investigators say robert aaron long gunned down people in a spa in cherokee county. investigators say long travelled less than an hour south to atlanta and shot and killed two more people at massage businesses across the street from each other. today the sheriff's department said long is talking to investigators and telling them a sexual addiction drove him to violence. >> it's still early but the indicators right now are it may not be, it may be targets of opportunity. again, we're -- we believe that he frequented these places in the past and may have been lashing out, and part of that in your media packet as well. >> but it's a sexual addiction rather than a racial profiling? >> during our interviews we asked that specific question and that did not appear to be the motive. >> cnn's natasha chen is in atlanta. officials say the gunman was headed to florida when arrested and his family was critical in the arrest. >> reporter: yeah, the family of the suspect was critical in helping track him down. when they put out surveillance images of the suspect the family called in and that's how police were able to track him using his cell phone, and it involved a pit maneuver as he was traveling south on the highway towards florida to commit similar acts. here's what he said about why he may have been headed to florida. >> he made a comment to that affect, he was headed to florida and was going to do similar acts in that state. >> and the issue is he wanted to destroy what had been -- >> it sounds to me like these locations, he sees them as an outlet for some of the things he should not be doing and he has an issue with porn and he was attempting to take out that temptation. >> reporter: they talked about how during the interview the suspect discussed his sexual addiction and that could have been a motivator more than a racial motivator, but it doesn't change the fact that the majority of the victims killed here were asian women, and that has hit the asian community hard especially given the recent spikes in anti-asian assaults across the country. we just spoke to a georgia state representative that said the white house office of public engagement reached out to him this morning to offer their help and support in any way possible. i know we are expecting to hear from president biden soon on these killings. >> this sort of theory they may be leaning into that this might not be racially motivated, does that appear to be based on entirely what the suspect is telling them? have they been able to look at his social media or comments he has made about people who are asian? >> that's all part of the investigation they will be looking into. right now as far as what they told us during the press conference, they said everything is very preliminary. everything we discussed so far is based on that interview that he gave to multiple law enforcement agencies along with the fbi last night after he was brought into custody. >> natasha chen, live for us in georgia. thank you. as investigators investigate whether the attack was racially motivated, kamala harris made a statement for the victims. >> our prayers are extended to the families for those who have been killed and we are not clear about the motive. i do want to say to our asian-american community that we stand with you and understand how this has frightened and shocked and outraged america. >> cnn's jean casarez is in new york. >> reporter: their critical response demand has been deployed to the asian communities in new york city. this morning the mayor of new york city, bill de blasio said the city will use the strength of the nypd to protect our asian-american communities, and statistics show last year in 2020 there were 29 racially motivated crimes against people of asian descent, and this year in one month alone in february there were six. i participated in a rally for cnn "stop asian hate," and i spoke with many asuians, and thy said they are watching and they are telling their parents and their elderly grandparents that they don't want them walk out on the streets of new york. >> jean, thank you. i want to talk now with attorney christopher chan in atlanta, and christopher, you heard what investigators in cherokee county are specifically saying at this point, they say it does not appear that anti-asian hate was behind the attacks and the suspect is blaming a sexual addiction and it seems like a lot of this is based on his self report. do you have any skepticism about that? >> my first reaction would be that violence against any person, including asian-americans is wrong. crimes like this just serve to amplify asian-american concerns about hate crimes against their communities and whether this is -- this particular incident or incidents is determined to be a hate crime remains to be seen, but still it's of high concern because it's such a high profile event that has occurred against our community. >> they are saying essentially that this is what the suspect has said, he was not motivated by anti-asian feeling, he was motivated by -- they're saying a sexual addiction. do you think this needs to be more closely investigated looking through social media, looking to see if he has any pattern of hate speech? >> sure, i think this needs to be fully investigated. the victim -- the suspect's statements stand on their own and certainly any other circumstantial evidence as to his motives and past statements against asians or any other race should be taken into consideration. >> one of the reasons so many observers look at this and say six of the victims were asian women, and two were white, but this is coming at a time when there has been an explosion of anti-asian rhetoric of hate crimes. they have reported being the target in over 500 incidents of harassment, violence or discrimination. what are you hearing from your community? what are people experiencing? >> yeah, the asian-american community here is in shock. we're outraged. we want attention drawn to this rising epidemic of hate crime, of crimes being committed against asian-americans. we want a stronger police presence if not attention to those crimes that are being purpos perpetrated against our community, and we welcome our black and latin x community leaders to stand with us in this call for increased attention to these crimes being committed against the asian-american community. >> what needs to be done? what support does the asian-american community need to feel safe and to stay safe? >> right, i think for starters the resent covid-19 hate crimes act that was introduced by a representative and a senator, if we could get that passed it would strengthen the reporting around alleged hate crimes against heasian-americans and i would set in place department of justice procedures as well as coordination among state and local law enforcement as to the language being used to describe covid-19, particularly getting rid of and correcting descriptions as to how covid-19 is being described in the news and media. >> yeah. we have noticed a pattern of that certainly since it originated. thank you for being with us. >> thank you. president biden is making news on a number of different topics, including why he may act on a filibuster despite mitch mcconnell's scorched earth threat. plus, what biden is warning migrants coming to the border as the surge escalates there. more than a dozen states see an upswing in covid-19 cases. this is cnn special live coverage. 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dupixent. if your financial situation has changed, we may be able to help. we look up to our heroes. idolizing them. mimicking their every move. and if she counts on the advanced hydration of pedialyte when it matters most... so do we. hydrate like our heroes. ♪ 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 making many headlines in an interview with abc news today. let's go through each of them before we discuss. starting with his take on the filibuster. up until now he's been opposed to getting rid of it to maintain the rules of the senate, but he now says maybe they should only preserve the talking version of the filibuster. >> i don't think you have to eliminate the filibuster, you have to do what it used to be when i got in the senate back in the old days, when you used to be around there. that is that a filibuster, you had to stand up and command the floor and keep talking, and you could not call -- nobody could say, you know, a quorum call. once you stopped talking, somebody could move in and say i move for the question of. >> you are for bringing back the talking filibuster? >> i am. that's what it was supposed to be. biden dismissed suggestions also that he is encouraging migrants to comie to the u.s. >> while we are in the process of getting set up, don't leave your town, city or community. >> and he's weighing in on calls for andrew cuomo to resign and his handling of covid nursing home deaths. >> if the investigation confirms the claims of the women, should he resign? >> yes. i think he probably would end up being prosecuted, too. a woman should be presumed to telling the truth and should not be scapegoated and become victimized by her coming forward, number one. there should be an investigation to determine if what she says is true. >> on foreign policy president biden had tough words for his county part in russia. >> you know vladimir putin. do you think he's a killer? >> i do. >> what price must he pay. >> the price he's going to pay, well, you will see shortly. >> he said there must be consequences for russian interference in u.s. elections. >> i know him relatively well, and the conversation started off and i said i know you and you know me, if i established this occurred then be prepared. >> biden does admit it would be tough of meeting president trump's timeline of getting troops out of afghanistan by the first. >> the failure to have an ordinarily transition from the trump presidency to my presidency, which usually takes place from the time you are sworn in costs time and consequences. >> he did say on some of these tough decisions his vice president kamala harris is filling much of the same role he did when he was vice president to barack obama. >> i give my opinion as the last guy and he was all by himself, he has to make that decision. >> is vice president harris the last one in the room. >> as a practical matter, yes, she is. >> he encouraged people to get the vaccines. >> i honest to god thought once we guaranteed we had enough vaccine for everybody things would start to calm down. well, they have calmed down a great deal, but i don't understand the macho thing about i am not going to get the vaccine and my freedom to not do it -- be a prayatriot and prote other people. >> a lot to discuss. explain to us why biden's talk here about the filibuster is so significant and what potentially this change could mean down the road? >> well, it's significant because it's the first time we have actually seen president biden talk about overhauling and changing and reforming the filibuster, and before we only heard from his aide saying his preference was not to change the filibuster after we heard democrats and progressive democrats saying they wanted to change the 60-vote threshold you currently have to get major legislation pass, and for most other priorities that president biden has, this is going to be a big hurdle potentially for it. you saw him saying he wants to bring back -- not necessarily change the 60-vote threshold, but if you have a filibuster, that senator has to keep talking, they have to be on the senate floor and continue talking for several hours on end and he was saying he is in favor of bringing something like that back, changing that part of the filibuster, but he did not want to change the 60-vote threshold and senator joe manchin who will be critical to how all of this plays out, he said he does not support changing that aspect of it. doesn't look like it will change. of course, how things happen in washington, things can change quickly. he was basically throwing -- >> guys, let's pause. i want to listen in to president biden. >> i was just on the telephone briefed by the attorney general of the united states, director of the fbi and the investigation is ongoing and the question of motivation is still to be determined. but whatever the motivation here, i know asian-americans are in very -- they are very concerned, because as you know i have been speaking about the b b brutality against asian-americans, and it's troubling, and i am waiting for an answer from -- as the investigation proceeds, from the fbi and from the justice department, so -- and that's -- i'll have more to say when the investigation is completed. now i want to say happy st. patrick's day, it's good to have you on television. but next year in washington, next year in washington, for years, as you know, we celebrated this st. patrick's day. i always put out a breakfast at my home and the vice president's residents with leading irish-americans, your ambassador and our ambassador as well as some of those involved with this, and it was always a good time. then we would go into this very office and you would sit at a chair over here and i sit where the my national security adviser is sitting and we would have a long discussion with the president, and then we would go up to the united states capitol where the speaker of the house, starting with tip o'neal would put on an event as well, and i always snuck over to the irish embassy as well, and i hope we can do that next year. i hope we can do that next year. thank you for the shamrock bowl. i don't know if you can see it, and it's a great tradition, and it goes all the way back to harry truman. tonight, i wish -- i hope you will be able to see this remotely, we will light up the white house in green and we -- to celebrate the deep, deep affection that we americans have, particularly irish-americans, have for the people of ireland and the people of ireland, and it includes millions of americans like my great grandfather, and my great great grandfather all of whom were irish-americans on both sides of the family. my grandfather, ambrose finnegan, who was a great american football player and a newspaper man back in the turn of the 20th century, he used to always say later when he was much older and i would walk out of his home, and he said, joe, remember, the best drop of blood in you is irish, and i remembered that, i promise you, because if i dependant, my grandmother, geraldine finnegan would take me down. we have a lot of great memories as well in our family because one of your predecessors -- i have been over to ireland many times, but the first time i went back to see my roots and meet my family is last year when i was president of the united states, and we went to mayo and balima, the city, and we went to the county where the finnegans were from, and it was a great, great opportunity for me to show my grandchildren and children and p brother and sister. i joked at the time, but i wondered why in the hell we left in the first place. it's beautiful. it's beautiful. so i think, you know, there's a lot of folks here in ireland, and they would say the american-irish think they are more irish than the irish, but we have a great affection for the country and the tradition, and the united states has a robust agenda that we have to deal with on the substantive side, and covid-19, and strengthening global security and our economic cooperation and aoeur ireland's leadership now, and our u.n. ambassador is online with us here, and i just welcome the leadership and your partnership. you know my view and the view of my predecessor, of the obama-biden administration, we strongly support them and think it's critically important to be maintained and the political economic stability of northern aoeur ireland is in the interest of all our people, and i think the idea that we talked about renewing our partnership in the cancer consortium -- >> we'll duck out of this. i want to bring back in caitlyn and gloria to continue the conversation about a critical point in the biden administration. gloria, to you, the filibuster position that biden is taking, maybe it will not have any major significant change but this is really a question about how this is going to be handled. how is biden -- what is the calculous here between liberals who really want to get rid of the filibuster and moderate dems that say wait until the shoe is on the other foot and we will want to be in the minority. >> well, biden would not have all of his democrats with him to get rid of the filibuster, and he knows that. what he's trying to do by saying let's go back to the future, is, okay, let's try it the way we used to do it, as he put it, in the good ole days, when you had to stand up there like when jimmy stuart went to washington, and be on the floor and keep talking and talking, and the problem with that is that all of the business of the senate had to stop at that point. so now if you stop a piece of legislation because it doesn't have 60 votes you can continue with the business of the senate. in this circumstance you would not be able to. so maybe what biden is trying to do is to say, okay, you want to keep the filibuster that way? let's see. let's see how it works and then in the meantime buy himself a little bit of time to figure out what to do next, and to talk to democrats about what they would like to see, because right now they are not united. >> in the senate minority leader, mitch mcconnell is talking about a scorched earth -- eu >> yeah, but he used the f filibuster on judges, and so he did