after six women of asian descent were among eight people killed in a rampage at three spas in the atlanta area. joining me now nbc news white house correspondent geoff bennett in atlanta, nbc news correspondent dr. john torres and heidi presblea. tell us more about the visit to the cdc and the vice president and president's visit meeting with asian-american leaders this hour. >> the visit to the cdc officials told us that was the president and vice president's opportunity to get a briefing from their medical and health teams about this ongoing fight against the pandemic. but based on what we saw from the president in his own words that was his opportunity to thank the scientists, to thank those career staffers who have been working around the clock at the cdc. he said science is back. he thanked those career staffers he said for changing the psyche of a nation. since then the president has made the short trip from the cdc over to emery university where he's meeting privately which means there'll be no cameras allowed in, with members of the asian-american community, elected leaders, community advocates. and he's going to talk really about the palpable fear and the palpable trauma in light of the series of attacks, the shootings here in atlanta earlier this week. eight people killed, among them six asian women. and the president has said in a statement earlier today, he said he condemns all forms of anti-asian hate and xenophobia in the strongest possible terms. he talked in detail about the steps his administration has taken to combat asian-american hate. and we expect him to speak more at length about that some time in the 4:00 hour, eamon, when he addresses reporters. >> we're going to be following that very closely as well. geoff, stay with us. dr. torres, let's talk a bit about what we've learned today and these new social distancing guidelines from the cdc as it pertains to schools. a pretty significant development i think a lot of people will be reading into as a possibility that schools can in fact reopen. what's your take on it? >> and eamon, they've been looking to do this and a lot of experts have said they needed to do this and essentially what they've done is cut in half the distance people need to distance inside classrooms, that kids do. and what they're saying is science is bearing that out, that reducing that distance can still keep them safe. and here's the rules they've come up with or at least the guidelines. all students can stay 3 feet apart if they're all masked inside the classroom. one difference they did make looking at community spread of the virus. for elementary schools regardless of community spread as long as schools stay open they can stay 3 feet. but for middle and high schoolers they can stay 3 feet apart unless there's high levels of virus in the community, then they need to move to 6 feet apart. and that has to do with the transmission rates among older children versus younger children. and the other thing they said is this only applies to kids. the adults still need to stay 6 feet apart from each other. anytime anyone outside the classroom 6 foot distance is important, wearing masks is important. and the other thing they talked about are what are called cohorts. and they say cohorts are a good yes, i did to reduce the risk and those are essentially the quarantine pods we talk about, so someone in that pod gets sick, that pod is the one affected and not the rest of the school. this is going to go a long way toward getting those schools that didn't have the resources to bring more students in as long as the community spread is under control. >> and that leads us perfectly to heidi who's in massachusetts where i believe this study was conducted that provided these guidelines. what can you tell us about the study conducted and how it helped in either reducing social distancing in public schools or how it perhaps impacts their approach to reopening schools across the state and the country? >> eamon, massachusetts was the natural test case because some schools were doing the 3 foot rule and some were doing the 6 foot rule. the study coming out of here they believe can be helpful for schools all across the country. it's already having an impact as well on those schools doing the 6 foot rule. i spoke earlier today with the school commissioner of massachusetts and on the other hand i also spoke with the school's union and they said, look, we've got 350 to 400 different schools here and all these issues work in tandem, right? all the protocols they agree to all work together including the masking, including the disinfecting. not all schools are going to automatically go to 3 feet. this is something that has be renegotiated. and also they looked at this study and say, you know what, yes, it does show the 3 foot and 6 foot didn't have much of a difference in the end but it doesn't say there is no difference. it's just they they couldn't find a statistical difference there. and some of the epidemological experts i've spoken with as well said they don't believe there's not any risk here. >> you know, what we really are -- what unions have been advocating for an entire year is to make sure that we win every single cdc recommendation to keep our students and families and educators as safe as possible. so we're going to have now figure out in the light of reducing the distance how to ensure we're still keeping everybody safe. >> reporter: so the biggest issue, eamon, here being that many of these teachers are just not vaccinated, and they say that as long as these other protocols are in place, great, let's go to 3 feet. but they do not believe it's unreasonable to say that these teachers should be allowed to have at least one shot in the arm before going back to classrooms particularly with these new more contagious variants spreading and with the science even though the virus may not hurt children more they can be the carriers and risk to teachers unvaccinated. >> i want to follow up on a point you raised which was about adults because people may be watching this and saying if this is okay now for kids maybe in their his they're concluding it can also be applied to adults. explain to our viewers why at this stage the data or science does not support adults being in the same vicinity of one another within 3 feet. why is this different for children than it is for adults? >> eamon, i've gotten that question multiple times today from a lot of adults saying does that mean we can do 3 foot distance, and when we start going back to our jobs can we do the 3 foot distance as well? and the answer is no. they found out childrens transmissions is different than adult transmissions so that has something to do with it. but the biggest point being made here the children and kids are in a monitored environment so they can have teachers and staff members that say you need to put your mask on. i think we'll get to that point. we're just not there yet. >> thanks to the three of you for starting us off this hour. and as president biden focuses on his efforts on fighting the coronavirus his administration is clashing with two major world powers, russia and china. at least diplomatically speaking. a face-to-face meeting between u.s. and chinese officials the first under the biden white house got off to a heated start last night. what was supposed to be a quick opening statement turned into a hurling of insults that lasted more than an hour. >> many people within the united states actually have little confidence in the democracy of the united states and the challenges facing the united states in human rights are deep-seated. they did not just emerge over the past four years such as black lives matter. >> hold on one second, please. given your extended remarks permit me please to add just a few of my own. i'm also hearing deep concern about some of the actions your government has taken. >> i do hope this conversation would be one carried out with confidence on both sides so it's not lectures or long winding statements. >> now, add to that to the war of words between president biden and russian president vladimir putin with biden comparing putin to a killer. the white house said today biden would not back off of his blunt comments. joining us now nbc news mot baudner and andrea mitchell, chief foreign affairs correspondent and host of andrea mitchell reports here on msnbc. andrea, you have covered many of these high level bilateral meetings and they usually start with structured protocol, everything is very scripted. what we saw yesterday was quite the departure. >> absolutely. you've covered these meetings all over the world and especially with the chinese who are very scripted who read their statements and go over their talking points. this was anything but that. in fact, it was supposed to be 2 minutes each side and tony blinken did his two minutes and then his counterpart goes on for 17 minutes in mandarin. the people on the american side started exchanging notes furiously and then we heard the translation. and all of this was happening over an extended period of time. and then what you just saw was tony blinken saying as the tv cameras both chinese and american were being ushered out, he said wait a minute i want to respond to that which he did, which is one reason i think why when the president was asked about it today he said he was proud of his secretary because he did, he came right back at them and then the chinese came back at them and the cameras started leaving. and blinken said let's get back down to work -- i'm paraphrasing here -- and the chinese said you see you're chasing the media. what kind of democracy is this? again, not his exact words but basically accusing the u.s. of not being democratic and being aebt media and you know about the restrictions on open media and press coverage in china. so it was pretty extraordinary and went on and on. >> i was going to say it just underscores the tensions between the two countries. >> and there's some serious issues. first of all, after four years from not hearing about human rights from the president of the united states you're hearing about human rights from the secretary and defense secretary lloyd austin when they were in japan and south korea talking about china, accusing china of coercion and aggression. and only a day earlier just before they arrived in asia the u.s. had sanctioned china over hong kong. so they did expect the american -- american officials expected this was going to be tough. and it was perhaps a lot tougher than they thought and much more in public display. what a u.s. official was saying in a briefing with us just now is a lot of this was theatrics for the home audience back home. and that's true also in the russian context for what putin and the kremlin have been saying about president bush withdrawing an ambassador -- recalling an ambassador for consultations for the first time since the 1990s over harsh language. but there's really serious issues on china with climate, not just trade issues but economic issues but cyber and sanction could be coming soon on the microsoft cyber attack on china so that will ramp up further. and we need to work with them on north korea. as many experts are saying china is no longer in the same place it was let's say ten years ago where it had a similar interest with the u.s. they now are more competitive with the u.s., and happy about having a north korea -- a well armed north korea to counter balance the u.s. in the region. >> let's talk about russia for a moment with matt there because it's day three of that feud if you will between president biden and president putin. let me play for you what he had to say. >> are you going to take vladimir putin up on his offer to talk live with you? >> i'm sure we'll talk at some point. >> are you imposing sanctions on russia? >> that'll come in time. >> so, matt, how angry is the kremlin right now over biden's remarks and how likely is it, you know, are we going to see any type of face-to-face meeting between these two leaders anytime soon? >> well, eamon, i think in short the kremlin is very upset by these statements. and i think in a way they were taken aback by them. just in the sense they didn't really seem to know how exactly to react at first. they've kind of waffled through a few different versions of it before setting on this idea, hey, things are bad, things are going to get a lot worse if we don't talk so it's time for us to sit down and have this conversation. and i think that it's important to understand that in this context it's not specifically these comments that have set everything off. it's from moskow's perspective there's been this growing sense of exasperation with the united states going back years to before donald trump, to the end of the obama administration. now, when donald trump came into office they saw someone who they thought they could have some of these discussions they wanted to have things such as arms control, nato, cyberspace. but they quickly found out, you know, this honeymoon didn't even really last a year from moskow's perspective. donald trump though he might personally be open to have this kind of relationship, this kind of engagement with the kremlin had no room to do so -- just due to domestic political constraints. lot of russia baggage, obviously. russia becoming from their perspective a third rail for a u.s. president. that is not to say when joe biden showed up they expected joe biden would become a friend but they saw an experienced politician, a senior democrat who did not have these kind of domestic constraints when it came to russia, so they thought he might have a lot more room to maneuver and hopefully engage on some of these issues that are quite serious for both sides, that russia takes very seriously. and i think part of the problem here is they got some encouragement on that viewpoint early on with the decision to extend the new star treaty. so when these comments came yesterday i think that it was interpreted on kind of the door is shutting on that moment and that now really their only play left is to make these very dramatic gestures and say, hey, now is time to have these serious talks or else things will hit rock bottom. >> andrea, final thought from you. do you recall a time when the u.s. was at such tense moments with russia or china simultaneously? to see this play out in public as it has with two major super powers that has to be distressing for some u.s. officials. >> well, i think they are trying to set down a marker. and because of especially alexei navalny and the treatment of him this is not going to be a time with russia. they're managing to separate that from this feud but i think that the u.s. is going to be taking more action clearly about the -- the intelligence report on election interference and navalny so authorize going to be more sanctions to come. and that's -- that's the realty right now. but, no, i don't remember a time when we've had both of these countries at odds with us at the same time. >> i was going to say you heard a little bit of it there from president biden suggesting more will come in time. thanks to both of you on this very important diplomatic fallout. moments from now president biden and vice president kamala harris will meet behind closed doors with asian-american community leaders in atlanta following this week's deadly spa shooting rampage. but first the new resolution to expel georgia republican congresswoman marjorie taylor greene from capitol hill for inciting political violence. you're watching msnbc. violence. you're watching msnbc. karma-karma chameleon ♪ ♪ you come and go ♪ ♪ you come and go-o-o ♪ ♪ loving would be easy if your colors were like my dreams ♪ ♪ red, gold -- ♪ [ tires screech ] [ crickets chirping ] for those who were born to ride there's progressive. with 24/7 roadside assistance. ♪ karma-karma-karma-karma-karma chameleon... ♪ t-mobile is the leader in 5g. we also believe in putting people first by treating them right. so we're upping the benefits without upping the price. introducing magenta max. now with unlimited premium data that can't slow down based on how much smartphone data you use. plus get netflix on us, and taxes and fees included! you won't find this with the other guys. in fact, you'll pay more and get less. right now, pay zero costs to switch! and bring your phone -- we'll pay it off! only at t-mobile. is now a good time for a flare-up? 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how would you rate it? >> he's done a great job. one of the things that he's doing is really acknowledging that there are directed attacks on the asian-american community. i represent one of the largest korean populations in the entire country, and i know that they're appreciative and thankful for his response. and his trip to atlanta, georgia, sends a message of solidarity and that they're going to continue working to combat the racial stereotypes and racial hate spreading across the country because of covid-19. >> is there something specific you want to see done to address these -- the surge if you will, the rise in attacks? >> part of it is you have to speak out over and over again. remember we had a president, donald trump, that he would say that this was the wuhan virus, the kung-flu. this was somebody that spread hate over and over again and pretty much blaming the pandemic on the asian community. so biden coming out and denouncing these attacks, standing in solidarity with the asian-american community, it's a big deal because it says this is not appropriate behavior for anyone and it must stop. >> let me switch gears if i can for a moment and talk about immigration. homeland security secretary alejandro mayorkas and a bipartisan group of senators are visiting texas to look at the surge of migrants coming across the southern border but there's no reporters traveling with them. are you concerned about the apparent lack of transparency from the administration about what's actually happening there? >> no. remember the previous administration lied about their policy when it came to child separation. they lied about how the money was being spent down there. they lied over and over again. i believe they're going on a fact finding mission and they're going to take that information and use it to determine policy. and that policy will be based on facts not on rhetoric, not trying to score political points. >> don't you think we're better off if we can have that transparency? i'm asking about this one specifically. if you don't have visibility on it does it then make it harder to have that openness and, you know, the facts as you mentioned? >> yeah, it's fine that i think if they wanted to invite the press, great. oftentimes i go to the border and the press doesn't come. so it really depends on the situation. sometimes it doesn't allow for it, but more attention on what's going on the border is always a good thing because we need to make sure that the policy does change for the better. >> the secretary's visit comes one day after the house passed two immigration bills that would put dreamers and many undocumented farm workers to a path to citizenship. but politico noticed this, the president never mentioned the impending votes on the bills although he tweeted about the legislation and put out statements after the bills passed. those bills received bipartisan support, but are you concerned that a lack of a push from the white house and the border coverage could doom those bills in the senate? >> i'm not. and here's why. president biden was a creature of the senate. he also respects the fact that congress is an equal cobranch of government. it is up to us to put forward legislation. it is up to us to garner support. and it's up to us to strike the deal necessary. and right now we're not at a point where the white house needs to engage in order to cut a deal, but that's why we acted. these are still big bills that we passed yesterday that are going to mean a lot if we can get them done and get them to the president's desk. >> and let's talk about the resolution you introduced today calling for georgia republican congresswoman marjory taylor green to be excelled from the house for inciting political violence. speaker pelosi was asked about it this morning. here's what she had to say. >> members are very unhappy about what happened here and they can express themselves the way they do. what mr. gomez did is his own view and that is not leadership position. >> so if other members, congressmen of the leadership are not onboard it's more than likely as you know this measure will fail to get the two-thirds vote required. why do this now? what specifically is the political violence that you believe the congresswoman incited? >> i wanted to excel her from the moment -- a few weeks after the insurrection. she's used political speech in order to incite the storming of the capitol. she used political speech to say someone should put a bullet in speaker pelosi's head. that's not behavior a member of congress should engage in. this is something i believe in wholeheartedly. i totally respect speaker pelosi. she has a different job to do than i do. and remember when it came to impeaching the president not everybody was there at the beginning. and as time unfolded more and more people came to that same realization. so this is just a matter of timing. i believe that as the months move forward there will be more support in excelling marjorie taylor greene from the house of representatives. >> thank you so much for your time this afternoon. >> thank you. and as successful vaccination efforts continue across the country the u.s. experienced a rise in cases in at least 13 states yesterday. are we on the brink of another surge? 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>> we may be. they have raised we are particularly close in the virus uptick spreading. this is not a time to be relaxing, we've heard that as well. this is very tricky period where the trends seem to be very clearly speaking towards a rise of new coronavirus infections. >> let's talk about the variants for a moment. could a fast vaccine rollout in the united states be enough to keep us ahead of the so soled variants that we're seeing, some of them which are actually domestic in the sense of what we've heard, like the new york variant and what have you? >> well, the answer is yes because even as these variants emerge the data we are seeing is while these vaccines while not perfectly effective against the variants are remarkably effective. and so they will continue to slow down the rate these variants will spread. so the more people who get vaccinated, the ability to bring these variants under control will be that much more enhanced. so that faster vaccination is a key towards really limiting the spread of these variants, again along with wearing face masks. >> what do you make of the new cdc guidelines? are you at all concerned it runs the risk of schools opening prematurely? >> well, as those practices go under way clearly we need to be monitoring to see whether or not there is any elevated risk. the data that cdc's been looking at suggests for children that 3 feet is sufficient to protect them. so right now the evidence seems to speak that way. and as we've said before we need to follow the evidence, and cdc is offering us some opportunity to reopen schools with less strict measures. >> white house coronavirus response coordinator jeff zions announced today the u.s. will loan canada and mexico doses of the coronavirus vaccine. do you think it helps confidence when over a dozen countries stop using astrazeneca for a brief period of time but just that period of pause is enough to cast doubt for people? >> well, certainly whenever there's doubt raised about a vaccine it creates a public issue. but the astrazeneca vaccine is -- has been proven to be very effective. they did pause, look at the data and concluded that there was not a correlation between the events that sparked this event. so i think first off the astrazeneca vaccine is excellent. the steps that the biden administration is taking to share excess vaccine with both mexico and canada is a very promising step and a direction of the u.s. recognizing that this is a global event. and the more we can do to make vaccines available not just to the people of the united states but other countries in the world will be a very positive way of bringing this virus under control. >> all right, dennis, always a pleasure. thank you so much for your insights. and president trump's former attorney michael cohen sat down with the manhattan district attorney's office today. what he could be telling investigators. we'll have more on that next. you're watching msnbc. we'll have more on that next you're watching msnbc. hey, me towel su towel. more gain scent plus oxi boost and febreze in every gain fling. ♪ and a little bit of chicken fried ♪ ♪ cold beer on a friday night ♪ ♪ a pair of jeans that fit just right ♪ ♪ and the radio up ♪ get 5 boneless wings for $1 with any handcrafted burger. only at applebee's. what is humana doing sending me a diy test kit? 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it's true jen. this prebiotic oat formula moisturizes to help prevent dry skin. impressive! aveeno® healthy. it's our nature.™ try the body wash, too. today the federal bureau of investigation announced that they have been inundated with phone calls and electronics tips since the january 6th capitol hill insurrection. this follows footage with hopes of soliciting more information from the public. cohen spoke to reporters after that meeting. >> it was a very thorough, it was a comprehensive meeting today with cy vance and the rest of the team. >> tom, good to have you with us. tell us about else do we know about the status of the investigation? >> right now the key for the investigators here and it's the very top of office as you heard from michael cohen, cy vance and the director who's responsible in most ways for this investigation. they need to get inside the trump tower and the trump organization. and the more people that were inside in the period they're investigating the better for them. they can know the players, ask questions about certain documents, millions of pages of documents they've seen so far as a result of their win in the supreme court in getting trump's tax documents. so that's what's going on with michael cohen. another potential player there, someone who can get them a bit of visibility into the weisselberg-trump relationship is weisselberg, one of his ex-family members is speaking out. that's jennifer weisselberg. we had the opportunity to speak with her. let's take a listen. for 14 years until 2018 jennifer weisselberg was married to a son of trump organization chief financial officer allen weisselberg. >> allen weisselberg is defined by what donald thinks about him, about saving him money regardless every day proving his worth by doing that. creatively. >> what do you think he could tell investigators? >> everything they would ask. >> do you think he could be the ultimate tour guide into the trump orbit? >> yes. >> she says she gained her own insights into the trump orbit before her marriage to barry weisselberg ended in a bitter divorce. from visiting trump's signature golf courses to her front row seat at the 2016 presidential inaugural she says the weisselberg family has been loyal to donald trump and he's been good to them. her ex-husband barry managing trump's ice rinks in new york central park and believed in 2004 trump and melania gave them a big wedding gift, their own apartment overlooking the park. you thought your apartment you're living in was a gift, this is congratulations. >> i wrote them a thank you note. >> reporter: and all along it was just a corporate trump organization apartment. >> i didn't understand these things. i was a ballet dancer. come on. >> reporter: in reality trump didn't give them the apartment. he let them live there rent free, paying omfor utilities, an arrangement that could raise legal and tax questions about how the organization aa accounted for it. it caught the attention of manhattan district attorney's cy vance's office. how many times have you specifically talked with the manhattan district attorney's office? >> multiple times. >> okay. >> and it's not over. >> she declined to detail her conversations with investigators and is speaking out as her long and bitter divorce case is still playing out in court. she's already lost custody of her kids. >> i have no reason to be here except that i am not a woman who is willing to live a life of secrecy out of fear any longer. they will outresource me in the courts forever. and i have tried to be graceful. and i have tried to handle this privately, and they are not agreeing to do so at all. what choice do i have? >> you want your kids back. >> yes. that's why i'm here. >> there are going to be people that watch this and listen to you and hear the words that you say and are going to think this is somebody who is after their ex-husband or this is somebody who has an ax to grind against the family. how do you respond to those people? >> i can't care anymore what people think. i know who i am. my kids know who i am. people that love me know who i am, and i absolutely wish that i personally didn't have the attachment to somebody that has the same ethics as the trump-weisselberg family. >> reporter: jennifer says there's good reason why prosecutors are so interested in what her former father-in-law knows. >> allen would not take an hour or day off if donald was in the office because i think he felt like he had to be there all the time but also they are a team -- his office is right next door. he discusses everything with him. >> reporter: attorneys are allen weisselberg had no comment. now vance's office is plowing through several million pages of trump's financial documents. the vast majority of those filings overseen by allen weisselberg. it could be months before prosecutors determine whether charges should be filed. eamon, jennifer, weisselberg and michael cohen have just two people we know have spoken to the office. who else has spoken with them and and have any been before the grand jury, eamon. >> good job. really appreciate it. up next will the nation's capitol become the 51st state? 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