cherokee county about 30 miles north of atlanta and opened fire, killing four people and injuring another. police say he then drove south to atlanta and shot and killed three people inside the gold spa. he then crossed the street, according to police to the aroma therapy spa and killed another woman there. investigators say surveillance video shows the suspect and his car at all three crime scenes. he was arrested driving south about 150 miles from atlanta. officials say six of the eight victims appear to be asian. this comes amid an increase in attacks on the asian community since the coronavirus pandemic. the new york police department says it will deploy counterterrorism officers to asian communities in the city out of abundance of the caution. a lot going on with this concern about hate crimes, willie. >> yeah. let's go down to atlanta where we find blane alexander. good morning. are the police saying yet what the motive may be here? obviously people drawing a lot of conclusions based on who these victims are. what happened and what do police know about why it happened? >> reporter: good morning to you, willie. police are not quite yet saying what a motive is or releasing a motive. but they're saying they're not ruling anything out. so they are investigating a number of things. among the things they are looking at is the possibility of whether this was a hate crime, whether this was racially motivated. we do know that police are continuing their investigation and actually unfolded, willie, two different counties, two different jurisdictions. you have atlanta police and the cherokee county sheriff's office and all of this unfolded over the span of about an hour or so. so right now i'm standing at the gold spa. this is where one of the two shootings happened. the other of course just right across the street. but it actually all started 45 minutes north of near woodstock where the first shooting took place and then just about an hour later or so police got calls for one incident and then while they were responding to that they got additional calls for shots fired across the street. now, as far as motive, we do know in the initial calls over scanner traffic when we listened to some of the scanner traffic, officers in the area were implored to check on asian spas. that was something they said. hey, it started up in cherokee county. anybody who can check on asian spas in the area implored to do so according to atlanta police scanner traffic. of course we heard from a number of organizations and heard from the korean consulate here who said four of the women -- four women killed here in atlanta are of korean desend and heard from the group stop aapi hate which has come out and said that this is essentially something that only increases the fear, increases the anxiety that so many people in the asian american community are feeling this morning. so, of course, we're going to hear from atlanta police at about 10:30 a.m. we expect them to hold a news conference here. those are a number of questions that we're going to be asking if they're any closer to determining what the motive is here, willie. >> blayne, as you said, the first shooting took place northwest of downtown and allege shooter moved in the city and caught a couple hours south. the georgia state police spun him out on i-75. what more do we know about this shooter? have they talked to him? do we know anything about his background? >> we know he's 21 years old from georgia. 21-year-old actually from cherokee county where the first shooting originated according to officials. yeah, he was apprehended about two and a half hours south of the initial shooting location. think about the plot points, you know, the first shooting happened. officials believe he is connected to all three shootings. they're placing his car in both of the locations. and the same car that he was apprehended in later. so when you kind of think about that, that timeline, goes from cherokee county, down to this area, down to crisp county where he was apprehended about two hours south of here. so, again, not a lot of information known about him right now. he is in custody and has been apprehended. >> we're looking at the surveillance photos of him at his car at all three of the shooting locations. blayne alexander, thanks so much. joe? >> of course, willie, just last week, we talked about the rise in hate crimes, talking about the real concern especially since the start of this pandemic. i know it's early. the police are going to want to investigate the alleged murderer. they're going to want to investigate everything else. but my gosh, obviously asian americans have had a growing concern throughout this year. since the pandemic began, since many believe they were scapegoated by politicians and public figures. this obviously has to make so many americans uneasy this morning because -- >> absolutely. >> it certainly at this point looks very targeted. >> you know, we don't know the connection, obviously, but it is very, very concerning. and we'll be talking to curt next hour about those concerns. now, to the intelligence assessment on foreign interference into the 2020 election that was declassified yesterday. leading up to the election, senior trump administration officials claimed that china was looking to hurt trump's re-election chances but the newly-released assessment said china stayed out of it but russia and iran did not. according to the report, russian president vladimir putin authorized, quote, influence operations, aimed at denigrating president biden's candidacy and the democratic party. supporting former president trump, undermining public confidence in the electoral process and exacerbating sociopolitical divisions in the u.s. china, on the other hand, quote, considered but did not deploy influence efforts intended to change the outcome of the u.s. presidential election. and iran intended to undercut former president trump's re-election prospects, though without directly promoting his rivals. according to the intelligence assessment, a key figure in the russian arm of election interference was andre dercoc with ties to russian intelligence who regularly spoke with president trump's personal attorney rudy giuliani. he worked alongside konstantin kilimnik a former associate with 2016 campaign manager paul manafort and made contacts with established u.s. media figures to help produce a documentary that aired in january of 2020 on an american news network which appears to be a reference to the one america news network documentary entitled "the ewe crane hoax." let's bring in nbc news correspondent covering national security and intelligence ken delanian. ken f you can take this conversation a little further in terms of what this assessment, this declassified assessment, tells us about what we've seen happen over the past six months. >> mika, you just did a terrific job of laying out the two biggest take aways from this report. one is, of course, that china did not interfere and that's despite donald trump and many people close to him, many senior officials in the government saying that china was the biggest threat to the election. that was the thing we didn't know. remember, the director of national intelligence john radcliffe, attorney general william barr, national security adviser robert o'brien all told us and so did donald trump last fall that china was the biggest threat to the election. and this report says that china, as you said, took a look at whether they could mount an influence campaign, but decided in the end it wasn't worth it to them. the blow back wasn't worth it and concluded that whoever won the election, there was a bipartisan consensus to get tougher on china, and we're seeing that now. there's legislation pending in congress that would take a number of steps against china. the biden administration has hued a hard line towards china. and so, now, to be clear, china has a massive influence campaign trying to influence u.s. politics in beijing's direction. and that gave those officials a fig leaf, but it's very clear from this report high confidence consensus across the intelligence community with one small dissent that china did not interfere and things the officials were telling us were false, mika. the second biggest take away is that russian interference effort made pawns of people in right wing media, people close to donald trump and trump himself who were repeating russian lies about alleged corruption in ukraine by joe biden. it's very clear. and this was directed by vladimir putin, according to this high confidence intelligence assessment. and the man the parliamentarian that we mentioned we knew was meeting with rudy giuliani, feeding information to republican members of congress, this report says he was op right under the direct purview of putin himself. and so, that documentary you mentioned on one america news network was produced by a guy named michael caputo a spokesman for the department of health and human services for a time before he left amid some inflammatory comments. so people close to trump were coopted by a russian influence campaign. that is one of the two big take aways from this report. mika and joe. >> so, ken, can you give us a comparison looking into this report, any idea yet whether russia's involvement in the 2020 election was more -- a bit more involved than in 2016. what was the level involvement in those two campaigns? was it on the rise or was it less than 2016? >> joe, i think this report suggests that on the influence side it was as great or greater than 2016. but, of course, on the in terms of hacking into election infrastructure, they didn't do that this time. nobody did. that's the good news from this report. no foreign actor got into voting machines or voter registration systems or tried to manipulate the count or mess with results websites. the u.s. government did a good job of thwarting that. and you know, we didn't see a high profile leak and dump campaign by the russians the way we did in 2016. they tried, according to this report. but they didn't necessarily succeed. but their influence operation to propagate this myth about joe biden and corruption and his son in ukraine was very successful, according to this report, because it infected, you know, major media networks in the united states and major politicians and members of congress and people close to trump and the president himself. and it was their version of the big lie that was repeated over and over again. and it came right from vladimir putin. that's what's so striking about this intelligence assessments. >> you know, willie, what's also striking is the fact that senators got an intel briefing and were asked by the intel community not to swallow vladimir putin's propaganda whole, not to swallow the propaganda of an ex-kgb agent whole and yet they did it and one after another senator came out repeating the big lie. >> that's right. you look at the clip or still image of that documentary even you see devin nunes sitting in there. ken you said the right word when you said pawns. they talk about this russia finding people that they could use to, quote, launder influence narratives. so to create a story and find some people who were willing to go along with it and push it inside the united states of america. you mentioned rudy giuliani. who else are we talking about here? what were some of the other narratives? obviously the hunter biden narrative comes to mind first. >> for me, willie? >> yeah. >> absolutely. the whole idea that biden was doing business in ukraine or his son hunter biden was taking corrupt money from ukrainian politicians, that was entirely a concoction, according to this report, of these russian narratives. and a guy named konstantin kilimnik, a starring role in the mueller investigation, and was active in 2016 and is essentially has been deemed by the united states government a russian agent was involved behind the scenes according to this report in propagating these narratives. look, ron johnson and chuck grassley running that investigation in senate homeland security committee, they were -- it was based entirely, it appears on narratives propagated by russian intelligence, led by vladimir putin. sort of spread by these men and some other people unnamed. you know, look, the report doesn't name all these american officials who they say were co-opted but we know who they are. we watch this all unfold during the campaign. and the report makes it clear that it came straight from russian intelligence. >> all right. nbc's ken delanian, thank you very much for that reporting this morning. now to president biden yesterday. for the first time saying he supports reforming the senate filibuster. >> i know you've been reluctant to doing away with the filibuster. aren't you going to have to choose between doing away with the filibuster and advancing your agenda? >> yes. a filibuster you had to stand up and command the floor. and you had to keep talking alone. you couldn't call for -- no one could say quorum call. once you stopped talking you lost that and someone can say i move the question of. so you have to work for the filibuster. >> so you're for that reform? you're for bringing back the talking filibuster? >> i am. that's what it was supposed to be. >> meanwhile, senate minority leader mitch mcconnell issued a stark warning against any changes to the filibuster. >> nobody serving in this chamber can even begin, can even begin, to imagine what a completely scorched earth senate would look like. this is an institution that requires unanimous consent to turn the lights on before noon. everything that democrat senates did, the presidents bush and trump, everything the republican senate did to president obama, would be child's play compared to the disaster that democrats would create for their own priorities if, if they break the senate. >> senator mcconnell is always looking for a diversion. he knows how popular arp is and how he and his whole caucus opposed it. 55% of the republicans are for the arp now that it's passed. he's always looking for a diversion. as for the issue, we democrats, all of us, believe we need big, bold change. as i've said before, we hope our republican colleagues will work with us to produce that change. we will try to get them to work with us. but if not, we will put our heads together and figure out how to go and everything is on the table. >> let's bring in co-founder of punchbowl news, jake sherman. so jake, i'm just wondering, with mitch mcconnell, is he taking a page out of the art of war when you're weak, appear strong? he's talking about burning the entire place down to the ground if democrats do what they have the power to do? or do you really think that this is going to be some sort of legislative armageddon if democrats go ahead and make some exceptions to the filibuster? >> can i say both might be true? i think that mitch mcconnell will make life hell for democrats if they end the filibuster, well within their rights and abilities to do. i think there's no question about that. i do want to say that joe biden is slightly misremembering his history with the filibuster because when he came into the senate, the big reform frankly was that there was the talking filibuster was not in place, it was taken away so the senate could conduct its business at the same time as the filibuster. so with the talking filibuster actually less gets done depending on how it's structured. but mitch mcconnell also said frankly if the filibuster is taken out of place, if the 50 vote threshold is in place for legislation, the republicans would pass all sorts of conservative legislation when they get the majority back. so, listen, i do think these threats are quite real for mcconnell just because, as you know, joe, there's so much that operates in the senate on these consent agreements, and he could force quorum calls for pretty much everything and i have no doubt in my mind, zero doubt, that's exactly what he would do if democrats change the rules. >> so, just explain to our viewers, though, that may not be aware of it how the filibuster has been getting pushed to the side on some of the biggest items over the past decade or two. harry reed and the democrats get rid of the filibuster for federal judges for their nominations and mitch mcconnell and the republicans did away with the filibuster for supreme court judges, something that i never really thought we would see happen, but republicans did it. and so, because they wanted it. they had justices they wanted to put on the supreme court and that was the only way to do it. this does not seem as much of a lurch as mitch mcconnell is making it seem. we've been moving in this direction for over a decade, haven't we? >> we have been. there's two different kinds of filibusters. there's the filibuster on the executive calendar, which you just described, executive appointments, appointments made by the president. and then there's the filibuster on the legislative calendar, which is every bill besides nominations frankly. and right now what happens if you're not for, if you're in the minority and not for a piece of legislation, you inform your leadership and the leadership insists on the 60-vote threshold. that happens basically all the time. you need 60 votes to basically do anything. yes, the senate has been moving in this direction. mitch mcconnell made the argument yesterday at a press conference i was at that it would be a massive change because it would strip away any semblance of bipartisanship. but he does have one point. the covid relief bills that were passed last congress were done on a bipartisan basis frankically because of that 60-vote threshold. but, yes, the senate has been moving in this direction for a long time. i would say, joe, i'm skeptical -- i think chuck schumer does have something right here, which is this is slightly a diversion. we were all in the capitol caught off guard yesterday when mcconnell went to the floor to say this because there was really no impetus for this. i don't really understand why he had to do this now. he told us he just wanted to draw attention to the issue, but joe manchin and kyrsten sinema are not for what mcconnell are is talking about. they don't have votes to do this. >> they have assurances from manchin and sinema they wouldn't vote for this. we gave them a shot with this $1.9 trillion relief package that's 75% of the country liked. couldn't get a single vote out of them. why would we stop and wait for votes from them on things that are even more contentious than that. >> you hit the nail on the head, willie. the democrats only have one more reconciliation package. that is the fast track 51-vote mechanism to pass big legislation that impacts the budget. very strict rules as we have seen the last time around when the $15 minimum wage was stripped out of this legislation. but yes, if they are to proceed to an infrastructure bill, a big public works spending bill, they would have to use the reconciliation process to get it through just because they won't have the support otherwise. but after that good luck. those are the reconciliation bills they have at their disposal right now. we're in march. they have one more for the year. and then they'll have to work with the other side on spending bills, legislation to raise the debt ceiling. so you can't use it all the time, but you can use it here and they plan to use it here if they proceed as we expect they will on a public works package. >> all right, jake sherman, thank you so much. let's bring in adam sirwer. his latest piece is entitled "biden chooses prosperity over vengeance" rewrites about the different goals of the biden and trump's administration. passage of the $1.9 trillion american rescue plan act of 2021, symbolizes more than an ideological divergence on public policy and re