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meant the opposite of what we understand it to mean today. bully was something top notch, first rate or as we might say today, awesome. it's why theodore roosevelt chose that term when he described bully pulpit. this tuesday night the presidential bully pulpit will get its most awesome singular annual spotlight when president obama delivers the 2014 state of the union address. by now we know the routine for the president's annual message with all the nation's news cameras trained on him, the president will assure us that the state of the union is sound. there will be predictable applause lines eliciting a series of standing ovations and there will be cut away shots of first lady michelle obama looking fierce and sitting next to special guests whose real lives underscore the president's policy messages, but for president obama this year this state of the union will be different because this speech will be his biggest opportunity

to drive the political dialogue in advance of the last most important election of his time in the white house. the state of the union is his most conspicuous chance to set the terms of the 2014 mid terms by laying out the central questions that voters will expect candidates to answer before election day. and the word from the white house is that he will be looking to shape both the election and his second term legacy by focusing on one question in particular, how do we solve economic inequality in america? and this isn't the first time that he's used the bully pulpit to tee up the terms of this debate. it is no could innings dense that -- coincidence that he has laid out his plan. in 2011 president obama traveled to kansas to the place where president teddy roosevelt delivered his famous new nationalism speech calling for the public to put public welfare before private interests. he said this. >> there's been a raging debate

over the best way to restore growth and prosperity, restore balance, restore fairness. this is not just another political debate, this is the defining issue of our time. >> just in case there was any confusion about what exactly the president meant by this, he made it complain when he spoke the word that appeared six times throughout his speech. massive inequality, inequality, inequality, inequality. >> two years later during his 2013 state of the union president obama advanced the narrative when he added another word to clarify the consequences of inequality. >> poverty. >> poverty. poverty. poverty. >> president obama kept the issue of poverty squarely in the center of his agenda when he made this while addressing the issue in one of washington d.c.'s poorest neighborhoods.

>> it's been the driving force between everything we've done these past five years and over the course of the next year and for the rest of my presidency that's where you should expect my administration to focus all our efforts. >> now the president may have the most visible platform for the push on inequality, but he isn't the only one staking a claim on the message because while our political parties can't come to a consensus on much, they do agree on this. according to a recent poll on "usa today" and pew research center, 61% of republicans, 68% of democrats and 67% of independence say inbe equality has been growing. the simmering palpable discontent of americans who are clinging onto the low end of the economic ladder certainly do. perhaps that is why republican leaders have been sounding very much like the president as they ask some of the very same questions about inequality. this is florida senator marco rubio speaking just two weeks

ago on the 50th anniversary of president lyndon johnson's war on poverty. >> why are so many poor americans trapped at the bottom? why are so many working harder than ever only to find their dreams slipping further away? why do so many suffer from this growing and nagging sense of insecurity knowing that they're one bad break away from losing everything they worked so hard for? >> just two days later wisconsin congressman paul ryan made this pronouncement in an interview with nbc news's brian williams. >> when we need to address that poverty trap, we need to make sure that it always pays to work, that we have a policy of upper mobility, of economic mobility so that we can get people back on that escalator of life. >> and this is how former chairman of the republican national committee ed gillespie chose to launch his challenge for the virginia seat in the u.s. senate. >> if elected i'll be a servant to the people of virginia and a leader for policies that grow the middle class and foster

upward mobility enabling people to lift themselves out of poverty, policies that will make life better for working families and those who want to work but can't now find a job. >> okay. but of course once our leaders turn to solving the problem of the poverty trap, those problems that ed gillespie is talking about, that's where the political consensus falls apart. for the first time in a long time inequality in america is at the center of a robust and meaningful debate at the level of national politics and for voters who will be holding our political leaders accountable for their actions on this issue in november, well, that's bully for us. joining me at the table today host of public radio's left right and center and msnbc contributor matt miller. christina belantony. political strategist joe watkins and contributing editor for newsweek david k. johnston who's also the author of "the fine print, how big companies use

plain english to rob you blind." thank you all for being here. matt, let me start with you. everyone's talking inequality now. if you had to characterize the key difference between democrats and republicans on the definition of what causes inequality before we get to solutions, how would you define that difference? >> i would guess on the -- if you asked on the solutions, it would be rhetoric versus reality. we'll get to that in a second. on the way they define the problem, i think that democrats think that this kind of extreme inequality is corrosive for our democracy because it just fuels the ability for those at the top with extreme levels of money to buy political influence, to rig the system even further against those who are falling behind and i think that the republicans as well as obviously those, you know, if you have one in five kids living in poverty far above what any other advanced society has, that's an incredible problem for a class in the u.s.

that republicans don't see. republicans think it's about upward mobility which of course democrats also believe in. i think republicans think they have a 47% mitt romney problem and they want to show that they are compassionate conservatives who if they want independent voters, if they want to avoid the stigma of being indifferent to a lot of folks, they want to have something to say, and i guess we'll talk about whether that's really serious. >> matt, i like how you've laid that out. jee, i want to come to you. this is the challenge. we had this conversation earlier this week as we were preparing for the show trying to think about whether or not for republicans this is an issue that they identify as inherently problematic or politically problematic. i want to read something quickly from the new york joeorew yorke. this is president obama who received hey letter from a mother. she was drowning and wrote, i need help. i can't imagine being out in the streets from my daughter. if i don't get some type of relief soon i'm afraid that may

happen. he copies it to his senior advisors and president obama writes at the bottom of his letter, this is the person we are working for. my bet is, if i just had to -- if i gave it a most charitable readsing, if that letter came across any republican desk, they, too, would say this is the person we're working for. they would have a different definition of what working for that person is. >> i tonight know about that. i think every politician knows that votes matter. clearly if you care about the future of the country and making this a better place for everybody you have to consider the people who are at the lowest rung, people who are having the hardest time. you can't attack the issue without attacking what's at the core of it like education because education has always been the great equalizer in our society. on the one hand you want to help people right now, help them get back on their feet. at the same time you want to attack the long-term problem which is opportunity inee quality and how do you give people who have had the least amount of opportunity more opportunity. how do you help them to have a better foothold.

my dad was the child of immigrants and my mother was an immigrant -- is an immigrant from the west indecember. they came to this country because they wanted opportunity. my dad as a kid would say to me, i don't want anybody to give me anything. all i want is an equal dhoons compete and education is the great equalizer. >> i truly appreciate that story. i legitimately appreciate that, particularly the immigrant narrative but i wonder even as you say that, part of the definitional question that seems to divide democrats and republicans is precisely on this. the idea, therefore, those who still find themselves in poverty did not work hard enough, did not accomplish enough, did not make the right choices. on the one hand i deeply appreciate the argument but i wonder how those individualize the arguments get laid on top of structural inequalities that make it tough to make policy around it. >> let's accept that there are some people who made bad choices

in life and there always will be. that's not what the issue is about. >> a lot of the people who make bad choices are rich. >> absolutely. we don't view them in the same way. >> yes. >> what we don't recognize is we have created this inequality through government policy. we did this. it's not a natural phenomenon. we deindustrialized. we cut public transit. we provided -- >> we cut our public school budgets? >> yes. we provided massive subsidies to corporations. i named corporations. we stripped money out of programs for children's recreation in cities to subsidize the burglar alarm industry to $2 billion a year which is a key element in why violent gangs arose particularly in los angeles. and so it's government policy that created this problem and the republicans were right at the core of that in their policies. >> i want to jump in because the

other thing that what mr. watkins said is voters matter. there's a cook political report shows that low income reporters have a big advantage for democrats. they're likely to get low income voters. that's from 2006 forward they've got a big plus but in 2010 when they lost big they only had 11 plus, right, as opposed to when they had 22, 28 when they had won big. so voters matter, but these voters tend to go to democrats so am i really to believe that republicans are going to look at that and say, oh, we need to get poor folks out to vote, you know, or are they going to try to keep those folks away? when they keep them away democrats lose. >> it's interesting because you hear the terms poverty but then you hear fairness, right? that's what you hear coming from the president and democrats and this whole question of should the rich pay more, right? that was the fight of a few years ago. do we tax the rich more to give more to everyone else? that's not the argument now. now it's about strengthening the middle class.

giving everyone a chance to get to the middle class. it's less about attracting the voters and helping everyone to feel i'm not reaching where i want to reach and now i'll have those opportunities. there might actually be policy areas that overlap, but the question of raising the minimum wage, that is not something republicans want to do in congress right now so the democrats are going to keep pushing on that because unfortunately it's not p achieving this for the american people, it's about attempting to win in the november elections. >> stick with me. we'll get down to what the weeds are and if there is some consensus. i can't wait to hear about that. this issue of inequality is so prominent. it took front and center stage at rnc's winter meeting with none other than the party's chair prevus. i want to show you what he said next. [ male announcer ] legalzoom has helped start over 1 million businesses. if you have a business idea, we have a personalized legal solution that's right for you.

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tries to equalize outcomes, we're all going end up equally worse off. but when we make sure people have equal opportunities in education, in the job market and health care, we're august going to be better off. that's the right approach, and that's what's fair. >> that was reb can national chair committee reince priebus. it looks like they got the memo, but this is the language of fairness. you were just talking about it. here we see chairman priebus doing it. >> and with rubio and paul ryan, that's fascinating too. especially when they focus on student loans. it's hard to pay off your student loans and it wasn't so long i paid that off, barack obama in 2006, 2007 when he was getting ready to run for

president and marco rubio mentioned it in his state of the union response. americans can identify with that. that's where republicans are looking at areas like, okay, what can we do that's something that won't really harm anybody but that could actually agree with the white house. >> speaking about harming anybody, there's a particular group that folks are trying not to harm, david. that is a recent study showing the top .01% of campaign donors actually -- so the 1% of the 1% contributed 40% of all campaign funds. i mean, voters matter as joe pointed out but, whoa, so, too, do donors. >> the framing of this issue is very, very important. first of all, we shouldn't be talking about raising the minimum wage, we should be talking about restoring the minimum wage to where it was in the 1960s when i was a minimum wage worker. secondly, no one is proposing that we equalize all incomes. this is a completely false name and it needs to be aggressively addressed. the idea is to raise everybody

up. what is the first thing reince priebus said, equalizing all incomes. others have said this more strongly. we need to recognize that the policies we have have been dictated by this incredibly narrow rich group whose incomes have exploded since the 1980s. >> yeah. >> the top 1% of the top 1%. >> i don't think you can be cynical enough about the republican approach about this or disappointed enough in the outer limits of the democratic approach. if you look at rubio, if you look at paul ryan, i do believe as you show, this is not about wooing low income voters. they'll never vote republican. it's signaling that we care. it worked for george w. bush, it worked for david cameron in england who took a page from compassionate conservative. that's what this is about. they talked about the earned income tax program. ronald regan invented it, milton friedman idea.

on a democratic side, obama came out for a $9 minimum wage. he's been dragged to $10.10. why can't the president say 15 bucks an hour all in with a blend of minimum wage and earned income tax credit. doesn't have to all be on the employer's payroll, all in 15 bucks an hour is a reward for work. he won't go there so the debate won't be where it needs to be. >> let's listen to the president in 2013 talking about that $9 minimum wage proposal. >> tonight let's declare that in the wealthiest nation on earth no one who works full time should have to live in poverty and raise the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour. >> so the first part of the sentence is not actually quite related to the second part of the sentence. let's declare that no one in the wealthiest nation should have to work full time and live in poverty but the policy proposal of $9 of minimum wage would not

solve the problem of people living in poverty. you keep feeling like the president can't go much beyond that. to say 15 would be like -- i mean, i can't even imagine what folks would say about the 15. >> you have to also listen to what he said. he said anybody -- nobody who wants to work. i mean, you have to look at i've talked about this on cnbc about the labor force participation rate which is not just the number of unemployed people but the number of people also out there looking for work. that's diminished. that's dropped. >> but can work full time. i think the -- like the moral and ethical question is people not just who want to work but who are working full time and are still living in poverty. to me, that's a deep ethical question within who we are as americans. >> absolutely. we are judged by how we treat the people who are -- >> that's your phone ringing -- >> i cannot believe it. i cannot believe it. demerit. >> that's him calling saying we need $15 an hour minimum wage. when we come back i'm going to

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this month's issue of "the new yorker" features an extensive profile of president obama written by david remnick. in the article the president muses on the complicated intersection of race and the role of the challenging political questions saying, quote, there's a historic connection between some of the arguments we have politically and the history of race in our country and sometimes it's hard to disentangle those issues. you can be somebody who worries about the power of the federal government but what's also true obviously is that philosophy is wrapped up in the history of state's rights and the context of the civil rights movement and the civil war and calhoun. there's a pretty long history there. implicit in the president's statement is that an understanding to the approach to national policy must recognize a

diverse american electorate. a point of divergence is the extent to which those solutions recognize that so-called diversity issues, questions concerning race and gender are also economic issues. and so, you know, matt, i wanted to -- i want to appreciate that my president can do intersectional thought and accept it. i haven't had a president who could do that and i thought it was great. >> george bush can paint though. >> no, actually, i don't think george bush is a dumb guy at all, but i do think that this particular ability to say small government and race are connected and that as republicans seek to talk about inequality, that they will have difficulty in a party that is not particularly diverse in either it's lekted leadership or in it's electorate. >> i think you're right. i think the state's rights thing that obama was eluding to is very important. so much of what the federal government has tried to do over its history, whether it was trying to get aid to poor

schools, whether it was trying to enforce civil rights was because of a glaeg si where people were totally disenfranchised. the idea of trusting the laboratories of the states to solve your problems wasn't going to work as a practical matter. i think that's behind all of these issues. >> nowhere is this more real than in the obama care fight. the central question of how well it is going to work has to do with whether or not these governors are going to make choices about how they implement it. over and over again we keep seeing republican governors being the ones unwilling to set up exchanges, unwilling to do the medicaid expansion. when we asked -- when american voters were asked what their top priorities were in 2014, health carrey mains the top priority for people and yet in this kind of state's rights discourse you can't get the inequality solved at the gubernatorial level. >> part of the central argument for democrats in passing this health care reform measure to begin with was we want people to be able to have a fair shot. if their health care costs go

down then maybe they can be making minimum wage and not be in poverty. the issues are all linked. the cities have become this laboratory, right? you're seeing some strong urban growth in a lot of places where you're seeing development and all of those things. cities have to make big choices. do they invest in people and take surpluses and decide we'll help somewhere else. to get at the racial issue, the best piece was by eli saslo in the washington post looking at what happened with the food stamp debate. they cut food stamp benefits an he profiled a benefit where a woman made the choice to have her son sign up for benefits, too, rather than live with less. it's getting at that exact republican argument of we want people to not be in this cycle but yet the cut is forcing this woman to continue that cycle. completely i illustrated the problem. >> i want to come back to you because this notion that the policy of itself, the policy that generates poverty, but at

the same time goes against the basic american precept that hard work in a meritocracy is meant to lead to wealth, to success. when "usa today" and pew opinion asked whether or not hard work leads to success you see a declining proportion of the american electorate believing that hard work leads to success over those years from about 1994 when we have a booming economy to now. so that increasingly, in fact, people don't buy that american meritocracy dream in part because they're working really, really hard and not having enough. >> well, there's no doubt that a lot of people are losing faith because they are working hard and they're seeing less opportunity based on their hard work, but that's the role of talented leadership, which is to make america everything that it's meant to be, to make it a place where there's truly equality of opportunity for all-americans and from the standpoint of governors and how they deal with national policy,

it really depends on the governor. you can't really broad brush it and say all republican governors are one way. i look at a governor like chris christie -- >> they have not taken the medicaid expansion and set up the state health care exchanges. >> with regards to the affordable care act, i think the intent is good. i think the president had the right idea in terms of making it more affordable and available to more americans. the sad part becomes for americans everywhere especially for middle class americans is that it hasn't been cheaper and it's been harder to access. i mean, the rollout of it has not been what everybody would want it to be and that's part of the challenge that we face going forward. and i think a lot of americans still have a little bit of a sour taste in their mouth. they don't blame the president for what he tried to do but the rollout of it has not been what -- >> your question is medical drug plan where people couldn't get their medications. all these big new computer systems never work right. let me make a suggestion. here's what republicans are always saying we want less

government, we believe in small business. okay, then support taking away from the responsibilities of business owners health care. get it off the backs of small business owners. as the founder of a small business, why was it on my back? it's none of my business who my employees sleep with, what their religion is, what kind of car they drive but their health care is my business. that's nuts. the republicans want to walk their talk, then take health caraway from connection to employment. >> yeah. yeah. stay right with us. i love that because this goes right back to christina's point about the idea that if people have health coverage, then, in fact, $9 an hour is still insufficient but it changes what poverty feels like as soon as we come back. i think the biggest value of truecar...

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addressing inequality. i want you to sort of walk us through that a little bit more because i think so much of what we've heard in the rhetoric is that it's bad for small businesses. to hear you say, hey, you want to improve small businesses, get health care off my plate. walk us through that a little bit. >> small business owners pay a premium for the health care they buy. if you're general motors the cost of the health care is what it would be if we had a national system. if you have five employees, 20, even 100, you pay a higher price. and you have to divert resources to this or you pay a broker, which costs you money to do this even if the price is hidden in higher health insurance premiums. it also gets people to stay with you who probably should leave because even with the -- with hipaa, if you leave to a new job and it doesn't work out, 63 days without work and the 64th day you weren't protected before. now you're going under the health exchanges. if we just took this away from businesses, it would improve the

profits of small businesses. it would allow them to say this is no longer an equal issue. it would have freer movement of the labor market and make these businesses more efficient. >> plus, we are the only country where health care is attached to employment. the only wealthy nation. >> how does portugal afford universal good quality health care and we don't? >> one is, everybody can do it. the other is, we're paying twice per person for health care because of the medical industrial complex in the u.s. which no one is taking on, excuse me? >> except you. >> we've got him right here. >> no politicians. >> here's what i found interesting also in this u.s.a. pew poll that i wanted to go to you on, christine. they are asking what the government can do and should do to address poverty. the first is the government should do -- 82% saying they should do a lot. only 14% saying they shouldn't do anything. also when you ask what can they do, 77% saying, yeah, they can do a lot or some.

that's to reduce poverty. let's go to the question of inequality. that same question asked about what can government do about inequality. 69% said a lot or some and 67% saying that they can do a lot or some. that's sort of surprising, this idea that government can affect poverty but it can't do anything about inequality. that is the way it is. both of you bring up the international context. government can in fact impact inequality. >> it absolutely can. those results are fascinating because it's all about how people view themselves as well. when you ask people is your family getting ahead? do you feel every year that you're increasing your status or your wealth? most people say no. most people feel it's worse. getting at the college tuition affordability that will be a big focus of the president's speech. his staff told democratic chiefs of staff in the senate this. he's going to talk about it. it's that equalizer of education. they want to say, look, you have more opportunity. everyone can identify with that.

>> except here's the problem. the president will talk about college tuition. of course it's huge. when barack obama leaves office, student debt and college tuitions will be higher than ever before so the democrats have the message right. they figured out how to win national elections doing that but they're not proposing or winning broad support for policies that would move the needle on any of this. >> a lot of that is at the state level. many of the state universities get 15% of their money from the state. when i went to college there was no tuition at least in california so we need to recognize that in many cases this is a place where we've seen the state laboratory and what it's been is make it harder for poor children to get a college education, even the ones that are straight a students. >> you have bloated university administrations. there's a cost structure out there that affects all of this. >> sure. but the speed with which the costs of tuition has gone up is not comparable to the speed with which university administrator's salaries have gone up. it's simply the rate of change

is too fast, but it does fit with the massive cuts of state governments to, you know, to local colleges and universities. i guess part of this is -- part of what i want to come back to, jim, because all the way at the beginning you said we have education as our deep public value that provides for economic and social mobility. it sounds lovely but the reality is that so many conservative policies have undermind and cut actual public education, the resources that go into everything from k through college. >> we don't have to have good conservative policies, we have to have good policies as it relates to kids. i run a school district that has been failing for a number of years and we're trying to unfail it, trying to make it a good public school district. i'm trying to get kids to college. before you deal with the college tuition issue, i'm trying to create a public school environment and model that gets kids, especially in poor neighborhoods, to college. and we need policies that allow for that, that allow for public

education to succeed. now, of course -- >> i'll say public education is succeeding in places fine with places with high property taxes and high income. >> for the poorest americans -- >> granted. my only point is when well resourced. in communities when there's plenty of resources public education works. we get this narrative that we don't know what to do but we do. >> we're the only country that tolerates these huge gaps. in europe and other places conservatives agree that there should be relatively equal per pupil spending or you need to invest more for disadvantaged kids. here you're considered a socialist. we'll wrap this part of the question but my letter of the week is next. afghanistan, in 2009. orbiting the moon in 1971. [ male announcer ] once it's earned, usaa auto insurance is often handed down from generation to generation. because it offers a superior level of protection. and because usaa's commitment to serve current

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just last week they introduced a bill to do that. other politicians are irritated that a new proposal would restore the rights. my letter goes to a man who admits he can't understand why texas should have to seek preclearance. in fact, he went so far to say that the new bill, quote, discriminates against texas. dear senator john cornin, it's me, melissa, you told the editorial board of the dallas news, i don't understand the rationale for discriminating against places that have made huge leaps by continuing to treat them as if it's 1965. you don't understand? let me see if i can help. you are opposing a bipartisan bill that will subject states with five voting rights violations in 15 years to greater federal scrutiny. or one violation could be enough in an area with long-term low

minority turnout. that means georgia, louisiana, mississippi and texas are in. but it's not discrimination, it's a formula. now i know you want to focus on texas' huge leaps in the last 50 years, but let's put those leaps in context because texas has quite a history. back in 1848 even though a treaty ended the mexican-american war and granted citizenship to mexicans living in your state and others, texas used english language proficiency, property rights and violence to keep them from voting. during the civil war in the 1860s because union troops never made significant advance into texas, your state became a place for slave holders to stash their human property while also suppressing news of emancipation. then after the 15th amendment granted black men the right to vote in 1870 y'all down in texas got real creative not only implementing poll taxes and other jim crow voting tactics but also innovating the white

primary, which barred black voters from casting primary votes. 1917 your state banned interpreters for spanish-speaking voters at the texas polls and in 1962 residents in houston's minority communities received false warnings that they might be arrested at the polls if they had outstanding parking tickets. and latinos in rio grande got letters saying it would be better for them to stay home rather than risk arrests. your state's history is relevant, senator cornyn, because it is a long and shameful litany of tools to abuse, coerce, and disenfranchise nonwhite voters in your state. for the past 50 years the pre-clearance requirement. voting rights act has limited your state's ability to continue that history. though some abuses did continue, it's allowing county officials to reject voting administrations mostly by students at the hbcu

prairie view a.a and m universi. and it seems texas couldn't wait to get back to even more aggressive efforts because when the supreme court struck down section 4 of the voting rights act last june, it took just hours for texas attorney general greg abbott to announce that texas would move forward with its voter i.d. law, a law that not only affects voters of color but disproportionately affects voters of color including wendy davis. she had to sign an affidavit before casting her ballot because her voting record didn't include her middle name. so, senator cornyn, i hope these reminders help you to understand why texas should fall under any new formula for preclearance. it's really not about discriminating against texas, it's about texas's history of discriminating against its own voters. sincerely, melissa.

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of the dusty basement at 1406 35th street the old dining table at 25th and hoffman. ...and the little room above the strip mall off roble avenue. ♪ this magic moment it is the story of where every great idea begins. and of those who believed they had the power to do more. dell is honored to be part of some of the world's great stories. that began much the same way ours did. in a little dorm room -- 2713. ♪ this magic moment ♪

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elections have consequences and that is especially clear in west virginia. cuccinelli was replaced as virginia's attorney general by mark herring who won his election by 907 votes to complete a democratic sweep of the top three statewide races. back in 2006, 5% of virginians voted to pass a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. herring supported that ban but in 2014 it seems he has changed his mind. he announced thursday that he believes the state's ban on marriage equality is unconstitutional and that virginia will join two same-sex couples in asking a court to

strike it down. herring cited the 1967 supreme court case loving v virginia. herring said, quote, it's time for the commonwealth to be on the right side of history. that surely means a lot to lgbt virginians who work on the other side of the potomac in washington, d.c., deemed the gayest city in america by "the advocate" this month. the national journal, all eight of the openly gay members of congress are on its cover and asked throughout the issue what it means politically to be a member of the lgbt community inside the beltway. joining me is adam cushner who is the editor of the national journal. now, adam, why this issue right now? >> i think ten years ago an issue like this might have seemed like a strange idea.

while we have an annual issue on women in washington documenting the way they're talking about the increasing power and the politics and policy and culture in the town. that couldn't be said to be happening among prominent guy watchi washing tonians. congress has been quick in nine more states approving same-sex marriage doubling the number that exists in the country. those changes are happening in washington, too. every week it seems like there's a state legislature or ballot measure or a judge making some changes and those make headlines like the first openly gay senator and things like that, but beneath the surface topography there are major tectonic shifts in the way washington works as the rise of a whole new power class of lgbt ic influentials has come into politics and policy here. >> adam, let me ask you a bit

about this. even as i think how it is now easier in part because of this tectonic shift that even the topograp topography, the visual identity politics as well as the substantive policy changes making it easier to be out as an insider in d.c., but when i look at that cover i still wonder if it is limited to some kinds of gay identity. in other words, would it still be difficult to be an out gay member of the black caucus or to be a transgender congress. are there some ways where it is predominantly white maehl -- white gay men who are in long-term relationships who are seen as the right kind of out insider. >> i think there's a lot to what you say, although in the list of the eight gay members of congress who are pictured together for the first time in our cover, one of them is a man of color and two of them are women. on the whole i think you're right. it doesn't represent necessarily limits on what's tolerable in washington. in fact, as barney frank told me

in a very roll licking interview this week, d.c. has been very accommodating in a way kind of like what switzerland was in world war ii. it was a place where spies could go and not have a safe space and not shoot each other. the problem insofar as what you exist is in districts and on the ground. is any district ready for a trans congress person? hasn't appeared that way. but i think d.c. given the way it's changing will be much more welcoming. >> let me go to that barney frank interview. it was quite an interview. you always thought frank spoke his mind but now he really seemed to come out. this one quote in particular where he says marches and demonstrations were useful to a point in the 1970s when people didn't know we were here, at this point talking about gay members of congress. but they aren't effective as a political tool. the nra is the model disciplined political activity making sure that anybody you vote for knows what you think and voting against them if they don't do it. so i thought it was interesting

that he invoked the nra as a model of how to now bring pressure politics around lgbt issues. >> it's amazing, isn't it? in some ways it's the answer of an establishment creature who's been here and worked inside the system in several decades. what was it like to be a gay member of congress in the '80s when the reagan administration and fda were slow peddling aids treatments and he said we did a lot in congress to combat that. we fought rules that would have prevented programs from being nice to homosexual people. his view is very much from washington. he believes that the political system can work and, in fact, that's the only way really to make a difference. it's what you would expect from here. i challenged him o on that assertion. i suggested that protests around aids trials got access for people who wouldn't otherwise have had it. he stipulated the point. he made the argument that politicians are subject to --

politicians are less subject to outside pressure than companies. the company with a 23% disapproval rating is stricken with terror whereas a politician with a 62% approval rating is ecstatic. >> thank you to matt miller and christina and to adam who joined us from washington, d.c. david and joe will be back in the next hour. folks at home, you are not going to want to go anywhere because up next, the one and only harry belafonte. he walked into the studio and there was a hush that fell over the place. there's more nerdland at the top of the hour. [ male announcer ] legalzoom has helped start over 1 million businesses. if you have a business idea, we have a personalized legal solution that's right for you. with easy step-by-step guidance, we're here to help you turn your dream into a reality. start your business today with legalzoom. in fact, they depend on a unique set of nutrients. [ male announcer ] that's why there's ocuvite to help protect your eye health. as you age, your eyes can lose vital nutrients.

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way. take bono of u 2 who launched both project red in africa and one which helps to fight poverty and prevent iblg disease or alicia keys who co-founded keep a child alive which raised millions of dollars for aids patients around the world. these are high profile reminders that the artist has always played a unique and crucial role in advancing the political and social roles of democracy because artists push the boundaries of convention because they demand to be seen and heard, because they can create substance out of nothingness and because they have a distinct interpretive capacity, artists are indispensable to activism. in the 1950s i formed a friendship with martin lawsuiut king jr. he campaigned against apartheid

or initiating the we are the world effort. nearly 87 years of age he has not slowed down a bit because there is still work to be done. in july of last year he joined the dream defenders at the florida state capitol in tallahassee as they demanded that governor rick scott call a special meeting to repeal the stand your ground law. earlier this month he announced a new focus for his work ending violence and oppression for women world wide. this past monday while giving the keynote address in ann arbor, he questioned whether americans have lost our moral compass citing the prison system as an example. i am honored to welcome mr. harry belafonte. he funded a nonprofit organization that utilizes the power of culture and celebrity in partnership with activism. welcome.

>> thank you for having me. >> tell me about sankopa. >> last year i had occasion to give a speech at the naacp image awards, and in that speech i spoke to my fellow artists, this was quite a number gathered, and spoke to the issues of art and social responsibility and i challenged my colleagues to man up, to step up to the plate and become more engaged in deeper social issues. in that critique and in that moment several artists on the spot led by jamie fox and others stepped to the plate and said, we accept that we have been lis than vij gent in our responsibilities and we would like to join in a force to begin to push for issues that need to be brought to the publica tension. >> and i want to put a peg in it

there for just a moment because this is not about charitable giving, this is about social justice work. and often when we think about artists we think about them as wealthy and giving a portion of their wealth to charitable giving, but this -- your call in san cofa is for a deeper kind of engagement? >> yes. for using that gift and power to put it in the service of those being ground out by inequity and by systems that are unjust, we begin to put a light and a new -- on a new dynamic into what it is that's going on with the poor, going on with those who are racially oppressed, sexually abused. by doing this we help heighten the consciousness of people who are being constantly distracted from taking a deeper look at what goes on in our social issues. and by asking the artists to look at this possibility in the use of their power, we find that

more often than not society is rewarded. i think the number of artist that is have stepped to the plate to do other things that we did during the civil rights movement, joan baez, paul roberson, bob dylan, all of those artists brought their power to the table to talk about peace against the war in vietnam, about civil rights and eventually the artists community did a lot to focus on women's issues and we found that with the artist's voice our society was more informed. now today we have these issues that are the right wing is very clever in the way it uses its power to become divisive and to become somewhat abusive of the power of communication to blur what our issues are. artists can shape that in a new discourse. >> one of the key issues that you have identified as one that

grinds people into oblivion almost is our prison industrial complex. i want to play a short clip of msnbc's arie melbor in conversation with our attorney general, eric holder, discussing the costs of massive incarceration to communities. let's take a quick listen. >> this mass incarceration happens with a cost if you look at the way it impacts certain communities. let's be honest about this, communities of color where young men who should be the future of these communities are taken out, labeled, then have inabilities to become the good citizens they might be. >> so this is our attorney general saying in communities of color young men lose a way to

help themselves because of mass incarceration. how can we help that? >> when we had done that broadcast last year in california the very next day jamie fox, without any formality, got on a plane, flew to new york, and participated in union square -- excuse me, participated in union square on a rally defending and putting light on the issues of what happened to trayvon martin. his presence caught instant press attention. a lot of people began to stay focused. he brought huge resources to the table and there was a consciousness. you could almost equate it tangib tangibly. by doing this he also reached out and influenced others, people like chuck d and common, all the rappers got into it. we had a huge meeting here in new york. about 60 of the leading artists

in the rap culture showed up and they said, what can we do? and we decided in looking at a number of events and things that we could be participants in, put a light on it, we decided to throw our major resource and our first major attempt at using this power to uplift human understanding around the issues of women. we are now working with ev eva enslot. i call her eva onslaught. >> and the 1 billion rising. >> affecting women and the role that men play in that cruel situation which women find themselves. we talked to de blasio here in new york in central park, the first warm day in this summer we areally going there and we'll have a huge massive cultural outpouring to talk on issues that affect women which is directly related. we talk about men in prison. we very rarely talk about the

number of women who are in prison. >> as you talk about this space that can be created by artists into which poll diks occur, i am reminded that if we go back and look at the visual images of 1939 of marion anderson standing at the feet of the lincoln memorial singing right there because the daughters of the american revolution would not allow her to perform in constitution hall. she stands there in 1939. if you then look at those same images of 1963 of dr. king in that same space delivering the i have a dream speech, you realize, oh, my, this cultural moment, right, this performance actually makes space for the activism that then comes behind it almost 20 years later. so your point about jamie fox or common or chuck d being able to bring the cameras, being able to clear the landscape where then the political organizing can occur. >> that's precisely what our mission is. you know, paul roberson once

said that artists are the gate keepers of truth. we are civilization's radical voice. i think without voices that live outside the box and say in common on life with no hidden agenda other than human care, nobody possesses that authority other than artists. when you see what artists say, most of our con stiet two wednesday si trusts our voice is and by using that voice i think we can heighten social awareness on issues that are usually codified whether it's people from the right and people from the left in a debate. you usually talk about things that take us off issue. artists keep us on issue. >> as soon as we come back i want to talk about the intergenerational thoughts of this.

the destruction of art programs in our public school is not only bad for our cultural life but particularly and possibly awful for our democracy and i want to push more on that as we come back in just a moment. ♪ no need to chuck, donate or burn them ♪ ♪ just pack them in our flat rate box ♪ ♪ we'll come to your door and return them ♪ ♪ gifts you bought but never gave away ♪ ♪ or said you liked but thought were cheesy ♪ ♪ you don't even need to leave your house ♪ ♪ we'll come and take them, easy-peasy ♪ [ female announcer ] no one returns the holidays like the u.s. postal service. with improved priority mail flat rate, just print a label, schedule a pickup, and return those gifts at a same low flat rate. just print a label, schedule a pickup, [ male announcer ] wintcannot take a sick day. [ coughs ] [ male announcer ] so when he catches a cold, he's got to power through it. ♪ vicks dayquil. powerful non-drowsy 6 symptom cold and flu relief. winter olympian ted ligety can't take a sick day tomorrow. [ coughs ] [ male announcer ] so he can't let a cold keep him up tonight.

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and the celebration features those of us who were the beneficiaries of that triumphant time and as a consequence we find ourselves here now today at this very moment in the same struggle. >> that was my guest harry belafonte speaking before new york city's recent mayoral election in support of then candidate and current new york city mayor bill de blasio. so, mr. belafonte, you say that

those who inherited that moment blinked. what do you mean by that? >> i'm not quite -- i did not quite hear the play back, but what was the blink in reference to? >> the idea that those who were part of the victories of the civil rights movement blinked and, therefore, we find ourselves again in the same struggles. >> i think we were -- we have perfected our campaign in the rebellion against the segregationist laws and injustice because the forces that were engaged were bright and powerful and young and redid our task. the minute we won those victories, the minute we achieved those ends, then we had a new order put before us and that was to now let's get on with governance. let's not for the first time fill up the halls of legislation with black candidates, black representation. let's run for the presidency. let's run for all the offices that electoral politics offered

us because that's the name of the game in any democracy. and in that period we find ourselves wholly diminished in ideas and thoughts. we need to look and find candidates to run. it's one thing to get the right to vote. now the question is what do we vote for and who speaks for us. >> right. yes. >> so we had to harvest all of the forces that had made the civil rights movement work to now become political activists in electoral politics, to become the people who would run for office and by taking this elite, these well versed people, once they put them into the world of electoral politics, the neighborhoods were left abandoned. the affected communities were no longer there.

we lost disconnect. most of our leaders went off to become higher officials in foft and leaders of businesses and the community was left fallo. we now have come back to a place where we have effectively brought new people to the fore. they're all over the country like the young people, dream defender. they can step into the space now. our task is to get there. >> when i think of what the communities did in the falloness, that's my generation. i'm born in 1973 and that's the same year that hip-hop is born so our voice, our counter hegemonic voice that was

artistic was hip-hop music suggesting there was something of value left in these communities something that poor young people had to say about the american project, had a critique of it. yet it so frequently feels as though the value of our artistic contributions are sometimes within the context of intergenerational context are poo-pooed. how do we harness the best of what hip-hop can do while still maintaining a critique of the worst of what hip-hop is? >> the artists have to define that. i don't think it can be defined by external forces. external forces can have influence. by and large, all of this is in control of the artists themselves. when i talk to q-tip and carlos santana and i talk to chuck b we say, look, fellas, when we started this game with the hip-hop culture we had content, political overview. we had to look at the global

humanity. it is in your charge to be able to write song, to write verse, to say things that get us back on course to things that do deeply affect human behavior. and i think they're stepping to the plate to do that. they've gotten distracted by the goal, wall street that invested so much in the hip-hop culture. gave it a lot of gold, a lot of cars, a lot of flavor, and that flavor was abused. the lyrics became very anti-woman. they became very anti-black. they used language that constantly diminished us as a people and as a country. and now they understood that that was a deep blow to our growth as a people and the nation and that course is being changed. i cannot tell you what a delight it is for me to sit with these hip-hop artists and to look at what we have projected for what the future will mean and the kinds of things they'll do with their art. >> let's go one more generation.

if there's a generation of artists and a generation of hip-hop that is lost and found. then there's a generation of my children, your grandchildren, who many are in public schools now even in places like new orleans where music is part of the great contribution of the people of new orleans to the american project and we're not teaching art and there are no choral programs and there are no instruments in the schools. i had an opportunity to speak with felecia rashaad. she said, that is about democracy. if you do not produce artists you will not produce anyone who will question the system. >> that's exactly right. that's why when robber son said the artists are the gate keepers of truth, that wasn't hyperbole. there's still the idea in sidney poirtier, all of us in that generation who grew up with that concept in mind.

i think in applying ourselves to that fact we can keep human behavior on course. that comes out of what we call the humanities. and what has been one of the most devastating blows by those who control power, they have robbed our school system of the humanities. we take out the arts programs, we take out the school programs. nothing better enriched me as a public school student in new york city than what went on in the arts programs. through what we understood culturally. if you stifle that power then you have no way to communicate other than what we do in the hard sciences. hard sciences does not deal with the deeper nuances of human conflict. >> there's a reason it's called the humanities, because it is part of our humanities. >> that's right. >> mr. belafonte, it has been an honor here to have you on mhp in

nerdland. when we come back, we'll talk about marriage and who really stands to benefit. passenger: road trip buddy. let's put some music on. woman: welcome to learning spanish in the car. passenger: you've got to be kidding me. driver: this is good. woman: vamanos. driver & passenger: vamanos. woman: gracias. driver & passenger: gracias. passenger: trece horas en el carro sin parar y no traes musica. driver: mira entra y comprame unas papitas. vo: get up to 795 miles per tank in the tdi clean diesel. the volkswagen passat. recipient of the j.d. power appeal award, two years in a row.

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nothing can reverse copd. spiriva helps me breathe better. does breathing with copd weigh you down? don't wait to ask your doctor about spiriva. is marriage the aechbls to your economic woes? ring makers, custom station ners, d.j.s, individual yog gra 49ers, hotels and restaurants. whew, weddings are big business for a lot of people. the american dream includes a big wedding, a fairy tail princess. today's your day go all out kind of wedding which means that salespeople have an easy time of convincing you that money is no object. the reported median cost of

tying the knot in america, $18,086. in manhattan the median is $55,104. at disney world you can spend an extra $2,850 just to arrive in your wedding in a glass cinderella carriage shaped like a pumpkin and drawn by six welsh ponies. to look at it in another way, in the year following legalizing same-sex marriage, new york city saw an estimated $259 million more spending thanks to those weddings alone. $259 million in straight up economic stimulus from just 11% of the marriage licenses issued in the city that year. but these figures are not what republicans are talking about when they say marriage is the solution to poverty. >> the truth is that the greatest tool to lift people, to lift children and families from poverty is one that decreases the probability of child poverty

by 82%. but it isn't a government program, it's called marriage. >> so whether marriage is really the answer to poverty if you're not making $18,000 off someone else's fantasy wedding when we come back. yeah... try new alka seltzer fruit chews. they work fast on heartburn and taste awesome. these are good. told ya! i'm feeling better already. [ male announcer ] new alka seltzer fruits chews. enjoy the relief! of the dusty basement at 1406 35th street the old dining table at 25th and hoffman. ...and the little room above the strip mall off roble avenue. ♪ this magic moment it is the story of where every great idea begins. and of those who believed they had the power to do more. dell is honored to be part of some of the world's great stories. that began much the same way ours did. in a little dorm room -- 2713. ♪ this magic moment ♪

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so if you've been with us all the way since the top of the show, i know you have, you know we mentioned that republicans are trying to stake their claim on the issue of alleviating poverty to be the party for the poor and their proposals have a common theme. marriage, of course. getting married and everything is going to be okay. now we've heard this story for years, for decades really. recently the call has been renewed by the heritage foundation and now david brooks and senator marco rubio and congressman paul ryan. they argue that children with married parents are less likely to be poor than those with a single parent most often a

single mother. marriage proponents are correct on that one narrow data point. there is a current relationship between unmarried parents and child poverty. and while data don't lie, politicians can misinterpret data when they use it selectively. so let's back up and look at this relationship between marriage and poverty from a broader perspective. here's a graph from the heritage foundation based on sentences census bureau numbers showing what they call the death of marriage. as you can see, the percentage of children born to married couples has plummeted over the past five decades. let's look at the poverty rate over that same period. ups and downs, ups and downs largely correlating with a variety of economic recessions. marriage, now let's look at poverty. now tell me how you look at these two graphs, one line going straight down, the other one going in cycles. i'm telling you one going straight down can't cause the one going in cycles.

in fact, it's probably not even much of a correlation. with me at the table are michelle goldberg senior contributing writer at the nation and george watkins, yolanda pierce, associate professor at the princeton theological seminary and david k. johnston contributing editor of newsweek. look, you can't deny that there is at time point one, right, whatever moment snapshot those born into families with two parents married are less likely to be poor but that causal just doesn't add up. >> you know, that's true, although i actually think there might be something causal. economic stress causes divorce and causes people not to get married in the first place. there is, i think, a huge correlation between the breakdown especially of working class men's wages and the breakdown of -- i mean, basically what's dissolved is not the moral underpinning of

marriage but the financial underpinning of marriage. >> this is so important. i feel like i'm stats 101. if we saw it, as you point out, people actually do want to marry. >> right. >> they value marriage, but they don't think if they have enough financial resources that they can get married. the poor are not less likely to marry. >> they're actually not wrong that their marriages will be endangered. there's a lot of data about economic stress being toxic for marriage and not just that, there is a study in the journal of marriage studies, i might be getting it it -- 2010 that says single mothers who marry and divorce end up financially worse off than single mothers who don't marry at all. they're not wrong to be skeptical of getting married if the financial foundation isn't in place. >> yolanda, part of what distresses me about the language from senator rubio is literally the language of tool. marriage is the great tool to do

these other things and, you know, i'm not terribly romantic. my husband teases me about it. i do feel like i want marriage to be a companionship relationship that people choose to enter because of a variety of personal, ethical, even spiritual reasons. >> also that we don't demonize the people who choose not to ep ter into that union. there are some people who choose a life of singleness. for them that choice is an ethical and moral choice that we should support. and then the second piece of this is where are -- where's this pool of ready to go, mature spouses that people feel that we can access? because it's like, well, just go ahead and get married. okay. happy to do that if we can talk about where -- >> essence magazine 101. where is the brother. >> where is the pool? there are people who choose to remain single by choice and we should honor and respect those

decisions. there are people who would like to be married and don't necessarily have that pool. we continue to say this is a panacea and yet at the same time all of the evidence suggests that well having a good, strong, ethical moral foundation in terms of raising children really makes a difference. so i'm a little skeptical here. >> david, how should we think about this economically? on the one hand there's a question potentially p availability. there's a question about what we think is necessary to make a union work. talk to me about the finances here. is marriage a magical sort of a tool or is it about having multiple incomes in a household which could be provided in a have right of different formations? >> well, let's not get the cart in front of the horse. that's the problem with rubio's argument. if we have sounder economics as michelle pointed out, we will have better marriages and, you know, we live in air society where it takes two incomes for most people and sometimes two plus incomes just to get by because we don't as a society

value child rearing and coupling. and other modern economies pay parents to stay at home of small children. >> oh, amen. say that one more time. >> we literally -- our economic competitors pay parents to stay at home because they know they get better outcomes at the end. the other thing we do is we put all of this tax money into child care for low paid parents. now child care is very, very expensive. quality child care like we have in rochester, new york, we have the best child care in americans all western europe, it costs this much more. if we're going to follow that policy, let's at least have quality child care, but we should ask the question why do -- isn't it valuable to society to have at least one parent at home when children are growing up and shouldn't we subsidize that instead of building another walmart or another hilton hotel? >> and the notion of subsidizing poor single mothers to stay at home is the demonization of the welfare queen. there's sort of two ways you can say it.

you welfare queen but the other is you are an unmarried mother who we value your time with your young child. it is in our interests to subsidize your time at home. why not imagine that kind of argument from conservatives? >> we have to uplift single mothers. would he have to uplift single mothers and make sure that every family no matter what that family looks like has an equal shot in living an equal life. their kids matter too. all of their kids matter and are special. >> you are asking a married guy who has to provide for two marriages this year how marriage and finance -- how marriage alleviates poverty. if you get married, then you make a little bit of money, you have to pay for weddings. you get back to poverty where you started. that being said, it's a wonderful institution, it can be a wonderful institution. i applaud people who are struggling financially and who make the decision to get married anyway. my parents didn't have any money when they first got married and yet they had a

wonderful marriage, raised six beautiful kids. >> interesting idea. i want you to stay there because i'm going to talk about the ways in which government is trying to push people into marriage and the extent to which that is a good or bad idea when we come back. adding thousands of products online every day. from hard hats and goggles. to tools and cleaning products... to state of the art computers, to coffee to keep you fueled. from the sign over the door to the boxes to get it out the door. yes, staples has everything you need to launch your big idea. except your big idea. so when you get an idea, we're ready with everything else. staples. make more happen. and five simple whole grains, new multigrain cheerios dark chocolate crunch is breakfast... with benefits. start your day with a delicious new crunch. healthy never tasted so good. i think we both are clean freaks.

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lease this 2014 cadillac srx for around $319 a month with premium care maintenance included. ♪ so let's say for the argument that raising families in aisle household is related to poverty. the federal government has been funding projects offering counseling and marriage, training to poor and other couples intent at promoting marriage. how have those programs done? not so well. an intensive three-year study of the bush era program building strong families found that after three years building strong families had no effect on the quality of couples' relationships and did not make couples more likely to stay together or to get married. tens of millions of dollars have been spent on the program and it didn't stop with w. in 2013 the obama administration awarded $120 million in grants

to programs promoting responsible fatherhood and hoemty marriage. in 2012 the department of health and human services helped launch a, quote, father hood buzz barber shop tour in which hhs officials trained bashers on how to talk to customers about fatherhood. david, if i have $120 million -- >> okay. >> right? if i have 120 million and have i to spend it to improve poverty outcomes for children, is marriage promotion programs, are those the best way to spend my 120 mill? >> best way to waste your money. having a good marriage? tell your spouse what you're thinking, listen to what your spouse says, pick up your socks. >> so, i mean, yes -- >> so my issue -- there are two issues. one is that we continue in this country to shame the poor and we continue to associate poverty with certain moral behaviors and choices. there are poor broke people with good broke marriages and there

are rich people with bad marriages. >> amen. >> and that is the case across every socioeconomic spectrum. that's one. two is the nuclear family is stressed because for generations we've lived in multi-generational families so perhaps if we want to devote some resources, let's look at the multi-generational families with aunties, uncles, grandparents are helping the village that it takes. we can continue to stress nuclear families be they two parent or one parent, but at the end of the day it takes almost more than two incomes to raise a child. >> change houses. >> and the obama family is a great example, right? grandma robinson lived at the white house. >> if they can't do it, who can? >> right. sort of super special extra people. let me also ask this question as part of that. is it possible, is it just possible that there are certain kinds of benefits to rearing a child solo that we also have to acknowledge? because your point that there

are bad -- there are bad marriages for wealthy people but they are afforded privacy. the only people who get the spectatorship are poor folks. could we also say that there are certain benefits that accrue to raising children alone, both for the child and for the parent? >> absolutely, but we don't want to talk about that. we don't want to talk about, for instance, how many adoptive parents there are who may be single who have an economic stability, who are old enough and mature enough to want to make the choice to raise a child. so instead we just demonize single parents and we say here is the optimal environment. the optimal environment, the could he loek we yal expression, if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. unhappy, unstable people in any marriage or nonmarriage situation are not the best choices necessarily to raise children without help. so there are some situations in which children are being loved and are thriving in homes that are nontraditional homes.

>> on this theme of mama being happy, mama being safe. 50 to 60% of women who are receiving public aid have experienced physical abuse by an intimate partner at some point as compared to 22% of the general population. the idea that we should tell women to marry abusive partners is troubling. >> more than troubling, it's dangerous. this new shriver report is extraordinarily rich and full of so much information and data about all of this stuff, it did a poll, right, of a whole bunch of different people. one of the subsets was low income single mothers. and among those who were divorced, 19% regretted their divorces, right? the vast majority of those who were divorced thought that that was a good thing for them and their families. what they regretted were things like marrying too young, having their children too young, interrupting their education. presumably these women are intimately connected to their own lives and kind of know what

is best for them and their families. >> the other piece of this is that children in -- i mean, children in single parent families do statistically have all sorts of disadvantages but it's not universal that they have it as bad as they have it in this country, right? in other countries where you have a rich provision of social services children in single parent families fair much better. i think that the gap in standardized testing achievement in single parent families in the u.s. is 23%. in other developed countries it's 5%, you know, so all of these disadvantages are not inevitable. >> yes. >> they are also a result of policy choices. >> and speaking of policy choices, i want to listen to mike huckabee who said something specific about public policy and women's reproductive choices this week. let's take a listen. >> and if the democrats want to assault the women of america by making them believe that they are helpless without uncle sugar coming in and providing for them a prescription each month for

birth control because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of the government, then so be it. let us take that discussion all across america. >> so with only one minute, there's so much to say about uncle sugar and our libidos. it feels like what was revealed in that moment is this sense that what the conservative perspective is on this is actually about punishing women for sexual activity. it's not really about -- because if it was about controlling fertility then you would be all down for reproductive rights of various kinds because then children wouldn't be borne out of poverty because women would have birth control. instead, it's like if you have libido, you have sex, you have a child as a result of it, you have to be punished with poverty. >> i went to a rally where mike huckabee and his wife entered into a covenant marriage which is a marriage that's hard to get out of. she promised to submit to him in front of thousands of people in this stadium and then thousands of wives in unison promised to submit to their husbands.

it was this very bizarre spectacle. i think it gets at the heart of that's what they see is the answer. >> look, i -- look -- >> you can't rush this. >> let me be clear. let me make a little submission is not always a bad thing. >> i submit to my wife. >> i'm just saying beyonce has reminded us a little submission can be a lot of fun. thank you to michelle goldberg and joe and yolanda and david k. johnson. up next our foot soldier of the week is making very special diaper deliveries. yes, diapers. [ coughs ] i've got a big date, but my sinuses are acting up. it's time for advil cold and sinus. [ male announcer ] truth is that won't relieve all your symptoms. hmm? [ male announcer ] new alka seltzer plus-d relieves more symptoms than any other behind the counter liquid gel. thanks for the tip. [ male announcer ] no problem. oh...and hair products. aisle 9. [ inhales deeply ] oh what a relief it is. ♪

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oh, the joy of a newborn baby, tiny baby clothes and pastel-colored blankets, mobiles and bassinets and diapers at a cost of $18 a week. and for three out of ten low-income mothers, supplying this staple item is impossible, especially since diapers are not covered under government assistance programs like s.n.a.p. or wic.

according to the department of pediatrics, short supply of diapers can put the child's health and the parents' well-being at risk. we learned, where there is a problem almost always a foot soldier ready to address it. and this week's food soldier is no exception. when michael old, who had recently adopted a son realized the deficiency, she loaded up her car with diapers and drove them to the mothers in her home state of north carolina who reached out for help. that's how the diaper bank of north carolina began in june of 2013. by partnering with organizations like the duke family care program and local schools and churches. the diaper bank has grown from one woman to 150 volunteers, organizing diaper drives. since june 2013, the diaper bank has distributed more than 74,000 diapers. joining me now from raleigh, north carolina, is our foot soldier of the week, the executive director of the diaper bank of north carolina, michelle old. so nice to have you. >> thank you. it's a pleasure to be here. >> what prompted you to start

the diaper bank? why this cause? >> i didn't realize the diaper need until we were in the middle of adopting our youngest child. and he had severe reactions to diapers and illnesses. and we were changing 15 to 20 diapers a day. and my husband and i would easily grab the next diaper. and one night late, i was at the hospital again with my son, and -- i started just thinking about what if we did not have diapers? what if we were not able to easily grab the next diaper. and how would that bonding have been altered if he had seen the stress in our face or the anxiety, because we just didn't have another diaper. so i really started to do research, and was surprised to find there was no assistance for diapers. >> and your point here, i think, is so key. i don't think that most folks know -- even in nerd land, this was a surprise to us, to think

about exactly that point. this diaper shortage problem. when your organization tells other folks about it, what kind of response do you get? what kind of support for what you're doing? >> well, there's shock at first. people assume, like i did, that wic and food stamps helped cover diapers, or there is some sort of assistance, which there is not. we are finding that more and more families are choosing between food and diapers. they're not able to pay their utility bills or they're buying diapers. and that they're going longer period of time before changing a diaper. but i think what's important to know is the majority of these families we work with are working families. they're working one to two jobs, and they still are making the hard choices between food and diapers. >> that idea of making a choice between food and diapers or having to wait to change -- you can sort of immediately see why this would be stressful, why this would be bad for a child's health. i was just in north carolina, i

love the people of north carolina. how can someone anywhere else, indiana, georgia, louisiana, how can they start what you have started here? >> you start with a drive. a simple drive, putting up a box, talking about the need. and sharing the information. and it's the community of durham and orange county have just rallied around this issue. i did not come up with 74,000 diapers. the community brought -- took this as an issue and thought it was important babies had clean and dry diapers. and it's been an amazing response. >> i love this, in part because we started foot soldiers, because we wanted to talk about people who see a direct need and don't wait for policy to change. they go in and change it right away. and that's what -- that's what you have done here, despite being the mother to several children, including a young baby yourself, which is a tough time. and so i just want to say, thank you so much, michelle old, for being our foot soldier this week, and for demonstrating what

people with do in their communities. >> thank you so much. i appreciate it. and that is our show for today. thanks to you at home for watching. i'm going to see you tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m. eastern. we are going to be talking about nfl cornerback, richard sherman, the presuper bowl backlash against him, and what it may say about a broad other issue of race, and black men in america. right now it's time for a preview of "weekends with alex witt." the chris christie saga continues. a new poll on his popularity. a judge has ordered the pregnant brain dead texas woman to be taken off life support. will the hospital comply? george zimmerman is being warned not to sell this painting. i'll tell you why. the new mitt romney campaign documentary is out. did romney like the movie? you're going to hear from the director. don't go anywhere. i'll be right back. ♪ legs, for crossing. ♪ feet...splashing. better things than the joint pain and swelling of moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis.

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another warning the state departme issues. and the chris christie saga. a new poll suggests exactly how much of a toll the recent controversy has taken on his popularity. also, cold snap. it's one of the longest stretches of icy weather in decades, and will it derail the nfl's super bowl plans? hello, everyone, it's high noon in the east, 9:00 in the west, welcome to "weekends with alex witt." breaking news from columbia, maryland, 20 miles south of baltimore. we're getting another report of a shooting in a public place. this one at the mall of columbia. at this time, it's unclear how many people have been shot. mall officials say the shopping center is closed. they believe the situation is over, and at this time under control. we're certainly monitoring the situation. we're going to bring you some oh more information as soon as it becomes available. but once again, the mall o