't leave your town. which makes it almost sound like once we get set up, then it's okay to leave your town. it is -- i'm not sure what the thought there is. >> well, you know, i suspect that what he is referring to is something that we heard from another administration official about a week ago which has to do with standing up a system that allows these migrants to apply for asylum in their home countries before they even make the journey. he didn't say that, but that is eventually i think what administration wants to get to and what's even some democrats i spoke to a border democrat vicente gonzalez over the weekend who has been emphasizing that is crucial to stopping this flow of immigrants coming up through mexico. you've got to get them to go through some of this process in their home countries. the problem is, administration says that is going to take time to stand that system up. the question is how much time do they really have? the crisis is now. they don't want to call it a crisis but the numbers we're seeing at the border certainly suggest it is. >> and phil, why did the president wait this long to say, you know, don't come to the border, there are now more than 4,000 unaccompanied migrant children in customs and border patrol custody. >> there is a belief that his top official saying something similar to that making very clear whether it's the press secretary at the podium each day whether it was his homeland security secretary who eventually came out and made that very clear as well, kind of his top officials getting that word across was going to be enough. i think the reality is the president hasn't been out. he takes questions sometimes when he's departing and takes questions occasionally but the president hasn't been out and had really the opportunity to make that forceful statement do not come now and i think also, administration right now, i think they would acknowledge they're scrambling a bit because to abby's point, they have long-term goals, and i think they feel like they have long-term solutions to some degree, even to the central american minors crises that's occurring, whether it's sending more aid down to the northern triangle allowing minors in the u.s. while they're back home to engage with relatives and help clear the path forward. what they don't have and scrambling for is a short term solution and that's where it sounds a little bit like blame the last guy while you continue to hear from administration officials, so much of this is what they inherited, the system they inherited that they're trying to overhaul on the run as things are moving, and it's obviously a very fluid situation. >> thank you very much. i want to bring you more on the breaking news. at least seven people are dead after shootings at three spas, two in atlanta and another at a nearby county. cnn's ryan young joins us now by phone with the latest. ryan, explain what exactly has gone on. the latest i had is there there were three -- two dead on the scene and one dead at a hospital from a place called young's asian imagine in acworth, georgia, and two other massage spas, one called a therapy spa which seemed very close to each other. there were three people killed and then one other person killed at another spa. so explain what is going on. >> right, so anderson, what we've learned from this information so far, acworth is in cherokee county. that's where the initial shooting happened. it sort of unclear exactly what took place. we don't know if someone walked inside and started shooting and that's where the first three people were killed or at least two people were shot and then one person maybe showed up to a hospital. then the information that's about 47-minute ride from the second shooting scene, the second shooting scene was a spa very close to buckhead. if you know atlanta very well, that's a busy area. this is a very busy intersection where these two spas are located and then apparently, three women were shot in one location and another woman was shot pretty much at the spa right across the street. there is a small grouping of spas in this area. now, i just got off the phone with a few detectives that i know in the atlanta area. they're telling me there's been pretty much a massive callout to law enforcement throughout the atlanta area to be on the lookout for a suspect vehicle but also, they are working this case to see if they are obviously connected. that's a theory they are working with currently. obviously, the chief of police did a news conference the last 15 to 20 minutes where he was talking about making this a top priority. that area of buckhead where the second and third shooting scenes happened, it's a very busy area. you know there is probably tons of cameras that are in that area that police will have to start scouring through to make sure they have images of the suspect vehicle that they can get them out to the public as soon as possible. they have also shut down a large area around the shooting scenes even in cherokee county where they are trying to get any sort of evidence they can to get out there so they can try to catch these suspects. now, i will tell you after talking to someone who was walking on another task force, they were telling me about a crew hitting some of these spas recently but not sure if that's connected to this at all or not. of course, they're also working with the theory someone could have specifically targeted these areas because they're known for the workers they have inside, which would be the asian workers that would be there. in terms of what is going on now, there is a slew of police officers who basically have been brought in for the investigative duties to figure out what is going on with these separate shootings. again, the death toll, so surprising with seven people shot and killed. >> ryan, let me run through some details with you. so the first shooting that's known was in acworth, georgia, correct? >> right. yes, sir. >> that's where three people died, two on the scene and one at the hospital. you say that's about -- that's the young's asian massage, which we're showing video from, that's cherokee county. >> right. so cherokee county is about 47 minutes outside the city of atlanta. >> is it known approximately what time that shooting occurred? >> and that is the part that we're still working on, >> okay. >> when this originally happened, it looked like it was an accident on the highway. so police started shutting down some of the roadways around there and then all of a sudden the word came out there was several shootings that may be connected to this and as all eyes were focused on what happened with that shooting, it became clear something else was happening in the city of atlanta about two hours later. that's when this other busy area close to buckhead had these double shootings pretty quickly behind each other. >> and you said it a 47-minute ride from acworth to the other area. looking at the addresses from the two massage spas in the buck head area, it looks like they're very close to each other judging by the numbers on the buildings. >> absolutely. they're almost across the street from each other. anyone who is sort of -- i'm being redirected here. there is two spas are pretty much right across the street from each other and that had -- they have been there for years. police have kept a pretty strong presence in this area for quite some time. but the shootings are less than a mile away from piedmont park. so at this point on a busy afternoon in atlanta, you would know this area would be packed with traffic. so whoever pulled this shooting off did wit a lot of people probably very visibly be able to hear the gunshots as it took place. >> and we -- >> as -- i assume, ryan, we don't know at this point the timing of the shootings at the buckhead area spas? >> as it was described to me, they were pretty back to back. it appears that the person, whoever did it probably did it on foot. and went from one location to the next. as i'm looking at the scene right now, there are major parts of the street that have been shut down as police start to gather their evidence. >> you said that there is a vehicle of interest that had police released details about that. >> so about -- i want to say about an hour and a half ago, the cherokee county sheriff's department released a picture on their twitter page, a black vehicle. we're not sure how that may be connected to this shooting. obviously, they are taking interest to tweet out and also to add the guidelines from there. we don't know if they have a suspect picture. we don't know if these businesses have video cameras and they may have a direct line of sight on whoever may have done the shooting. these are things we're hoping to get an update from detectives in the near future. like i said, the police chief of atlanta did a news conference probably about a half hour ago when they gave very few details, but obviously, this is an ongoing investigation at this point. >> and i apologize for looking down to our viewers. i'm looking at information as it's coming in. according to a cnn report that police said at the time that they'd responded to the aroma therapy spa, they found one deceased victim. we know all the deceased victims were female, appear to be asian. they didn't know if they were employees or customers at the spa, and the cherokee, i guess that's it for now. ryan, stay with us if you can. if you have to gather more information, we understand. if you can, stay with us. i want to bring in former fbi director andrew mccabe. andrew, what do you make of what is going on? >> yeah, this is a really tough situation. obviously in atlanta, you have three separate locations, multiple homicides at each obviously a terrible tragedy for those folks involved and a hugely complicated investigation to undertake by the police officials. so with all victims -- and excuse me for looking down as well -- asian females, you've got known associates, family members. there are so many potential perpetrators here and so many potential motives for this sort of violence that it's really important that both the police and of course our coverage as well keeps really open mind about this stuff right now. >> yeah, it obviously very easy to sort of speculate and i don't think we should be doing that at this stage, if ever. ryan, you said you had talked to somebody in law enforcement who had talked about burglaries or some folks were going around hitting, like robbing businesses in that area? >> as some of the spas throughout the atlanta area, from what i was told by one law enforcement official but again, when they heard the description of the people who may be involved in this, obviously all law enforcement in this area antennas went up. they understand what has been going on across this country. there are several large pockets of the asian community here in the area. there are businesses that clearly get targeted sometimes but there is also a large presence of asian americans. so this is a conversation from some of the top law enforcement officials to try to figure out how this may be connected and what the next steps may be. they're talking to some of their partners. because obviously, this happening in cherokee county, it's not the same as the atlanta police department. so we have a robust police department in atlanta, but the cherokee county sheriff's department has to work this case. i'm sure the chief will be getting involved, as well. that's the entities here in georgia splitting up how they can go after whoever did this. >> director mccabe, if the cherokee county officials have tweeted out an image of a vehicle of interest, is that something that they would have done based on solely based on eyewitness accounts or closed circuit television accounts i guess? >> you know, it could be any of those things, anderson. it's entirely possible that you have video surveillance either at the crime locations or at the neighboring businesses across the street, that sort of thing that could give you a great vision into a vehicle that may have entered or left the scene at the right time. at the same time, i'm sure those police officers are canvassing those businesses to see if across the street, what have you, to see if anybody saw anything suspicious, you know, vehicles moving at a high rate of speed, people looking like they're fleeing the scene. there is all different kinds of channels to get that vehicle description. we don't know how they are characterizing the vehicle but it obviously something they will be looking closely for. >> and director mccabe, when you have incidents like this in different jurisdictions, i mean one is in cherokee county, the others are in atlanta, on piedmont, just very close to each other, how much more difficult does that make kind of the early part of this investigation? >> you know, it requires a really high degree of coordination between these different agencies. it's likely that their relationships and ability to coordinate are well developed and strong because they are so close to each other. i'm sure they have criminal activity that very frequently overlaps from one jurisdiction into another. but i can tell you that those sheriff's deputies in cherokee and those police officers are interacting and exchanging information realtime phone to phone to understand whether or not they can together develop some some suspects to focus in on. >> there is also the question of obviously is it the same person involved in all three incidents? obviously, the ones that are close together, that would seem more obvious. the question of course is did somebody, you know, go to acworth, georgia and have this incident at the first spa and then drive 47 minutes to the others? >> you know, i know this is an unsatisfying answer but both possibilities are completely in play right now. right? so if you think just from the perspective of is this some sort of a ethnically or motivated hate crime, this could be conducted by an individual who would access all three locations or a small group of people who are looking to victimize that community in an effort to make some sort of statement. if it's an individual offender who for