go to some day, look up bryan rein when you get there and ask him who killed him. because that's the only way we are ever going to know who killed bryan rein. this sunday, the fight over guns. >> active shooter. get away. >> that mass shooting in boulder, colorado, ten dead. >> i don't know how to go to work and see the spot where my friends died and be okay. >> once again, familiar arguments from democrats. >> this is not about getting rid of the second amendment, it's about saying we need reasonable gun safety laws. >> and republicans. >> what i'm not attracted to is something that doesn't work. >> whyoe can't congress pass ev popular new gun safety legislation? my guest this morning, republican senator pat toomey and democratic senator chris

murphy of connecticut. plus, violence against asian-americans. >> will you help us? >> asian-american members of congress meeting today with the families of the victims of the georgia spa shooting. >> weor want to make sure that this is investigated as a hate crime and not just as a bad day. >> a i'll talk to the leader of the delegation, congresswoman judy chu of california. voting access. georgia a republicans pass sweeping laws. >> it's unamerican. it's anti-democratic. we have to resist it. >> we're actually expanding the right to vote in georgia. you're not hearing that from the other side. >> could this be the fight that leads to the end of the filibuster? joining me for insight and analysis are republican strategist al cardness, vicky nguyen. "new york times" white house

correspondent peter baker and heather mckee of color of change. welcome to sunday and a special edition of "meet the press."y from nbc news in washington, the longest running show in television history, this is a special edition of "meet the press" with chuck todd. good sunday morning. the satirical website the onion follows a ritual running this headline, no way to prevent this says only nation where this regularly happens. there's truth in humor and in this case it's dark humor. consider it. march 16nsth, eight people including six women of asian descent killed near atlanta. march 18th, drive by shooting. march 18th eight people shot in.

monday, 13 killed, another five wounded in boulder, colorado, detroit and cleveland. tuesday, two killed, six wounded in alabama and atlanta. friday, six killed, 25 wounded ined chicago, memphis, philadelphia, and virginia beach. yesterday, 1 killed, 13 wounded river grove, illinois, chicago and yazoo city, mississippi. all of that compiled by the nonprofit group gun violence archive. which defines a mass shooting fourss or more people being sho not including the perpetrator. after a high profile incident u.s. politicians follow their own ritual. democrats say enough is enough time to get an assault weapons ban passed. republicans say enough about gun control this is a mental health problem and we need to protect the second amendment. what happens?

nothing has been done. when it comes to our epidemic of gun violence, our political system has no answer. >> bang, bang, bang. >> if we do nothing is a decision as well. >> to sutherland springs. >> i personally have gotten a little tired of the statements following these tragedies, we need to do something. >> to parkland. >> we want to send a message to the politicians that they cannot allow this to continue. >> to las vegas. >> we'll be talking about gun laws as time goes by. >> i think we can have some really meaningful background checks. >> to atlanta. >> a white male? what is he wearing? >> i don't know. >> we are being harassed, attacked and zblild to boulder. >> active shooter. get away.

>> there have been 2805 mass shootings since the gun violence archive data began collecting data in 2014. when it comes to gun laws it has been a never ending cycle of wash, rinse and repeat. >> unfortunately in washington emotion leads to bad policies. >> we need to focus on the facts. >> this is not the time too ju to someto conclusion not knowin the full facts. >> inth 2004 the 1994 assault weapons ban was allowed to expire. and after 20 first graders were dead president obama was unable to win tighter legislation. >> all in all this was a pretty shameful day for washington. >> that's despite growing support. in a pole conducted in 2019 after mags shootings in dayton,

76% supported red flag laws. 75% supported a voluntary gun buyback program. 62% supported banning assault weapons. thesa house passed two laws extending background checks and lengthening the time the fbi has to complete a background check to a minimum of 10 days. >> the united states senate should immediately pass the two house passed bills that close loopholes in the background system. >> s 61% of americans say they want the senate to pass the house bill. republicans are evenly split. >> the legislative solutions have been perplexing and as i said, i share joe manchin's opposition to the version that passed in the t house. >> chuckss schumer promised thi week to bring that bill to the floor. >> this is a different senate. we are going to debate and

everyone's going to have to vote. >> joining me now is senator chris murphy of connecticut who has been designated as the point person on the issue of guns. welcome back to "meet the press." >> good morning. >> so you've reportedly said you are working on the boldest legislation possible. you know the word i want to focus in on is possible. what do you believe is possible? >> i'm not interested in getting 50 votes, i'm interested in getting 60 votes. that is what's required. i've been instructed by senator schumer to work over the next several weeks with democrats and willing republicans to try to get a bill that expands background checks that can pass that, can get votes from both sides. don't count us out. i think the politics have shifted dramatically since 2013, even since 2016, the last time that we01 had a vote on backgrod checks. remember, 2019 after el paso and

dayton, we came very close to passing a background checks expansion bill that president trump actually drafted and put before the congress. it was the crane scandal that got out of the way. the nra, the authority is fading, antigun violence is increasing. i think wece have a chance. >> i hear your optimism there, but youpt understand why there' so much skepticism. i mean, you need 10 republican votes. there havepu been two votes on manchin/toomey. combined, i'm counting pat toomey'sat vote twice, combined you've gotten eight votes on that. is that still the best vehicle essentially? some form of manchin/toomey that can get through in your mind that is possible to find the ten republicans? >> the manchin toomey proposal is writ zblen 2013. if you remember, it was written

and negotiated with the nra. i don't know that we need to bring manchin toomey back before the senate. listen, let's be honest. you are going to have to make some adjustments and reasonable accommodations if you want ten republican votes. i am already talking to republicans who are not willing to sit down at the table. it's harder to win seats today if you are an a rated nra member of congress. they lost a lot of those seats in a 2018 and there's a reason mitch mcconnell didn't put anythingdi like that up for a ve in 2016. he didn't want to have to force his members to choose between the gun lobby and 90% of their constituents. >> i want to talk about the compromises. i was intrigued by a quote we included in my opening piece from mitch mcconnell where he said i share joe manchin's opposition to the house bill. we know joe manchin and john tester, two senators from rural

states. the house version, there's some parts of private sales that they seem to be concerned with. is the houseem version of this bill tooon broad to get 60 vote in your opinion? >> i think it's unlikely that hr 8 as it's written today can get 60 votes, but i don't think it hasin to change very much in orr to get the sufficient number of votes. you are right that there is a small numbert of democrats and bunch of republicans who may want to see the list of exempted sales expanded to more family members. i think it is important to listen to exactly what mitch mcconnell exsaid. he said like joe manchin he opposes the version that passed. not that he opposes expanded background checks. mitch mcconnell is always very careful how he says. eight years ago he would have said he absolutely opposed expanding background checks. today he is much more careful

about his words because he knows there might be ten members or more who want to support a modified version of the house bill that still is a massive expansion of the number of sales or still a big expansion of the number of sales. >> we've spent almost our entire time about what someone described as a modest change in the background checks system. we haven't talked about new regulations about the guns themselves, the debate, the fact that the gun that was used in boulder is somehow called a missile. is actually regulating the gun itself ang political impossibily right now? >> i think right now our best chance to get something passed is universal background checks and i think that the theory of the case is that once we show republicans that the sky doesn't fall for you politically when you support a reasonable expansion of something like

background checks, you can move on to other interventions but, yeah, we should be having a broader conversation right now because in connecticut it's not just universal background checks that protects our citizens. weou require you to get a permi before you buy a pistol something that had it been in effect in these states might have prevented one of the shooters to get a gun. we include all a sults not just felony assaults that likely would have stopped the shooter in connecticut from getting a weapon. there's not just background checks. >> one of the bigger impediments you might have is the courts. i heargh this all the time. oh, from various members of the senate. i'd like to introduce x but the courts wille strike this down. thereri has been a sort of some might call it a radical sort of altering interpretation in the second amendment over the last

30nt years. how much does it make it that much harder to pass any gun legislation if the second amendment is considered a civil right? >> well, i think it's a worry. one of the reasons many of us were strong bring in opposition to nominees like brett kavanaugh and amy coney barrett is they hold a thought on the second amendment. i think assault weapons areug i jeopardy with this supreme court. i don't think expanded background checks are a problem. scalia's opinion, i don't think that's in jeopardy of being over turned by the court. >> is this the issue that could break the filibuster? >> i think that republicans have

to argue as a means of defending the current rules that the senate can still vote, a 60 vote requirement. i think republicans may be looking fork issues to prove tt democrats don't need to obliterate their filibuster. this has 90% support. doesn't require them to shift their current position to a herculean level. they can pass -- they can help us pass an expansion of background checks and prove to democrats and the country that thed senate can work at a 60 ve threshold. >> senator chris murphy, point man for senate democrats on the gun issue. senator murphy, thanks for coming onks and sharing your perspective. >> thanks. so we're going to talk to senators patta toomey and joe manchin. they talked about a bill that was defeated twice. it is anat indication of just h difficult it is to pass gun

safety bills that the public supports. senator toomey joins me now. welcome back to "meet the press." >> good morning, chuck. >> my title is moderator and i'd like to be mediator. i heard senator murphy seem to indicate movement here. youca yourself have expressed se optimism that you think there are nineti other republican colleagues of yours. i'm curious. senator murphy's last comment there which i'm sure you heard that this could be a way to sort of stop this filibuster talk and prove that, hey, you know what? it isn't the impediment that people think it is. is that helpful in your efforts to find nine republicans? >> chuck, i've got a lot of respect for senator murphy. some are making a shameful attempt to really ruin what

remains of the functioning of the senate and will do long-term damage to the country.ma two years ago the democrats pretty much universally supported keeping the filibuster. barack obama was in favor of the filibuster. now when the different party's infe control, suddenly it's bece a racist tool? how ridiculous. the fact is the bill that passed the house, that doesn't even have 50 votes in the senate. joe manchin is on record opposing that. you could get rid of the filibuster tomorrow and still not pass that bill. what we need to do is try to find a place where we can land, a place where there's common ground. i have long believed as i've told youed many times the place where we ought to get that done is requiring background checks on commercial sales. that's where i know senator manchin is. there are republican senators who are interested not because it is some banked shot to

protect the filibuster but because there is substantive support. >> is your issue with the house bill, do you share their same concerns on y this issue of private sales or do you think there is a way to include some form of a background check in that, too? >> there are different mechanisms that make this possible that weren't possible before. you're not goingib to get to 60 votes with legislation that requires when a father wants to sell hisa gun to his son to ha to get a background check. soch i still the think the best way toll do this is focus on commercial sales. between the sales that already occur at licensed firearm dealers, all of which require a background check, and what we consider commercial sales, advertised sales, gun shows and on the internet, that covers a vast, vast majority of all

transactions. it would be progress if we have a background check for that. >> do you believehe we have too many guns in america? if you do, what is a solution to that problem? >> now i don't think the answer is too many guns, chuck. if i have four or five guns, i buy two more, did america become a more dangerous place? i don't think so. i'm not a dangerous person. my focus has always been make its more difficult for people o we agree shouldn't have more firearms, that is violent criminals, the dangerously mentally ill. that's what we should focus on and trying to understand what drives the madness that we've seen again recently and all so often that leads to the horrific mass killings. you know, whether a law abiding citizen owns three guns or four, that has absolutely no impact on anybody's safety. >> so it really is in your mind a background check.

can this be done quickly or should the fbi be given eight to ten days if snes we know sometimes the need for speed has actually become a problem in these. >> that's extremely rare, but it does happen. look, i think we need to have a mechanism that allows this to happen veryth quickly. it is possible, there are some circumstances where ae person y decide they need a firearm and they need it in a hurry. they may have a completely legitimate need for that.d i would like us to see us improve the mechanism. >> too many guns, i understand what you're saying as an individual, when you look at our numbers compared to the rest of the world, why do you think we lead by a factor of 10 and then some when it comes to just the number of weapons circ can you lating in this country? >> there's a whole variety of reasons, chuck.ie

i don't think that's what causes thek violence. there are communities that have horrific levelsth of violence every day. there's criminality and using weapons is part of that. look, that's -- we ought to be asking ourselves why we have high levels of crime generally. >> one last question. i want to ask you about the voting rights issue but i want to playbu a statement from your colleague raphael warnock. here's what he had to say about voting. >> we wouldn't havey to have ts debate about the filibuster, at least on this issue, if the folks on the other side would do the right thing and stand for voting rights. >> ifo want to separate out hr from the john lewis voting rights n act. do you believe there is enough -- there are 10 republicans to do an updated version of the voting rights act? something thatin used to be faiy easy to get done in a bipartisan way. i know there aren issues with

1 and i'm trying to separate the two. where are you on this? >> i haven't drilled down on this distinction that you're making. the democrats have been driving this message on hr 1. we should be asking why are they so insistent not to have any mechanism to verify why the person who is seeking to vote is who they inare. why are they going ballot harvesting, go through a nursing home and get a couple of hundred ballots that happen to be whatever they are. there is awh completely false narrative about so-called voter suppression. you look at the georgia law. there's no voter suppression. sunday voting is still allowed. there's an expansion of in-person voting. no requirement that you have a reason for a mail-in ballot. all you need is some form of i.d. this has been a false narrative

entirely, chuck, and i'm afraid it's all about trying to get rid of the filibuster. we're not being called racist over ain policy that has to do with race. >> i t understand your point of view there. do you think it's a good look for the party that after a presidential loss, after the former candidate basically creates a false narrative and lies about why it happened that these laws are getting changed under a false pretense. that's not a good look for the republican party, is it not? >> well, chuck, look, i was very critical of president trump way after the election as i think you know, but we should be honestw, about this. we made very dramatic sweeping changes to accommodate the circumstances of a global pandemic that had huge implications. some of those sweeping changes include provisions that are really actually tough to verify the accuracy of the vote. we have an awful lot of americans who are worried about the integrity of our system.

common sense measures like requiring an absentee ballot. >> always appreciate you coming on and sharing your perspective. thank you, sir. having me, chuck. when weha come back, remembering the victims of the spa attacks in georgia. we'll talk to congresswoman judy chu. ama special edition in the batt over guns continues. e over guns continues. olence as our discussion over the battle of guns continues.

welcome back to our special edition of "meet the press" focusing on gun violence. later this morning the asian-american caucus will visit the three spots where asians were killed. the march 16th attack was the most deadly. we're joined from atlanta before she spends the day there. congresswoman, thank you for

coming on. >> thank you for having me. >> let me start with the issue of dealing with both the access to guns and this issue of rising xenophobia in america. and i want to focus specifically on the issue of hate crimes because georgia has a hate crimes law but whose job is it to decide what is a hate crime? and i think that seems to be an issue that we're dealing with in georgia. what say you on this issue? >> well, this is exactly the reason why we have our congressional delegation coming down to georgia. we are going to be tracing the steps of this shooter. we are first going to the county where the shooter targeted this spa called young's asian spa. in fact, we're only steps away he purchased his .9 millimeter handgun with no waiting period. then we are going to drive the

27 miles to the two other asian spas which are side by side where he was able to shoot more people. it becomes clear to us all three spas were asian spas where there was a certainty if he shot into them he was going to kill asian women. to us, it is clear evidence that this is a hate crime but what we are concerned about is whether local law enforcement will, indeed, prosecute this as a hate crime. that's why we are calling upon the department of justice to ensure that there are the resources necessary to provide the evidence to declare it a hate crime and that includes interviewing witnesses in their own languages, looking at the media to see whether they are reading the media and whether they are looking at the

shooter's social media and history. >> you say you want to bring the justice department here. should you have to? i go back to georgia passing this hate crimes law, should this be what their agency should do? should it not have to fall on the department of justice? >> it should not have to fall on the department of justice, but let me tell you that our whole hate crimes system in the united states is quite flawed. out of the 15,000 local law enforcement agencies in the united states, only 15% even report hate crimes to the fbi so there's wide variation in terms of whether local law enforcement even pays attention to hate crimes or whether they think it's worth the trouble to declare something a hate crime because they think it may be more difficult to prosecute. in fact, we are very concerned

about cherokee county statements that this was a bad day and this person had a sex addiction and therefore casting doubt whether this was a hate crime. sandy's statements mid investigation casting further doubt whether this was a hate crime. >> poisoning the jury pool potentially when you're saying these things. i'm curious if the issue of this lack of reporting also conforms to these polling numbers i want to share with you. this comes on the issue of asian-american hate. 10% experienced hate crimes, 30% would be very comfortable reporting and 31% worry about being victims.

that was the biggest take away. a lot of nervousness about reporting a hate crime. how do you change that? >> we need to send the message out to all our asian-american community that it's important for them to report these hate crimes, that it is safe, that it is confidential and that in fact they can get resources from the stop aapi hate website which is taking it under its wing. in fact, there are 3800 hate crime incidents that have been reported since coronavirus started. that is just the tip of the iceberg but we know there is underreporting going on because of the fear that our asian-american community has. nonetheless, i want to send the message out there, they need to report it and they will feel less isolated if they do so. >> one last thing i want to ask

you about, we talked about this before, that is the issue of as we have an adversary with china and our political leaders speak, we know all of the damage former president trump did but how poll tesch shans talk about the chinese communist party. we have to be able to make a very clear distinction that our adversary and competitor is the chinese communist party, not the chinese people. they're going to alienate vietnamese and other important asian allies of us if this goes on. what do you say to your colleagues? >> well, there are far too many stereotypes in the united states where asian-americans have been painted for a very long time as foreigners in their own country. so just making broad attacks against china unfortunately

sweeps in many people. in fact, it sweeps in people of china, many of whom may want to have greater freedoms in china. so, yes, if you're talking about chinese, you talk about policies of the chinese communist party and distinguish it from those of people of china and certainly you must distinguish it from the people of america, asian-americans who are u.s. citizens, who are legal permanent residents and who are very, very loyal to america and many of whom have this as the only country that they know. >> judy chu, democrat from california. you're coming from atlanta. you're going to spend the day retracing the steps. thank you for coming on and sharing. >> thank you. when we come back, those new restrictive voting laws republicans passed in georgia. democrats are calling them the new jim crow.

strong push back from pat toomey. crow. strong pushback from pat toomey. the annual is next.

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so when a hand specialist told me about nonsurgical treatments, it was a total game changer. like you, my hands have a lot more to do. learn more at factsonhand.com today. welcome back. the panel is with us. republican strategist. vicky nguyen, "new york times" chief white house correspondent

peter baker and heather mckee. the sum of us, what racism costs everyone and how we can prosper together. welcome all. vicky, i want to start with you. dedicating this show to the gun issue. spent a lot of time and asian-american hate. when these gun incidents happen, we vacillate between debating the motive and that is the fact we've got to deal with both at the same time, which i think what happened in atlanta under scores. >> yeah. you heard them talking about how he obtained his gun without any sort of waiting period. that is one layer that can add to a delay. would it have prevented a shooting, they waited another ten days. also know this potential hate

crime. when will you be able to change the way americans view gun own chership and that might never happen because we are a country that loves our guns. americans make up 4.4% of the world's population that own 44% of the world's guns. that's according to a "new york times" survey. unless or until there is any sort of amendment, these little legislation changes that take, first of all, forever to pass, feel like pennies being dropped in the ocean just delaying, delaying, delaying. how many years has it been since sandy hook? how many shootings have we had just since atlanta that most of us have no idea about? the most gun violence that affects americans are suicides. a lot of veterans taking their own lives. access to guns is inseparable from these shootings but what is our tolerance level as americans. >> you write this in your book.

america's unhealthy obsession with guns has been intertwined with our history of racial violence. they have aggressively marketed to white fear of terrorists, criminal immigrants and inner city thugs. it has led to the expansion of these stand your ground laws arguably. i think that was another reference you were making there. as vicky was talking it brought to mind what you wrote here. it is intertwined. how do you disaggregate it? >> it is intertwined because they said the most persistent and legal threat is far right domestic terrorism. it's not just those extreme cases. as you show so well, chuck, the majority of america want stricter gun laws including many republican voters. because of the often sort of dog whistle racist campaign tactics

of the now bankrupt and on the run nra and politicians they pay for, you have this winding up and weaponizing of white fear which keeps the majority of white voters that does the bidding of the gun lobby. effective gun safety measures keep us safe and it's been 25 years since the federal government passed federal gun safety laws. >> look, there is some evidence that the politics, al, of this is changing. i want to run a quick mash. democrats won swing districts in 2018 and some in 2020 on the issue of guns. take a look. >> i never expected to be in congress but then my son was murdered. my tragedy turned to purpose. >> gabby trusts ann to stand up to the nra. >> these are the weapons i needed when i was fighting in

iraq and afghanistan, and now they're tearing our communities apart. >> i know that among the few republicans that are supportive of these gun regulations are in south florida. >> yeah, well, listen, i think politics is the art of the possible. we listened to senators murphy and toomey just earlier in your show. i think the art of possible is heading us towards universal registration and also i think if you want to own an ar-15, which is the weapon used in most of our recent mass murders, i think you ought to do like in a driver's license. if you want a license to drive an 18-wheeler, you've got to go through a process. if you want a license to own an assault weapon, you've got to go through a process. i think there are very few republicans who can argue that. let's let that law pass first. show some bipartisanship and

move onto the next restriction. i don't think we can do a full wholesale gun reform. those are two reasonable steps. >> peter, i heard what i think al heard, too, between murphy and toomey is there is common -- there's a way to do this it sounds like. the question is is there the will to take an incremental step? it is to many advocates for gun safety incremental. >> yeah, i think you're right, chuck. we're arguing about background checks. the truth is that's a fairly modest proposal compared to a lot of things gun control advocates would like to see. the idea of an assault weapon ban in congress is pretty much off the table. even president biden acknowledged that this past week during his press conference. you're right, you would think there was a way two parties could come together. the nra's power is in decline. they're busy working on bankruptcy but we've seen this before as you showed in your

opening. the slaughter of 20 children at a school in connecticut, slaughter of high school children in florida didn't prompt significant change, it's hard to see whether that happens now. >> peter, i want to follow with you. joe biden seems to be focused on rolling out the infrastructure plan. does it need the president's shoulder to get even modified version of this background check bill be voted on? does he need to make it more front and center? >> i think he does, obviously. what he said when he was asked about it, as al said, the art of the possible, he suggested timing is important. the implication was he meant it wasn't time to devote a lot of resources. he went to talk to infrastructure because that is front and center on his agenda. >> let me pause the conversation there. it's been a busy week. we have a lot of busy issues to get to. i'm hoping to get more issues in the next round including voting rights and immigration.

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welcome back. now to the issue of voting rights. heather mcghee you saw at the end of my interview with senator toomey, he made an empassioned defense of voter i.d.s in particular here. and i'm curious, can you separate the ideas that maybe he's putting up with what appears to be the motive behind all of these changes at the state level? is it even possible to separate the two? >> well, this is what happens when people who can't win a fair election try to rig the rules to make it harder for eligible

citizens to vote. this is what you see happening. and it is a race igs logic. it is an old tradition in this country of targeting policies that we know disproportionately impact black and brown voters. we know that black and brown voters, for example, are less likely to have a government issued photo identification and yet this is the way that systemic racism so often works today. often true that when you look at white americans who are young, white americans who are low income, one out of five of them don't have a photo i.d. issued by the government and yet are they any less eligible citizens with the right to vote? the idea of voter fraud is something that happens .000003% of our elections. and yet it is a big lie. instead we have the for the people act that actually could address this creep in corruption in our democracy, whether it's the big flood of secret money,

partisan gerrymandering or rigging the rules so eligible citizens can't vote. the only way they can justify a bipartisan issue, the only way they can justify opposing it and these 250 unpopular laws at the state level is with this big lie. >> vicky, one of your day jobs for us is as a consumer reporter, and i look at these voting laws that we've seen, some of them restricted, it's sort of -- we had been sort of moving in the level of being more pro consumer, a little more convenience for the consumer, in this case for voter. this is now anti-consumer or anti-voter. make it harder. it's sort of antithetical to every other process in america. >> the push to online or mail voting was huge during the pandemic. maybe a silver lining.

the turn out, the access to people. it raised a lot of questions about fraud. voting is confusing. that's why nbc launched this. i lived in so many states over the past years as a journalist and there's no centralized way of registering for your ballot. it's confusing at best for someone who's tuned in and paying attention. we also know that the data shows people of color are disproportionately affected by restrict stiff or changes to voter access, right? the barriers are already very high. so you look at the sen 2er black voters wait 45 minutes longer, latino voters 46 minutes longer than white people. what's so difficult because you show an i.d. for so many people. listen to heather's point, the amount of voter fraud to justify

an i.d., it's hard to get, requires people to produce a birth certificate there are all of these hoops to jump through. as heather pointed out, so many people support access. making it easier for the voter and consumer. the optics on this are not good. georgia voted 89 pages of voter reform after losing two positions? they did add a couple of days of weekend voting which is good. >> right. al cardin, our home state of florida, the governor bragged about the voting system and yet they're changing it. why? >> at least some 20 some voter reform laws being proposed in all of these states are all about providing cotton candy to the far right base that believe that donald trump big lie about the elections being fraudulent. that's all that is. in reality, and i agree with heather and i agree with vicky. look, most of the voter suppression takes place under the radar. for example, in georgia,

minority voters had to wait eight more times than white voters in their particular voting precincts because there are less voting machines, less employees, less people to help out in the process. most of the voter suppression that takes place is run under the radar of laws and so forth. yes, i agree that we need to have a revamped voting rights act. if it was timely in the '60s, it's even more timely now. you need to look more at voter suppression at the local level. >> peter baker, in our remaining moment here, you've been in that white house press conference gazillions of times. there's a lot of commentary about the lack of covid question. we're on an uptick, plus 40 there. was that a larger reminder that actually covid is being managed pretty well by joe biden and the public is fairly satisfied? >> yeah. there probably could have been,

covid questions still a huge issue even though things are looking better. you're right. covid, of course, has come to consume that white house for a year now. it's been the dominant issue with only a few exceptions for only 12 months. it's a sign we're looking at things. there are big challenges whether it be north korea, immigration, russia and china. there are so many issues out there that didn't get looked at over the last year because we had such an extraordinary crisis going on. now it feels like it's on a path for a better place. you're right we probably should be asking about it. >> this is one way as a return to normalcy. oh, my god, we've got a lot of problems to face up to. we did our best to focus on one or two of them. that's all we have today. for those celebrating, happy passover. we'll be back next week.

if it's sunday, it's "meet the press." the u.s. sets a new record for covid vaccinations. but dr. fauci warns about the risk of another surge. plus duelling delegations visit the border to blame one another for the migrant crisis. the question is why is former president donald trump talking about a visit. and the giant cargo ship now partially freed. the question is when will traffic