before the cuts set in, kansas republican tim hooul's camp declared, this will be the first significant tea party vijtry in that we got what we set out to do in changing washington. two weeks ago, south carolina congressman jeff duncan made a highly questionable comparison, between the sequester and the war in vietnam. >> in vietnam, we went and took a hill and defeated the enemy and retreated from that position and the enemy took back over. i think one thing we saw in the sequestration, we're taking and holding this ground. these spending cuts we made are locked in. >> and john bain anywhere his spike the football memo before the congressional recess, boasted that the sequester had returned honor to the grand old party. we made the center to center the spending debate on sequestration, because we forged a plan together, our actions as a team over the past couple of months have made a difference for all americans. the sequester has indeed made a difference for all americans.

in the form of harsh, indiscriminate cuts that are hurting some of the country's most vulnerable. the "huffington post" reports that 99,000 people are seeing their unemployment salaries cut by 10%. those in rhode island are seeing much the same thing. >> long-term unemployment benefits are cut for up to 8,000 rhode islanders. >> that's another $40 some odd dollars, you have your phone hanging off the hook over and over with bill collectors, but all you can pay is your rent, rob peter to pay paul, to make sure you only stay that one month behind. >> the "washington post" reports that cancer clinic are closing their doors to thousands of medicare patients, including 5,000 patients at one long island clinic alone. and funding for medical research, the things that saves lives? is also being slashed. >> just in the last two weeks, the research to help people battle substance abuse has lost

$77,000. the cuts are also affecting vtcri's research on childhood disease, brain disorders and cancer. >> the money we save now by making these very dramatic cuts is costing us more later. because people with these health problems are costing society. whether it's through health insurance, lost days of work. >> and rockland, illinois, 175 employees are being fired at a u.s. army garrison, and law enforcement officers around the country are being forced to cut back in a time of high demand. >> the police officers who protect the national mall and our nation's monuments have been told they could be furloughed during the height of tourist season. >> we run not only medivacs with our aviation unit, but we also protect the areas in and around our national icons. >> in huntsville,al. hundreds of people will be dropped from a housing voucher program. putting them at risk of becoming homeless. and thousands of children will be kicked off head start, a program which offers preschool

to low income children. >> we're looking at almost you know, three-quarters of a million dollars of budget cuts and if you start cutting spots, that's a lot of children. >> to cut this program is not going to improve our deficit. but it's going to hurt our future. >> despite the fact that republicans are flashing v is for victory signs on capitol hill, the sequester is taking its toll. slowly but surely in corners of the country that are not necessarily prime media markets and among people who have little voice in the national debate. some of our elected officials are taking a stab at empathy. yesterday the white house announced that the president has joined defense secretary chuck hagel and a handful of congress members in giving back 5% of his salary. a gesture of solidarity with furloughed government workers. joining me is kurt anderson. lee gallagher, vice president of dimos, heather mcgee and political editor at the

"huffington post," sam stein. you guys have been doing a great job chronicling the reality of the sequester cuts, what it seems to me is here we have a case of the two americas, the legislating class, and actual americans. and the fact that sort of congress seems to be in its own bubble regarding the pain of the sequester cuts, republicans especially in so far as they're declaring victory on this, when in reality there's a serious toll that the squekter is taking. >> there's a national story and a bunch of local stories. for the first couple of weeks, the national story was sort of obsessed with whether or not there was going tore tours in the building behind me. whether the easter egg roll was going to be continue as well. and why those lengthy lines at the airport that the white house warned about never materialized. in actuality, locally there's been a lot of pain and suffering that's happening and it will get worse, sequestration is $8 5 billion just this year in cuts alone. they don't have to come all at the same time or at once. so a lot of these organizations

are trying to be clever about how they're doing this. but it prolongs the cuts from happening. what you see are a lot of social programs getting hit hard. one of them that's getting hit the hardest is head start. head start gets hit the hardest because they don't operate during the summer. they have to make their cuts no. you see the low-income families having to cope with the fact that their child won't get coverage. they have to spring for baby sitting or child care services with money they don't have. or take off work so they can watch their child themselves and head start provides nutritional assistance for these kids as well. they have to account for that you're starting to see a drip, drip of the stories and starting to see a cumulative effect of political pressure that's building up. but nothing is getting debated in congress with respect to a replacement. >> heather, we talk a lot about the struggles of the poor and the working class and dimos, you guys do great research on this as sam outlines the programs that are hurting are the ones that help the most in some ways. which is to say the working poor, whether it's housing vouchers, head start.

and what it does is further exacerbate the gulf between those who have and those who have not. the question is when does congress become accountable to that? >> absolutely. i think there are two competing conversations we could be having at this historic moment. one is about the deficit and cutting spending and the other is about inequality and that's what's being felt on the streets and neighborhoods in this country. it's where people who work really hard, who are juggling two and three jobs, if they can, have no benefits, low benefits, are seeing their schools cut, days, seeing head start cut days and they're saying why is it that in this moment of incredible economic pain not caused by anything i did, as a worker, but rather caused by policies in washington and wall street, that we are being forced to suffer even more? that people are literally going to be going homeless because of decisions made in washington. that are really just catering to a donor class that is obsessed with the deficit. >> kurt, we talk about the national dialogue and i mean in so far as the sequester was a

big talking point for the white house, that those talking points sort of subsided, the megaphone on the sequester was put aside for talk about guns and immigration reform and surely those will continue to be topics of discussion. the president brought it back to the fore yesterday when he said i'm going to take a 5% pay cut. to what degree do you think that can be used as an opportunity to look at what is actually happening? how long can our attention be focused on that? >> not long and not very intensely, i believe for all of the actual pain in the world that this is being, that being cause kaed by cutbacks to such programs. until tainted meat makes a whole bunch of people sick or there's an faa, god forbid air traffic control problem, or tsa lines get long, something where people say, my god, this is bad, along you know in a broad, affects a lot of people way, i just don't see the political pressure mounting. and in fact, i think the

republicans are going to be able to say -- look, we cut $85 billion. no real effect on anyone you know, right? i don't see the political pressure building. >> and that's the problem, kurt, it's this anyone you know. people who are struggling in this country are citizens, too. the idea that we can't have, it can't become a national emergency because 27 million people are out, out of work or underemployed and 46 million people are poor, what kind of democracy is that? >> when one in three families are living at or near the poverty line, at what point is the political pressure, there's pressure there whether or not you choose to feel it or not is another issue. the president not taking 5% of his salaries. we did a little search and open secrets.org has good information on who is making what. 18% of congressmen are worth $5 million or more. the net worth of the house of representatives is $856,000, it's in the senate it's $2.5 million. there's always been money in politics. but there's a sense right now that because there is such a dis -- a, the income and

equality is at historic levels, but also the sense that people who are legislating are wealthier. and they are more out of touch perhaps than they have been. with the struggles of poor and working-class americans. only a handful of congressmen are saying in solidarity with those furloughed or taking pay cuts, i will, too. i will say it's a bipartisan group, but a very, very small group of people in congress who feel that pressure. >> it's funny, that actually hasn't been part of the populace debate around the sequester. more of the shock among the american people is simply that the sequester happened and can't be undone. we're dealing with the cuts and they're going to get worse. but they were designed to be ruthless and arbitrary as an incentive to not let it happen and that didn't work. so you know, i think that the outrage is still at the fact that we're no closer to a budget deal. although you know, as soon as the sequester happened, that's when we started to see the president reach out and all that stuxt until we have a trigger, nothing else will get done. we have a couple of triggers later in the year, but no

guarantee we'll come to any different result. >> sam, the question is have we become a society that's incapable of looking at the long-term adverse effects of anything? howard fineman, your friend at the "huffington post" -- i dare not say boss. >> you can say boss. >> you tweeted out an article that he wrote yesterday. that was really interesting. it was about genetic research. and sort of the long game there is curing illness, including cancer. and the sequester has cut back and is sharply cutting back in particular areas. howard writes about one particular school in washington university. the school is in the field of fertile quickly translating genetic information into real--time patients who have cancer. washington university stands to lose about $40 million in funding over an eight-month period. that's a dramatic amount of money in a field of skins th cit requires some capital. the long-term effects of this, we won't even sort of know how

to field them, because the research won't be done. but this is not a good thing for the country. >> you could have distilled that into one question, which is, is the squestary dumb idea? and the answer is yes. the reason is not just because it cuts social services for the most needy in this country or because it guts our military. or because it doesn't ask some of the wealthier to contribute. it's a dumb idea because it's a bad idea of how to go about deficit reduction. it's not just the scientific research or the medical care which obviously save us money long-term, because we're going to have to care for these people when they get sick or when we can't cure their diseases. but it's little things, for instance, we uncovered a story about an audit agency that helped save the government millions of dollars in the past year. that was getting a cut because of sequestration. why would we want to cut an agency's budget, if the agency helped us save money in the long run. it makes no sense, especially if we're considering it in a deficit reduction conversation. >> one of the reasons i think that there has -- we talk about

whether they've been harmful or hurt. the defense industry hasn't felt them as much as the defense industry thought it would. they thought it would be post cold war era, not draw-downs but unwinding of programs. that hasn't happened. and in some degree, the defense industry is what exerts the most pull on capitol hill if they had felt it more acutely, perhaps a this conversation would be different. >> i think it's important to remember that it is, the same level of, these cuts are happening in the pentagon. and i can't help but believe that when that pain does begin being felt, we may get some pressure, because the people who are in the defense industry i think have more political power than people getting head start programs. >> i think you're right. >> so i think -- >> sam, what do you make of chuck hagel? he's taking a 5% pay cut in solidarity. and he is also now talking about thinning the top ranks of the military, as part of a broader

strategy. does that go down without a fight inside the defense industry? >> i don't know. i don't know how i feel about these, these efforts at showing solidarity. obviously as you mentioned, a lot of these lawmakers are pretty well off. with respect to the military, kurt's right. the military eventually will get hit. a lot of these neighborhoods we're doing a piece now on columbus, georgia, for instance, which has a huge fort within it. and you know, it's having a massive economic consequence, that fort is facing the possibility of furloughs, that people who work there are going to have to cut back. there are schools on some of these bases, a lot of these schools are thinking of changing from five-day-a-week schooling to four-day-a--week schooling. it will will in fact probably persuade a lots of the

members of congress happy with sequestration to change their tune. >> i think we have on behalf of the media we have in certain ways failed to cover the story with the depth and detail that we should, but i will say at the "huffington post," you guys have been an exception, in that you're really looking at that i encourage everybody to read your excellent reporting, sam stein, thank you for your time, my friends. after the break, back in the days of 2005, when the president holding office was one of their own, senate republicans threatened to abolish judicial filibusters, but now they're one of the favorite obama-era pasttimes. [ male announcer ] if your kid can recognize your sneeze from a crowd... [ sneezes ] you're probably muddling through allergies. try zyrtec® for powerful allergy relief. and zyrtec® is different than claritin® because it starts working faster on the first day you take it. zyrtec® love the air. on the first day you take it. i've always had to keep my eye on her...

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on inauguration night, 2009, rising republican star, kevin mccarthy par took in the goodwill surrounding president obama's election by reportedly saying this of the new administration -- we've gotta challenge them on every single bill and challenge them on every single campaign. despite getting creamed in the last election, defeat has done absolutely nothing to cool the republican fever to challenge the president on every single thing, ever. the gop's best weapon for challenge? the filibuster. case in point -- the first thing on the agenda when congress returns next week will be gun safety reform. what are republicans going to do about it? filibuster. it will be just another filibuster in a very long line of filibusters. republicans filibustered chuck hagel, they filibustered john brennan and are blocking president obama's nomineesing for secretary and head of the epa. what do they enjoy blocking more than anything else? judicial nominations.

according to the alliance for justice, only 40% of president obama's judicial nominees have been confirmed, compared with 77% of george w. bush at a similar point in his presidency. the unprecedented obstruction comes despite the fact that 175 million american live in regions declared judicial emergencies, our nation's highest courts are no exception, 110 federal, district and circuit court vacan vacancies, 12.5% of the entire federal judiciary. 12.5%. last month, kaitlyn hall gann, president obama's pick to serve on the u.s. district court of appeals for the second circuit, a feeder to the supreme court withdrew her nomination after a classic cloak-and-dagger, behind-the-scenes filibuster that's now the hallmark of mitch mcconnell and the senate republicans. she was forced to withdraw,

despite the fact that four of the d.c. court's 11 seats are currently vacant. aware that the the fact that the country needs three functioning sections of government his nominee, the administration's number two league mind, u.s. deputy solicitor general sr sri srinirasan, who served in a similar role under george w. bush and clerked for reagan-appointed supreme court justice, sandra day o'connor. this week he received the support of 12 legal powerhouses among them six very high-profile republicans. including ted olson, ken starr and paul clement. in letter, the legal minds urged a swift confirmation, noting he had an open-minded approach to the law, a strong work ethic and unimpeachable character. he should be as close to a sure

thing as you can get, right? with his current republican congress, there is unfortunately, no such thing. more on the war over the bench after the break. and it just hi! that nasty odor coming from your washer. say farewell to the smell with tide washing machine cleaner. it goes straight to the source of the stink to lift odor-causing residues off your washer's drum. tide washing machine cleaner. to lift odor-causing residues off your washer's drum. do we hano.a mower? a trimmer? no. we got nothing. we just bought our first house, we're on a budget. we're not ready for spring. well let's get you ready. very nice. you see these various colors. we got workshops every saturday. yes, maybe a little bit over here. this spring, take on more lawn for less. not bad for our first spring. more saving. more doing. that's the power of the home depot. black friday is back but not for long. right now get bonnie 4 and 5 inch herbs and vegetables, 5 for $10. the people of bp made a commitment to the gulf., and every day since, we've worked hard to keep it. today, the beaches and gulf are open for everyone to enjoy.

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it confirms your reservation and the location your car is in, the moment you land. it's just another way you'll be traveling at the speed of hertz. next wednesday the senate judiciary committee will take up the confirmation of sri sh srinavasan. he is currently the administration's deputy solicitor general worked for five years in the justice department under george w. bush and he has argued before the supreme court 24 times. most recently, last week when he argued the administration's position on doma. on monday, srinivasan received the backing of conservative superstars, saying he would make an excellent court of appeals judge and urged swift confirmation. but will he get a fair hearing? from senate republicans joining

us is white house principal press secretary josh earnest making his debut at this hour. great to see you. >> how are you? >> i'm doing good, the bench, apparently not so good. let's talk about sri srinavasan, it's rare that you get these three republican heavyweights pushing for something that president obama would like to see as well. do you see it as a smooth confirmation process? >> it's up to senate republicans, to decide whether or not they want to apply the pressure that's a calculated effort to repeatedly obstruct the president's efforts to nominate qualified people to the federal judiciary. the final four is coming up this weekend. i had an opportunity to go to a couple of sweet 16 games in d.c. this past weekend what we saw from syracuse university, we saw a team that employed a zone defense that scratched and clawed and trapped in the corners and did everything they could to bottle up the

opposition. now syracuse is in the final four this weekend. that's obviously a successful strategy for college basketball. but it's a terrible way to run the country though, isn't it? >> it is. although i appreciate your mixing of judicial metaphors and basketball to syracuse fans, they're probably now going to have to root for house and senate republicans, which is weird bedfellow kind of situation. >> i hope not. >> josh, you know one of the reasons it seems that republicans are trying to block the judicial appointments, are is because the president is sort of forced to be more reliant on the judicial branch to do things. i will read an excerpt from the "washington post" which says giving liberals a greatser say on the d.c. circuit court is posh for obama as he looks for ways to sir kim event the polarized house. do you agree with that?circumved house. do you agree with that? >> to actually do their jobs.

that's actually evidenced by the nominees that the president has put forward. so if you actually look at just the three most recent circuit court judges that the president has successfully gotten through the confirmation process in the senate, all three of those, all three of those now judges had to wait more than 250 days for their vote. but once they actually got a vote, they got more than 87 votes each. so this is not a matter of putting ideological people on the bench. this is a matter of putting qualified people who have bipartisan support on the bench in place, to do their jobs and to fulfill their responsibilities that federal judges all across the country have, which is to make sure that justice is served in a timely fashion. >> josh does bring up a good point, heather. we talk about activist judges, here's the guy who has the endorsements of paul clement, ken starr and other republican heavies. to say that he's going to be doing the bidding of the president is ridiculous. when you look at the numbers, which are staggering, 12.5% of the federal judgeships are vacant, it's not just democrats who are being affected by this.

it's the whole country. >> well there's something that ties together these conversations we're having between sequestration, and this blocking of judicial nominations and leaving judicial emergencies to cover half of the citizens in your country like it's nothing. it's the idea that conservatives have been trying to prove to us that government is broken for a generation. now they've infiltrated enough power in government to be able to do that. >> to gum up the works. >> and say look, you can't do anything, you can't get your case heard. you can't send your kids to head start. proving their own theory and it's really detrimental. it's unpatriotic. >> there's also a long -- we complained before that nobody was thinking long-term. there's a long-term play we've seen going on since 1980, through the reagan administration, the bush administration, the conservativization of the judiciary has been effective in an important way. they're playing the long game. if you give this moderate

democrat or somebody like kaitlyn halligan, a great potential nominee, a circuit court seat, then they'll be named to the supreme court ten, 15, 20 years down the line. that's long game here. you know equally cynical. >> but that assumes, i mean look 2016, you could have another democrat in office and the question here is, i mean lee, we need three functioninging branches of government. you effectively have one branch holding another branch hostage. this does not set a good precedent. i don't know if this is a cynical view. once you've sort of exerted power in washington, everybody is loathe to give that up now that this has become der rigeur will democrats be forgiving if there's a republican president in office and he wants to appoint some conservative justices? the pattern here is incredibly dangerous. >> it's elevated the politization of everything. in the past there was a sort of deference afforded to presidential judicial nominee

picks. the same way it was sort of new and different that chuck hagel was questioned so hard. i mean there was not kind of the level of you know, i guess respect is the word afforded to a presidential pick, a nominee. so this, this the game has chang changed. >> to be fair, this kind of judicial appointments increased substantially during the last administration, by democrats in the senate against republican nominees. >> and those nominees were -- really out of the balance. >> and what would republicans say of the cat lin halligan? about the same? >> chuck hagel is a republican. >> lest we forget. >> actually being very effective in making sure that the president, who is a moderate president is putting up republican after republican. and people who i would say that the most of the liberal base would say i don't know where that guy is going to be on corporate rights and corporate power, but that's okay. >> it's a slippery slope it didn't start yesterday. >> and there could be a taste of

their own medicine here. i think it's elevated. >> it's beyond that. >> the filibuster, josh, i got to ask, you are in the white house on front lawn of it right now. president obama's pick for treasury secretary, jack lew, got 444 questions, some of which related to blog postings eight months earlier on the treasury website. does the president i mean is there a sort of incredumpb lity in the white house as far as his picks. >> you cite secretary lew as a good example. it was unconscionable what senate republicans tried to do to bottle up his nomination. as you point out, he got 444 written questions that were submitted to him. that's more than the seven previous nominees to that position combined. so there is an unprecedented effort to bottle up what was a pretty uncontroversial nominee. jack lew had been previously confirmed by the senate two times in the obama administration.

this is someone that had been through the vet, if you will. one other point i want to make which we haven't got an chance to make. if you look at the judicial nominees currently sitting on the floor of the united states senate and you want to talk about uncontroversial there are 15 of them sitting on the floor of the united states senate right now. 13 of them actually passed through the senate judicialry committee unanimously. that means conservative republicans like orrin hatch from utah, jeff sessions from alabama and chus grassley from iowa didn't raise objection to those 13 nominees. they're still on the floor of the u.s. senate, waiting for a vote. even though the republicans didn't raise any objections. >> josh, maybe they just need to actually physically sit on the floor of the senate and remind, remind senators that they have not yet been confirmed. >> they should actually be witnessing on the floor. >> they should be sitting on the floor for hundreds of days. >> a sit-in. occupy the senate. >> thank you to josh earnest, filled with wisdom and basketball metaphors, thanks for

your time. coming up we may be living in an of leaning in and having it all, but across the world, women face steep challenge and extreme hardship. we'll discuss progress and priorities when jada pinkett-smith and chelsea clinton join us just ahead. nobody insures more bikes than progressive. do you guys ride? well... no. sometimes, yeah. yes. well, if you know anybody else who also rides, send them here -- we got great coverage. it's not like bikers love their bikes more than life itself. i doubt anyone will even notice.

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when is an actor, act viv and mother, another is a first daughter and global ambassador, and the other is a writer humanitarian and social entrepreneur. now jada pinkett smith, chelsea clinton and ziona will join us in studio next on "now." self. with so much noise about health care... i tuned it all out.

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by the looks of it, america may seem like the land of equal opportunity for men and women. and there is some truth to that. women have made incredible strides over the past few decades, shattering gender norms and traditional roles. women are now the majority of the workforce for the first time in u.s. history. for every two men who get a college degree this year, three women will be doing the same. and women are now allowed to serve on the front lines of the u.s. military. that said, real barriers still exist. women are still paid less than men, earning 77 cents for every dollar that a man earns. the u.s. ranks 77th in terms of women in government and only 4% of fortune 500 ceos are female. around the world, the struggle is even more pronounced. today, girls and women perform 66% of the work, but they only earn 10% of the world's income and 1% of its property. 70% of the world's poor and two-thirds of the world's illiterate are women. over 60 million girls do not have access to primary

education, and 10 million women die every year due to nonexistent or low-quality health care. to those who say the battle is over, it is actually just beginning. with much left to be done, organizations like the clinton global initiative are at the forefront of efforts to strengthen opportunities for girls and women around the world in 2007 president clinton launched the clinton initiative global university. programs supported by cgiu are working to address issues like women's education, access to health care, gender discrimination and human trafficking, through their efforts, the three women on our panel are doing their part to tackle obstacles faced by girls and women around the world. joining us are actress, jada pinkett smith, chelsea clinton and founder of women international, zayna selabe. i sometimes feel like i'm at the top of my game and a moment like

this happens and i just got to take a bow. we were talking before the segment began i feel like it's aen incredibly important and underdiscussed subject, which is that of the struggle of women around the world and even here in the united states. there's still an uneven, a see-saw effect if you will. and chelsea, i want to quote something to you that something writ innocent daily best. hee said women are a bellweather of society as a whole. do you feel like that's true. >> i completely agree with that. i can't imagine anything that zana would say that i wouldn't agree with. truly, i couldn't agree with that more and we see that even here in the united states. something that we were talking about earlier. around stem education i think is such a classic example. the u.s. department of commerce protects that stem jobs will grow twice as much as nom stem jobs in the next decade alone.

and yet fewer and fewer women have graduating with stem degrees. women now graduate with the majority of college degrees, we are losing ground in fields like engineering and computer science degrees. so that means that we're losing ground in those fields and the mid 1980s, about 36% of computer science jobs were held by women. and in 2006, it was about 20% and last year it was less than 15%. and we know that if we're really going to kind of own our own future, we can't leave a gender behind. we all need to be part of that. we need to be doing a better job of encouraging girls to take math and computer science classes. encouraging women in college to major in those fields. and encouraging companies to hire and mentor those women. >> jada, you know as someone who a very prominent cultural figure, what do you think we need to do to strengthsen women's and girls' perceptions of themselves, right? >> i think the messaging has to start at home. i really think that there has to

be a change in the messaging that we teach our young girls from the beginning. you know, a lot of people think that a young woman should not have a sense of individuality or even a sense of power until she's out of the house, you know, 18 years old. and you know, even with my daughter, you know, a lot of controversy about me allowing her, me allowing her, to cut her hair. it is her hair. and hair grows. but that just goes to show you how culturally and socially, we identify, you know with women, little girls in regards to their, to our beauty. and power. >> and how much pressure is on them to look a certain way and conform to a certain stereotype. >> absolutely. and i really think that these attitudes and this messaging has to change as well and i think really starts at home. from the beginning. >> on a practical level as a mother, do you talk to her

about -- >> absolutely. >> how she sees herself. you must, you must. and the thing about it is that we as women can't be afraid to grow with our daughters as well. we cannot be afraid to talk about our mistakes. share our mistakes and share our victories. you know, we're learning as we go most of us are being parents for the first time, you know what i mean. with my daughter i have to be very open and very frank. i see a lot of benefits from having done that. and just my connection with her and also her confidence and her confidence in her relationship with her father. and that's a whole 'nother discussion. >> zainab, i want to talk about women sort of globally because of the work that you're doing at women international. you, i want to focus on iraq specifically because that's where you are from. and the legacy for the women in iraq. because there was this notion and i often quote people to themselves, which is sort of weird, but interesting interaction we have on this show. but in the same "daily beast"

article, you wrote iraqi women expected much when america and its allies invait vaded iraq ten years ago. ten years later, women find themselves combatting religious zeg ottry. increasing child marriage and absence from the workforce to name a few challenges. we talk about the legacy of that war in terms of those killed. but in terms of the society that's been left in the wake of the war, it's not in any way better. >> not for women. they have gained political rights much more than we had ever before. they're 33% of iraqi parliament, which is actually more than the u.s. and other, many other countries, which is really wonderful. i think the lessons from iraq is that political right is not the only rights we have to focus on, economic and socially, are equally important. while they are more in the parliament, there's only one cabinet position that is women leading women's affairs ministry which has a very small budget. women are totally disappearing from the workforce because of

the insecurity in the country. women are withdrawing from schooling. you have more illiteracy rates right now among girls than we had in the '80s. child marriage, i personally interviewed 13 and 15-year-old girls and boy who is are getting married at that young age. so the lessons for me is that we focus so much on political rights and we forgot that we actually need to get more women in jobs, 70% as you stated earlier of the poor with recommend. and so we have to focus, if we want to grow economies, we actually have to focus on growing women's roles in the economy. according to the economists intelligence unit for example, one of the primary reasons for western economic growth, both the u.s. and the western market, is the inclusion of women. >> in from 1970 to 2009, just the growing share of women in the work fofrs added $3.5 trillion to the american gdp, that's larger than the gdp today of germany. so this is an imperative, not only for women's rights, but the

smart thing to do economically. >> if there were more women involved in stem careers, it would add 5% to the gdp. it's not just about feeling good about gender equality, it's good business to get women involved in science, engineering and math. >> if we want to combat fundamentalism, as a young woman, malala, a 13-year-old girl stood up against the taliban as no one else has been able to stand up to them and to mobilize the public to support her. just for her demand to go to school. it is the young women who are actually carrying the hope and optimism in a lot of parts of the world, whether it is afghanistan or the arab spring, who are the youth who are the ones who sort of triggered that change. so if we want, for me if we want to improve health conditions in the world, invest in women. if we want to reduce poverty, invest in women. if we want to increase education in the world, invest in women and girls if you want to

stabilize world peace, invest in women and girls, it's the one investment that will impact everyone. >> the answer is out there, you just have to invest in women, global community. when we come back, it's an issue that flies under the public radar, but every year, tens of thousands of women are trafficked into the united states. we'll discuss the very global crisis of human trafficking, coming up next. we went out and asked people a simple question: how old is the oldest person you've known? we gave people a sticker and had them show us. we learned a lot of us have known someone who's lived well into their 90s. and that's a great thing. but even though we're living longer, one thing that hasn't changed: the official retirement age. ♪ the question is how do you make sure you have the money you need to enjoy all of these years. ♪

right now there's a girl somewhere trapped in a brothel, crying herself to sleep again, and maybe daring to imagine that someday just maybe she night be treated not like as a piece of property, but as a human being. and so our message today to them is -- to the millions around the world, we see you. our fight against human traffic something one of the great human rights causes of our time and the united states will continue

to lead it. in partnership with you. >> at last year's clinton global initiative, president obama put a spotlight on the issue of human trafficking and made it a policy priority. the state department estimates that between 27 million men, women and children are trafficked each year around the world. and it is not for nothing. trafficking has become big business. generating $32 billion person year. but it is not just a problem that exists outside the developed world. each year an estimated 45,000 to 50,000 women and children are trafficked into the united states. and between 2008 and 2010, 83% of the victims in confirmed sex trafficking cases in the u.s. were american citizens. on the issue of human trafficking, jada pinkett smith has given a voice to the voiceless, focusing on an issue too often ignored. jada, it is, i mean -- first of all, i thought president obama speaking at cgi last year was such a powerful moment. both for the issue and victims of human trafficking.

it is totally underdiscussed. the idea that we see you. that we have eyes on you, we understand your struggles, so powerful. your activism on the subject, how did you get involved with the issue? >> funny, once again, my daughter, willow. >> she is a powerhouse. >> she's a powerhouse. >> she needs to be on the show. >> she brought the issue to me, by watching the kona 2012 and started doing her own research. she said mom, there are girls in this country being sold for sex at my age in my ignorance, i said that doesn't happen here. so i started to do my own research and was proven wrong. from then on she decided that we had to lend our voice to this issue so that's what we've been doing. >> it's staggering the number of american who is are involved in this. i mean i think that's actually sort of the hook, if you will for the domestic audience. which is this is happening right here in america. and chelsea, you no wayant to talk about some of the programs that cgi is working on to make

change. we were talking earlier, the millennial generation is interested in human trafficking and that's one of the programs we'll all be talking about this weekend. in st. louis at cgiu. young people feel a kinship, they can do something on the issue. >> completely. if you talk to google who map out the searches that millennials are doing something, to dosomething.org, which is completely geared toward empowering the millennial generation or if we look at the commitments that students have made in advance of this weekend, so many young people are galvanized around the issue of human trafficking. and i think it goes to what jada was saying. i think that you know, young women like willow and her cohorts are more aware of this issue. and really don't feel disempowered by it. really believe that they can make a difference. so whether that's rolling out text-based technologies and educating many of the most vulnerable young women, even in america, to know, kind of how to

go for help anonymously. so that they're not made more vulnerable for raising their hand and saying you know, i'm at risk. to applying similar technologies in capetown, south africa. young people are really taking the lead on this and i think the rest of us need to follow them, support them, amplify their efforts and make sure that as we move forward in the 21st century, this scourge ends. >> i would say to those victims, we have to learn how to treat womens who have been victims of sexual safely. women who have been sex workers, they are not to be vilified. they are not at the lowest rung of society. >> not untouchables. >> that's part of changing societal attitudes. >> that's the beauty of cgiu. the solution is up to everybody, you don't have to be wealthy. you can each one person can do it. just university students raised half a million dollars. in programs like the segue alliance, so many projects around the world. everyone can do something. it's an individual responsibility that we have to

act and that's what cgiu is all about. >> you talked about how konc 2012 inspired willow and catalyzed your family's commitment to this. i was very proud that president obama said that the united states would offer a $5 million bounty on joseph kony. even when uganda said we don't have the resources to keep looking for him. our continued national leadership when that means both our political leadership, and also our citizen leadership. >> and our cultural leadership. our media leadership. drawing eyeballs to the issue, saying we see you, is so important. ladies, this has been awesome. thank you so much for joining me. thank you to jada pinkett smith, chelsea clinton, and zaina zainab salvi. and my earlier panel, that's all for now. "andrea mitchell reports," whose show is celebrating its fifth anniversary today, is coming up next, congratulations, andrea. i don't like to golf. i love to golf. ♪

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