LIVE: Asian Americans Battle Hate Crimes | Top News

(Mar. 18) President Biden has called for an end to attacks on Asian-Americans - after a man was charged over the Atlanta spa shootings. Six of the eight people killed were women of Asian descent. Now police are under pressure to do more to combat a rising tide of crimes against the community.

Former President Donald Trump bears some responsibility for threats and violence against Asian Americans during the coronavirus pandemic, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said, citing his offensive descriptions of the virus and its origins.

Psaki called out what she described as Trump’s “damaging rhetoric” about the virus after a series of shootings at three massage parlors in the Atlanta area on Tuesday in which a White man allegedly killed six Asian women and two others.

“There’s no question that some of the damaging rhetoric that we saw during the prior administration, blaming -- calling Covid the Wuhan virus or other things -- led to perceptions of the Asian-American community that are inaccurate, unfair, have raised threatening -- has elevated threats against Asian-Americans,” Psaki said Wednesday at a briefing.

Trump frequently blamed the pandemic on China and occasionally described the virus in racist terms. Cases of the disease were first observed in Wuhan, China, in late 2019, and the U.S. and other countries have complained that the Beijing government has not been forthcoming about the virus’s origin.

A Trump spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

President Joe Biden said earlier Wednesday that U.S. investigators haven’t yet determined if the murders were a hate crime against Asian Americans, but he called the shootings “very, very troubling.”

The president, speaking in the Oval Office during a video meeting with Ireland’s prime minister, said he had been briefed by Attorney General Merrick Garland and Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray.

On Wednesday night, Biden posted a message on Twitter saying, “we don’t yet know the motive, but what we do know is that the Asian-American community is feeling enormous pain tonight. The recent attacks against the community are un-American. They must stop.”

Police arrested Robert Aaron Long, 21, in connection with the murders. The Journal-Constitution reported that investigators said Long didn’t cite a racial motive in interviews, and that he frequented the kinds of businesses he allegedly attacked.

Vice President Kamala Harris earlier Wednesday condemned the violence in a St. Patrick’s Day virtual meeting with Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin.

“We’re not yet clear about the motive,” Harris said. “But I do want to say to our Asian American community that we stand with you and understand how this has frightened and shocked and outraged all people.”

She added that “none of us should ever be silent on any form of hate.”

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