weekend and fencing will still remain on the inner perimeter for the time being and the national guard is also expected to stay at the capitol until may. meantime, another leading democrat is joining the call for a potential change to the legislative filibuster. dianne feinstein releasing a statement saying ideally bipartisan deals can be reached on back ground checks, voting rights and the violence against women act and warning senate republicans if they abuse the filibuster she would be open to changing the rules and new today, donald trump's florida resort mar-a-lago is partially closed due to a covid outbreak. the beach club has shut down a section for a short period of time and quarantined some of its workers after staff members tested positive for coronavirus. and we will begin with new information about the victims of the deadly shooting in atlanta as family members are speaking out to remember their loved ones as more questions arise in this investigation. we are going right now to nbc's

deepa shivra in atlanta. so heartbreaking as we learn more and more about these people and what are you learning today? >> hi there, alex. we are in atlanta right near the capital building, liberty plaza where there will be a number of speakers from the asian american community, organizers and leaders here today gathering, healing and also organizing as we move forward from this tragedy that took place last week. several locations in the atlanta area targeting eight people who died, six of whom were from asian descent, and of course, like you mentioned in the beginning of the show we now have the names of all eight victims and going through, remembering who these people are, honoring their lives including park, who died in the shooting leaving behind two sons in the united states and the rest of the family still in south korea and our nbc's kathy

park had a chance to speak with one of her sons randy just in the last 24 hours. take a listen to some of his story. >> i have my own time to myself at night when i have to go try and get some sleep. that's when i break down, but any other time i need to focus on getting past this as fast as possible, so i can at least live happily as fast as possible otherwise she won't be able to rest as easily. >> reporter: alex, just a really heartbreaking story there from randy park only 22 years old now has to take care of his younger brother, as well. he started a go fund me page just in the last several days

asking for donations, financial support as he tries to figure out next steps with his younger brother. that go fund me has raised over $2 million at this point and in that page, randy himself noting that he feels like he has the support of the world with him, just really hard to imagine the path forward for a lot of these victims' families and that's part of what the rally happening behind me eventually later this afternoon in the next hour, part of that will be about connecting some of these victims' families with the organizations here on the ground that are trying to provide support as they try to forge a path forward here and all of this, alex comes also in the background as in the last 24 hours we got new surveillance video showing a little bit more of the time line of what happened with this shooting. you can see the suspect, the shooter pulling his car up to one of first spas and then going inside for approximately an hour before coming back out.

you see folks gathering outside the door. police officers arriving later at the scene. it is very chilling to watch this unfold from the security footage, but it does give us a little bit of a clear picture of what happened that day and the time line of that. alex? >> it is pretty extraordinary and listening to randy and the way he continues to respect his mother and wanting to show hyun the ability to rest by his strength, have her rest easier and that is a heartbreaker and boy, that kid has my admiration and thank you deepa for that. i will examine the ride in hate crimes against asian american and people of color. comedian margaret cho is my guest on what's fueling the hate and thou stop it coming up at 1:30 eastern on "weekends with alex witt." >> richard lui will be joining alicia menendez. it's an msnbc special report airing at 6:00 eastern tune in

for that here on msnbc. >> let's go live to monica alba. i know we've heard some of the white house reaction to the tragedy. what more do you know about that? >> well, this visit yesterday to georgia, alex, which was pre-planned became completely reimagined and re-focused in the wake of those horrific shootings and this gave the president and the vice president an opportunity to go to this grieving community and deliver a message clearly which is to speak out against the hatred and intolerance that we've seen in this uptick of cases particularly over the last year of people against the asian community. so they wanted to be clear to deliver that message and that's what the public facing point of it was, but behind the scenes they were able to meet with community leaders and lawmakers in a role that the president finds himself often in which is a consoler in chief, but also somebody here who really wanted to listen to their concerns.

so after that long meeting that went way beyond the time it was scheduled for, both the president and the vice president came out to speak and the president really delivered a call to action for all americans. take a listen to some of what he said. >> whatever the motivation, we know this, too many asian americans have been walking up and down the streets and worrying, waking up each morning in the past year feeling their safety and the safety of their loved ones are at stake. for all of the good the laws can do, we have to change our hearts. hate can have no safe harbor in america. it must stop. it is on all of us, all of us together to make it stop. >> vice president harris' words were also particularly powerful and meaningful given she is the first woman of south asian descent in the role of vice president and you also saw them try to talk about the broader implications here and tying these issues, of course, of

racial injustice to the larger coronavirus pandemic and so many other issues currently facing americans and so you had the president also urging people that they should feel good about some of the vaccination milestones that this is not the time to get complacent on these other fronts and of course, the original purpose of the trip was going to be to talk about the covid relief bill. so he did talk about that a little bit after of course, addressing the violence in atlanta. alex? >> thank you for that, monica. let's go down to details from texas where border towns are finding themselves at the center of the immigration debate. dasha burns joins us from brownsville, texas. how is this recent surge of migrants affecting people who live in those areas? >> alex, we've been spending time in brownsville and these are two towns at the heart of the migrant surge in the rio grande valley and it looks pretty similar. customs and border protection

brings busses or vans full of migrant families and mostly those with young children, drops them off at bus depots like this one here where non-profits from there will help the folks get covid tested and help them find food and shelter and between brownsville and non-profit. so far they've seen 80 people here and alex, this is nothing new to these border communities and they've seen it happen under democratic presidents and under republican presidents and they say things look pretty similar this time around as they have in the past. i spoke to the mayor of mcallen. he's been in office since 2013 and he was on the front lines of this in 2014 and 2019, and i asked him if he thinks that the biden administration ask their sentiment on and if they've had a role to play and he said yes. he saw the same thing under trump although the sentiment and the rhetoric then was different that he saw people wanting to

come here before he implemented those tougher policies that trump was talking about. the point being the mayor says that rhetoric in washington and even at the higher levels at the state government has an impact on what happens in these towns and he says right you in he's seeing a negative impact not from the people coming here, but from the politics especially the rhetoric from the gop talking and painting a picture of these towns of which are under siege which is not the case, but it's hurting his community. take a listen. >> all i hear is we're being overrun and it's unsafe, and president trump's rhetoric that it's not safe and overrun and that stuff. right now you look at it and we're under siege with illegals coming across and all that, and it hurts our ability to funk as a growing community, but i feel i need to go on and defend our city because it's just not really what we are. it's just not depicting what we are in a lot of different ways

and certainly, we're not dangerous. >> alex, he also says he's frustrated with the policy of banning non-essential travel from mexico. the day to day travel, people who cross the border for the day to shop and eat at restaurants is a huge part of the local economy and a lot of businesses are hurting because of that ban. >> dasha burn, thank you for that from brownsville for us. let's go from that to the latest in the coronavirus pandemic. a new warning today from dr. anthony fauci, another surge in cases is likely if states keep relaxing covid restrictions. >> what's happened in the past and history has shown us that when you have that plateauing, that's usually the forerunner of another surge. we've actually seen that in the european union. they went up like us, came back down, plateaued and they pulled back on their public health measures, masking and things like that, and right now they're

going through the beginning of a surge, 5% or 10% increases. i'm really concerned if we declare victory prematurely that that's the same thing that's going to happen. and to that, in france, a four-week lockdown is now back in effect for some parts of the country including paris. the order bans non-essential travel and most businesses are closed and schools, though, will remain open and back in the u.s. the cdc has changed its guidelines for social distancing in our schools allowing students to be now three feet apart instead of six giving more capacity in classrooms and masks are required and teachers must remain the full six feet of distance between themselves and students. meantime, more than a dozen states seeing an uptick in covid cases and it comes as the tsa saw a record of more than a million travelers in a single day since the pandemic began. thousands are flocking to miami beach for spring break and due to the lax covid restrictions

and they can be seen maskless and forging around and not social distancing. cory, big welcome to you, is that what you're seeing and i'm curious what they're saying about the surge in visitors. >> alex, good afternoon to you. earlier this morning we saw people wearing masks, but it was mostly because they were locals and now it's rare for me to see folks wearing masks as they walk by, i'd say a quarter people. >> miami beach no stranger to the heavy crowds and the mayor i spoke to said this is by far the worst year that he has ever seen it and he said the crowds, not only are there more of them, but they seem more pent up and more prone to violence and police are confiscating more guns on miami beach and they're regular having to bring more police, and it seems like the city is under siege because of the amount of people that has come in.

we've known one restaurant that closed down during the height of spring break because of covid, and their staff, part of the reason is this mixed messaging because of what they want to do for miami beach and what the governor wants for the state. >> i don't understand the governor's operating theory here because i agree, we have to open up in some ways and in some measure, but he seems to be intent on opening up without any of the countermeasures like masks that are recommended everywhere and he's telling people come here with the disadvantage of come here and don't worry about the virus. the virus is here and the variant is here and the governor, while i share his view that we need to get our economy back. i don't share his view that the best way to do that is to promote unhealthy practices. >> all right. alex, these childrens come as you mentioned a rise in cases of

10% in 15 states right now and as there are more questions over school re-opening after spring break. the cdc's new guideline saying that three feet of social distancing is enough in school and that presents its own questions and let alone what effect these spring break crowds in multiple states and not just the state of florida will have on covid cases in this crucial time when we're right at the tipping point if we can get this under control or not. i saw someone walking behind you in the live shot seconds ago, cory, with their mask down around their chin. that doesn't do anything, folks. i mean, i don't know what that's all about. i mean, really? come on. get with the program. cory, thank you so much. there is a new wrinkle in all of the investigations into donald trump, the daughter-in-law of the trump insider speaking with investigators multiple times, in fact, her father-in-law knew all of the financial inner workings of the trump organization and she spoke to nbc exclusively.

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weir back with an msnbc exclusive. a key figure is emerging in the manhattan d.a.'s probe as investigators look very closely at donald trump's real estate empire, his taxes and the financing. the former daughter-in-law of longtime trump organization chief financial officer allen weisselberg is speaking to msnbc exclusively. jennifer weisselberg is offering insights into donald trump's top money man, his family as well as the ongoing investigation. >> 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. >> how many times have you specifically talked with the manhattan district attorney's office? >> multiple times. >> okay. and it's not over. >> join me now. msnbc chief legal correspondent ari melber host of, of course, msnbc's "the beat." good to see you. what stands out to you in the interview, for me it's everything they would ask. the goods. everything. how about you? >> great to see you, alex. happy saturday to everyone. insight into how the d.a. is approaching this case and they could go broad or they could go narrow and they could check a box or they could be getting in the weeds and now as you

emphasize in your reporting and this in, s nbc interview, they're all in the weeds and they're talking to everybody, friend of friend, money man, his family members so what we get is a portrait of a very thorough investigation. that doesn't mean they will find enough evidence to charge, but it's certainly bad news for donald trump that they're going this thoroughly through everything, alex. >> yeah. let me ask you about jennifer weisselberg specifically because she is in the midst of an ugly divorce and she has lost custody of her kids and says that's why she's speaking out right now. does that and the tenor of all of this challenge her credibility or the value of what she says? >> well, i think that the way she would be used in an investigation like this is largely for leads or corroboration of okay, let's go back and ask the money people about this, let's go back and look at the documents. for example, if somebody files a document that says a building is worth a million dollars and then they tell their family members, yeah, we put down a million, but really it's worth 3, we're

defrauding the government. that extra statement they said to other people may be an admission of some kind of guilt, but you as an investigator saa has to find out, what is the building wo other? negative stories, gossip about each other even as you say, bad blood or whatever else is going on. i don't say it's not our business and we don't care what's going on with the business in a journalistic sense, but investigators, would need to, if they took this to court, this isn't just people saying mean thing about each other because of the tenor of their relationship and there has to be some there there, and it comes from someone said, and there being hard evidence to back up any potential testimony. >> yeah. so we know that former trump lawyer, michael cohen spoke with investigators and with the manhattan d.a.'s office and it's number eight, right? for the eighth time yesterday and here is what he told msnbc

last night. take a listen. >> after eight times you can rest assured they're not asking me to come in for a nighttime simply because they find me funny or because they don't have something to do. each and every time they're drilling down more and more and more. they are methodical in their questioning, in their documentation. i mean, was there more paper there and all tabulated and three-ring books and itemizeded for questions that they wanted deposed by me. >> you've just given me your perspective on this scope of the manhattan d.a. probe, but do you get a sense of where it stands? michael cohen, eight times into it and do you get the sense that they're far into it or a long way to go? michael cohen speaking to our own ali velshi is giving us a portrait of the process and not all of the details, but the process being reams of binders,

evidence out on the table and doublechecking things that they found and i gave the building example earlier. if cohen or weisselberg said something about a building they then go try to find out the info and then they go back to him. you have to go back and forth with most witnesses five, six, seven, eight times, no and that speaks to how thorough they're being or they're finding things they want to follow up on and we know this about donald trump's taxes, a lot of this was deliberately opaque and confusing. confusing is not a crime. confusing with the intent to deceive new york authorities, government taxes can be a crime. so you're dealing with someone who has made a career out of running circles and loopholes around different government agencies, real estate, and he bragged about it, donald trump in the debates before he was president. what they're doing is checking every t to see whether he crossed the line. >> if you're donald trump, ari, how worried are you?

>> well, let me say it like this. if you're a normal client or potential defendant you're very worried. this is a lot of heat. this is a lot of people talking. this is a thorough investigation. if you are donald trump and the person we've come to know ex-president trump you got around mueller and you got around two impeachments and you might think you can get around the d.a. >> give me a sense of whether or not you think there is a chance that after all of this investigation, no charges ultimately get brought against donald trump. what's the likelihood of that? >> i think in the new york days that is a definite possibility. i think the d.a. is not looking at for example a simple case where you found someone that say, didn't pay taxes for five years and you have an open and shut case. what you have here there will be defenses, rebuttals, debates and the governor is involved in it and this is about regular people

paid their taxes and feel understandably angry when wealthy and rich elites get around lawyers with the accountants and the rest and you need more of a debatable case that you should have paid for when the tax authorities in new york took it because they're in on it. if they're in eight interviews deep because they find intent with the defraud or -- i think this could go either way. it seems to me like a thorough investigation, hard ton where it heads from here. >> hey, thanks my friend for doing o.t. on a saturday. i appreciate it. good to see you. >> thank you for working every weekend. >> that's nice. i enjoy it. for all of you "the beat" is the show and ari melber is the host and catch both every weekend on msnbc, weeknight, of course. 12 republican lawmakers who voted on honoring capitol hill police and the reason why it all came down to one word. y aitll came down to one word. come and♪

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new today, congressman chip roy coming under fire after what he made to be a pro-lynching remark during a congressional hearing when combatting the surge of anti-asian violence. >> there's an old saying in texas find all the rope in texas and get a tall oak tree. you know, we take justice very seriously. my concern about this hearing is that it seems to want to venture into the policing of rhetoric in a free society. >> oh, boy. we're getting into this now. joining me is kurt bardella, contributor, and host of the show zalina on peacock and michael steele, former chairman of the rnc and msnbc political analyst. zerlina, i want to hear your reaction to that. >> well, there's this thing happening in the republican

party right now where i feel like they're trying to out racist one another and then they claim when people criticize those comments that they're being canceled, and decry cancel culture and then they fund raise off of it. it's this weird cycle of saying the racist thing and denying the thing you said as racist and fund-raising off of that when criticized by everyone else and everybody heard what he said. we know what he means. we know what that expression comes from and i find it ghastly that he would invoke that at a hearing when we're talking that day about anti-asian hatred and the fact that eight people were killed this week because of potentially white supremacy and white supremacist violence and so that's the issue. the issue is not an expression from texas in which you invoke lynching. >> it was shocking to me that he couldn't dig somewhere in the recesses of his mind and find a better analogy to make in that hearing, but congresswoman grace

mang had an emotional response to the congressman's comments. let's take a listen to that. >> 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 bull's-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. we will not let you take our voice away from us! >> extraordinary direct response, kurt. seeing the rise in anti-asian violence and you hear things like what congressman roy said, how is that supposed to make asian americans in his texas district feel? >> well, chip roy has sent the signal that asian americans are less valued to him than his white constituencies, that people of color in general are not of value to him as compared to his white constituencies.

let's clear a few things up. first, what he said, it's not a texas saying. it's a lyric from a freakin' toby keith song. toby keith is not from texas. he's from oklahoma. a song called "beer from my horses," setting that aside, the inappropriateness, the callousness and the ignorance of raising lynching at a hearing about hate crimes and violence against a minority community just tells you that the republican party they're not even trying to hide it anymore, alex. they're not even trying to cloak their racism and public policy like they used to do, they're just outwardly saying they're racists and white nationalists and bigots and that's the only way to characterize what we saw happen and when confronted about it after the hearing, chip roy doubled down on it and he meant what he said. >> no regrets. >> yeah. >> so, i mean, when someone presents themselves to you, it's best to believe that that's who they are. i am so tired of the idea that we need to tiptoe around or try

to politically correct nuance these racist republicans when they unveil to us who they really are. they're racists. they put a target on the backs of people who look like me and zerlina or michael or any community in the country through their rhetoric. in addition to saying he had no regrets to your point. specifically, he said, apparently some folks are freaking out that i used an old expression about finding all the rope in texas and a tall oak tree about carrying out justice against bad guys. i mean it. we need more justice and less thought policing and we should restore order by tamping out evil actors and not turn america into an authoritarian state like the chinese communists who seek to destroy us. no apologies. >> does he understand or not understand the implication of those words? >> oh, he understands. he's a grown man. he understands what comes out of his mouth. to zerlina's point, this is --

this is all part of the new rhetoric inside the party. this is a fun -- this brother's making money hand over fist right now and he's out there fund-raising and folks are cutting cash to him and it's a new grist at the expense of those that don't look like him. talking about an america that the rest of us are trying to move away from. we know our 400-year history in this country. we know what this -- what we've been through and our respective communities and so now as voices rise up to try to set the record straight and to move the country in a better direction, you have these people sort of holding on. what is frustrating to me is the continued deafening silence from members inside the party who i know don't believe that and you get the phone call. oh, i can't believe he said that. can you find a bank of

microphones and say that publicly. don't talk to folks privately. take the stand. sacrifice your seat and sacrifice your re-election for the principle that racism and hate is not a foundational idea any longer, that we are bigger and better than that, but they can't and it makes it hard to have these honest conversations when people want to have a retrofit of america to a bygone day that the rest of us know was not good. >> yeah. let me ask all three of you to react to what happened with the 12 republicans who voted against the resolution that would have worn the congressional gold medal to those officers who protected them during the riots on january 6th. i'm going to name these republican, right? they're all republicans. andy biggs, thomas massie, mas matt gates, marjorie taylor-greene, andrew clyde, john rose, reportedly, many of

them objected to the term insurrectionist in the resolution. what do you make of that, zerlina, you first. >> they don't know what the word insurrection mean, i guess? they're not aware of the definition because what we watched on january 6th was by definition an insurrection, and i think that some of those people bought into the lie that donald trump really won the election and those people were there to stop a democratic process, to overturn the democratic election. that's an insurrection. so i don't know what dictionary they're reading, but it's not the same one the rest of us are reading and if they object to the language that's fine, but i suppose it would be better to have elected officials who would object to the action of storming the capitol and killing people including police officers. >> you know, we could send about a dozen merriam-websters out to the offices and say hey, check these out, guys. do you object to them fund

raising off of that? >> yeah. of course, they are. of course, they are. because they stood on principle. yeah. what principle? the thing is what it is, and if you can't call the thing what we all know it to be, it says more about you than rest of us. and the fact of the matter is yeah, they're fund-raising off of it and just look at that list. look at who is on that list, all right? so that tells you everything -- rats in a corner, and so the idea that you saw what we saw and i guarantee you, half of those folks were curling their behinds under their desks hoping the capitol hill police would protect their dumb you know whats and they come out on the other side we just can't support this because it usees the word insurrection. like zerlina said it's not the word, it's what we saw. it's the action and what they

did. if you can't stand up against that then you don't need to be in the job. >> yeah. ? at all. >> all right, kurt, i'll give the last word on this to you. >> you know, i never want to hear the myth that the republican party is a quote, unquote, law and order party ever again. we saw and heard and watched the violent insurrection effort perpetrated by a number of white nationalists and it speaks volumes that the republican party that there are those there who are doing everything they can to defend and protect these white nationalists. they seem to go to the ron johnson school of what happened here on january 6th. ron johnson who said the other day if these were black lives matter protesters he would have been afraid, but because they weren't he wasn't. i mean, that tells you everything you need ton about where the republican party is on this and there are complicit efforts to try to whitewash the events of january 6th and we're not going to let them do that. we'll remind them every day that there is a very close choice in

america rid now. there is one political party who is for democracy and one party who is not. >> there you go and you bring up ron johnson. we certainly had our discussion about that and it took a lot of air on the broadcast. the three of you, thank you so much. i love having you on and let's do this more. and you can catch zerlina on the peacock streaming channel the choice. travel has the cdc worried and one more document you might need if you want to fly. t you m need if you want to fly. maybe it is dirtier than it looks. ♪should've been somebody else...♪ it is dirtier than it looks. try new tide hygienic clean. ♪ ♪ are you ready to join the duers? those who du more with less asthma. thanks to dupixent. the add-on treatment for specific types of moderate-to-severe asthma.

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during the covid pandemic. one million passengers flying every day for a week straight and that is raising concern about safety, even with 41 million americans fully inoculated against the vier u the cdc has been warning against air travel fearing it could contribute to a spring surge. joining us once again, sarah nelson, president of the association of flight attendants. sarah, welcome back. good to see you. good news, it seems people are less fearful of flying. bad news, there are still some serious concerns about safety. what are airline employees telling you? are they at all concerned for their safety? >> yes, alex, they are concerned for their safety because we are seeing packed airplanes now. we don't have all of the airplanes back up in the air so a lot of times these flights are full and we have not been able to have access to the vaccines

at the same rate that we would like to in a priority order because we're coming in contact with the public and traveling. we are concerned about the rise in cases where we have to enforce mask policies and people are refusing to wear the mask policies. the tsa are fining people big dollars and people are facing jail time for refusing to do this and it is hard on the front lines and this will continue as we get more vaccines out there and we are close to getting there, but we need to be responsible and listening to the cdc and being very careful during this time so that we can make sure that we can lift all restrictions and get back to normal without the virus mutating. >> i have to say i'm really encouraged every time i read a story in the news about an airline that has gone back and made some insert, colorful word here, passenger who refuses to wear a mask get off the plane. that's important to do right now. it makes everybody feel better

and here's what's not good. airlines worldwide would have to cut 1 billion of expenses just to cope with the slump in passengers and there are reports, sarah, that airlines are canceling furloughs as a result of the covid relief bill and is that having an impact and can you confirm that and is that impacting your workers? >> yes. this is our plan, and you have reported on it throughout the year. this is the payroll support program and it was the workers' first program that you got into the cares act even with trump and mcconnell in charge. very much against it, but we fought very hard with the airlines and our unions to have this support program and it requires no furloughs. all of the money has to go to paying benefits and there could be no reduction and it bans -- we continue to pay our state and local budgets and the rent and cable bills that support other

jobs and we stayed connected with our health care during the pandemic and we have that in place through september 2021, so we need to use this financial stability to make sure that we're making the best public health decisions and taking the best actions so that we can end this pandemic and get back to life as we love it. >> so with the 41 million people inoculated in the states that i mentioned and that is 12% of the population, there is a push for proof that you've gotten the shots. that brings us to the question of covid passports. how successful, sara, do you think they could be? >> well, listen, the w.h.o. actually reiterated on thursday again that they argue against making this mandatory for equity and other concerns and we had those same concerns, too. we see biometric security that has been very successful where people take that voluntary action to give their biometrics to be able to speed up their time in a security line and you can have the same program where people can have access to quicker access to travel if they

have some sort of passport, but it should not be mandatory because there are too many concerns around this. we actually are ready to meet with the biden administration and all of the stakeholders and aviation set up best practices on this issue. >> what's your best guess as to when air travel will return to normal? >> so we have to --? we stick with the president's plan and we are all very diligent about keeping those masks up and getting the vaccine in place we have the ability to return to some type of normal activity by this fall, and we need businesses to lift those restrictions on business travel that is the biggest issue right here in the states for travel around the world and i should reiterate, our network carriers and half of the business is international travel and we have to remember that we are a part of a whole world suffering under the pandemic and we have to support every effort to get the vaccine to every country, and we

are encouraging the biden administration to get that, as well. sara nelson, good to see you. >> they call it music city usa and the soundtrack will be signs of relief and we'll take you there in just a moment. coming up in the next hour. "stop the hate." the factors fueling anti-asian attacks across america and the solutions to stop them. americae solutions to stop them ♪ ♪ we made usaa insurance for veterans like martin. when a hailstorm hit, he needed his insurance to get it done right, right away. usaa. what you're made of, we're made for. usaa you're clearly someone who takes care of yourself. so why wait to screen for colon cancer? because when caught in early stages, it's more treatable. i'm cologuard. i'm noninvasive and detect altered dna in your stool to find 92% of colon cancers even in early stages. tell me more. it's for people 45 plus at average risk for colon cancer, not high risk. false positive and negative results may occur.

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and now get netflix on us with your plan. and this rate is fixed, you'll pay exactly $70 total. this month and every month. plus, switch today and get a free smartphone for each line. the best value and award-winning customer service. only at t-mobile. while lawmakers are trying to vote on passing the equal right amend am, another example of inequality has risen at the ncaa tournament in indianapolis and it centers in the vast disparity in the workout rooms for women and men. this picture posted by stanford university's ali kisher in and the fully-equipped men's weight room in the top as compared to the small rack of dumbbells for the women. one rack, that's it. big difference, right? sedona prince noticed as well

and posted a video on the internet and that has drawn massive attention. in fact, more than 15 million views and billie jean king responding with her own video admonishing the ncaa, and prince spoke on the morning show about her reaction. >> that is so special it inspires me to just keep going and not let anybody tell me to stop and -- wow! i watched her growing up as a kid and her story, that's incredible. >> and nba star steph curry did likewise. the ncaa cited the disparity citing limited space and it is working out to expand facilities for women and by the way, sedona did away with that argument because there was lots of space. meantime this week the president topped his goal of 100 million shots in his first 100 days cutting the timetable for reaching that milestone pretty much in half due to mass vaccination sites across the

country and nashville is having the one-day massive vaccination effort with treats 10,000 residents and let's go to gary in nashville. how is the process going so far? >> well, it's going well here. there are 10,000 vaccines that will be administered here. these are the tents where it's happening. folks are getting the johnson & johnson vaccine throughout date and being administered by 700 volunteers and they have now, this parking lot has been the story of the pandemic. it's seen food drives and ppe drives, it saw a testing center early on in the pandemic and then, of course, this was the command center for that nashville christmas day bombing and now it is a vaccination center. and now they are doing 10,000 vaccines today and folks that i talked to and officials tell me demand is high here in nashville. it is so high that when it happened last week it sold out

faster than the dolly parton show show in 2015 and it's not high everywhere and that's where the issue is. i spoke to the coronavirus task force and here's when he said about the coronavirus issue. >> in the rural communities what we are finding is a lot of people don't believe that this virus is still an issue or there's mistrust that this vaccine needs to happen. i can tell you that it's not for a lack of access. the state of tennessee has over half a million open appointment available right now in the state and mainly in the rural areas. so it's not for a lack of access and they've done a good job of providing those vaccines. people are just not taking advantage of it and i think a lot of that has to do with misinformation and a lack of national leadership from people that they trust that convince them to go get a vaccine. >> reporter: the jahangir is

going out to the communities and saying go to these churches and go to the community leaders and say they really do need to get vaccinated because they're safe and effective according to officials. it's nashville and it can't be nashville without fun and there's been country music playing for folks here and some titans cheer leaders and mascots. >> given how dolly parton has helped to fund the vaccine development i'm sure she's thrilled that people are signing up so quickly. gary, thank you. we are learning more about the victims of this week's horrific shootings in atlanta. their anguished families are asking plenty of questions including why. my "stop the hate" special and an examination of what's behind the surge of anti-asian attacks and why such hostilities didn't just start with the pandemic. you are watching "weekends with alex witt." ith alex witt. if you ain't first... you're last! woo-hoo!

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>> a very good day to all of you from msnbc world headquarters in new york. welcome to "weekends with alex witt." we have a day of developments in atlanta. we'll be stopping any minute in the downtown area honoring the victims of the deadly spa shootings as we are learning more about those eight individuals and what the suspect was doing in the hour before he carried out the attack. let's go to my colleague nbc's deepa shivaram in atlanta. first of all, let's talk about what's planned there today and then to what you found out. ?

hi there, alex. a crowd that's gathering behind me in the plaza right below the capital building and the asian commune and the other commune thes of color gathering in solidarity after a week of senseless violence against the asian american community in the atlanta area. i want to bring in long tran, a small business owner in atlanta, part of the organizing group rallying today. tell me what the process was like putting this together? >> it was hectic. we only had a few days to pull it together, but we managed to put this together. it's amazing and this has been a historical day. i have been getting calls that there are groups from other states coming out to support us. there is a bus of elderly chinese coming out because they want to stand up against us. we're hoping that today is the tipping point where from here on out, all of this violence and hate starts to de-escalate and we get to a place where we can start to heal. >> thank you, i