customer and their safety are at the center of everything we do. >> ahead of this afternoon's hearing, families of the 13 people who were killed in accidents resulting from that defect appeared outside the capitol, determined to put a human face on the recall. >> this car was surely a death trap in the game of what if and again one we are not willing to play anymore. driving this car was like playing a game of russian roulette. >> gm knew for years was dangerous and defective. our daughters, sons, sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers, wives and husbands are gone because they were a cost of doing business gm's style. >> we're fixing the problem when it was discovered have saved these two girls' lives and the lives of many others? yes. should gm be able to hide behind their bankruptcy and not accept the responsibility and liability of these young lives? no. >> more than 6 million vehicles

have now been recalled, making this not only a huge consumer issue but as nbc news has discovered through an internal company memo, an issue they may have known about far before we did. nbc news capitol hill correspondent kelly o'donnell starts us off. kelly, how is the gm's ceo testimony being received? >> well, it's early going and it's already getting pretty tense. what you find is there are pointed questions from members of the committee in both parties wanting answers, and mary barra is saying that her company, gm, is doing an internal review. so there are some limitations in answers that she can provide. she also said she didn't review all of the documents given to the committee because that number is about 200,000 pages. she did outline steps that the company is taking. in addition to this internal review, which they promised to act on, the recall, repairs and so forth are kicking off next week. she explained some of the consumer angles to that. talked about a compensation fund for victims. and she promises to be

responsive as more information comes forward. now, as you know, she is new to this job and henry waxman, democrat of california who is the ranking member on this full committee, acknowledged that there was apparently a mess left for her to clean up as she takes the reins here of gm. the problem for her, of course, is that there are limitations to what she can say, perhaps limitations to what she knows. at the moment until her own company's review is completed, she appears in terms of the way she was prepared for this hearing to have some limitations. she came with a message about trying to acknowledge the suffering of victims, to apologize for that and to lay out some steps, but in terms of getting real nuts and bolts answers, that does not seem to be playing out as some members of the committee would have liked. >> all right, kelly o'donnell watching it all for us on the hill. thank you so much for that. now let's turn to jonathan allen, bloomberg news white house reporter. jonathan, it seems to me like government oversight should be something both parties can agree

on here. i mean outside of gm's responsibility. is this a case where the government regulators were too cozy with the industry that they were supposed to be regulating? >> i don't think it's particularly likely that you're going to be able to oversee at that level from congress, to be able to oversee exactly what they're doing in terms of whether their products are working, whether they're dangerous for people. it's usually a scandal that happens, usually some sort of recall problem or some problem that prompts a recall that gets congress involved. really there's a responsibility with the company to make sure that its product is safe and something that consumers can use. you know, as was pointed out a minute ago by kelly, mary barra coming into this as the new ceo of gm, this was obviously something that was going on for a long time before she showed up there. members of congress are showing outrage right now. they're not a court. they're probably not going to get to the bottom of this. some of it i'm sure is genuine and some of it also a little generated for the cameras. >> outrage generated for the

cameras? that never happens in d.c. >> i'm outraged by that, toure. >> congress can't oversee this, but that's why we have the national highway traffic safety board. so is there a relationship between, say, gm being recently saved by washington, by the administration, and the relationship between gm and sort of the national highway traffic safety board in terms of saying let's not give them too much trouble because we need gm to succeed? >> well, one would hope that that's not the case. i certainly don't see any evidence of a big conspiracy between the company and the government. obviously there's an interest in seeing big american companies do well, not only by the government but by consumers as well. the problem for gm now is going to be whether consumers, when they're picking between car companies, when they're picking their car, if they're looking at it and going this may be a problem, there may be a safety issue here, that could really hurt them. >> as of now, we know there are 13 people that have died as a

result of this, but there are others that say there are people that we may not even know about while gm was just dragging their feet for years. the minute the first person died, they should have been investigating this. isn't that one of the biggest questions here, why this dragged on for so long? >> absolutely, the central question. whether this was a problem for a larger number of people. i think what you're seeing from the company is what you would recommend if you were doing crisis management public relations. you would say show us something more. show the public that you're doing something more. not only is the ceo of gm out there now talking about what they might do in the future, we've seen these recalls expanded in the last several days. so i think they're trying to at least from a public relations standpoint turn this story forward and try to move past the victims and the deaths and possibly if there are more deaths move past that and start talking about how they're addressing these issues. i don't know that the public will let that happen. >> that's going to be very tough. >> the journalists aren't going

to let that happen and it doesn't look like congress will let that happen. >> john, the scope of this recall is alarming. you have over 6.3 million vehicles. it's more in the last four years combined, specifically for gm. i believe when a few years ago, you and i were on the hill trying to track down folks regarding the toyota recall that had gotten a lot of congressional attention. let's go back to that point we talked about earlier. aside from having these public hearings where you do the perp walk. everybody goes before the committee and takes their beating. the amount that congress can legitimately do directly is quite limited. >> right. they really just have the power of investigation, the power to subpoena, to drag these people into public, to have them, as you say, take their beating. to hopefully getting more information than is really out there. it's an essential function of congress to do oversight but it's not like they're going to immediately legislate on this. >> they're not going to write a safety bill tomorrow. >> they're not going write a safety bill tomorrow.

if they do revisit safety issues, maybe there are lessons that can be learned from this but that's a long process. right now the point congress is making is one to make other companies shake a little bit in their boots and not want to be in the same position so if they have a problem with their product, they don't hide it. >> own up. >> yeah. >> jonathan, obviously at least for me personally this incident has really undermined my faith and trust in general motors. but it also, i think, undermines people's faith that the government is able to spot these warning signs and keep us safe, because there are going to be corporations, whether it's gm or other actors, who act in a less than above board manner, let's say. and our hope is that government regulators will be strong enough and independent enough to spot those warning signs and try to protect us. i mean aren't there lessons to be learned here? and won't they also be trying to find the places where the government failed in this regard? >> i think the lesson to be learned is that these oversight

hearings are very effective and can be very effective in changing corporate behavior. and i think trying to identify problems like this before 12 people die, before 13 people die, or if there are more people that we don't know about, before that happens so that you have a chance to change the behavior earlier. it looks like this has been going on quite a while or at least gm knew about this quite a while, so i think the hope is that the lesson is basically getting involved a little earlier. >> yeah, one should hope so. jonathan allen, thank you so much for your thoughts. >> thank you. >> and we are monitoring that hearing closely and will come back with any important developments. speaking of important developments, we now know exactly what was said in the cockpit of flight 370 before it vanished. at least we think we do. more on that as "the cycle" rolls on for this tuesday, april 1st. what if a photo were more than a memory? what if it were more than something to share? what if a photo could build that shelf you've always wanted?

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what we really need now is to find debris wreckage from the aircraft and that will change the whole nature of our search. this could drag on for a long time. >> it's a reality none of us wants to hear. 25 days and still no sign of missing malaysia flight 370. today some search teams were grounded early because of low visibility. just look at what they were up against. you can barely see the ship just beyond the bottom of this plane's wing. it's those deteriorating conditions as another storm moves in that has the australians dispatching a new airborne traffic control center to prevent any midair collisions. this is a crowded search zone.

12 aircraft crisscrossing about 46,000 square miles just today. that's about half the size of the full search area. and it takes roughly two and a half hours to get there from the coast. but ten ships are searching throughout the night. the one carrying the pentagon's towed pinger locator that arrives thursday. bill neely is in perth with the latest. bill? >> reporter: luke, it's been another day of intensive searching. indeed the most intensive so far with ten ships and 12 planes. more than o100 people in the ai, more than 1,000 at sea. their morale is high and their hopes are high. behind the scenes, i think there is diminishing confidence that this search is actually going to produce anything and it's coming from top officials. the man who's now in charge of the new body coordinating the search, a former australian defense chief called angus houston, spoke today and really he was trying to dampen down

expectations that this search was succeeding and was going to find anything. indeed he sort of put a time limit on the search by saying if wreckage isn't found soon, then goer goi we're going to have to review the search and he suggested this could take weeks, which is what most analysts say as well. one of the his officials say that the satellite data that they're getting from the new area suggests that nothing of any value is being discovered. tomorrow the malaysian prime minister visits and there will be a lot of questions asked of him, because malaysia has indicated that it believes not only was the plane's turn west a deliberate act, but it was in fact a criminal act. and i think people will be wondering what evidence the malaysians have for this and they'll also be asking the malaysians why there have been conflicting accounts of the final words in the cockpit and also why malaysian airlines have changed their security regulations so that an extra crew member is needed in order

to ensure that the pilot is not alone in the cockpit at any time. so a lot of questions. the malaysians, remember, are in charge of the investigation. the australians are in charge of the search. there's plenty of evidence that a lot of these bodies, a lot of the countries are not sharing evidence. nevertheless the search will continue tomorrow and an australian vessel, ocean shield, which has a black box locator on board is en route to the search area. on monday in six days' time that black box's batteries will begin to fade and die so it is in every sense a race against time. back to you, luke. >> our thanks to nbc's bill neely. let's now turn to a friend of the show, pilot and former ntsb investigator, greg fife. thanks for coming on "the cycle." >> hello. >> i want to start out of with a "wall street journal" headline that reads poor coordination led

to flawed search for missing malaysia airlines flight 370. the search area shifted abruptly on friday after authorities more fully merged two investigative strands. is this why australia has launched this joint effort for the search? and what does this mean for the search effort moving forward, that it's been bungled thus far so many times by those in charge of trying to find this flight? a lot of people put that fault upon those in the malaysian government. >> well, a lot of this came down to this recalculation of the data. as you remember, we had the first search area, then they went back and really got scrutiny with the data that was being forthcoming as far as latitude, longitude and then they re-evaluated that data for a third time and that kind of shifted that search area. whenever you have any kind of international activity like this, especially amongst a variety of different countries,

coordination is always going to be difficult. the malaysians have kept things very close to the vest. even though they have partners in this like australia and the united states. but they have kept things close to the vest for whatever reason. but we have to remember that here in the united states, we expect everybody to investigate accidents like we do as far as the ntsb. the rest of the world doesn't work like that. you have to remember that they're very reluctant to release information because that's the way their protocols and procedures have been established. so you have to take things a little bit with a grain of salt. but when it comes to these activities, there has to be a good level of coordination. i think the australians have stepped up and tried to take that lead just to relieve the malaysians of that burden. >> absolutely. you're talking about that difficulty of cooperation, of coordination. as luke said, today australia has deployed a flying air traffic controller. it sounds very cool. it's going to be very important. it will, they say, deconflict the airspace and help prevent

collisions. is it going to help get this search a little further along? >> i think it will. we talked about this a couple of weeks ago, i think even on "the cycle." and that was that you have so many assets in that particular area, especially airborne assets. the problem is, is that you can have too many aircraft and too many ships in that area. if you don't have good coordination between them, especially under low visibility conditions, all of a sudden now you have a safety issue. so i think now that they're really trying to organize this search to cover larger areas and deconflict and also mitigate any kind of risk associated with the operation of that many vessels and aircraft in the area. >> greg, yesterday malaysian authorities released the transcript of the radio chatter between the air traffic control and the plane just an hour or so before it went missing but the transcript shows that the last words from the cockpit were "good night, malaysian 370" not the "all right, good night" that

authorities had been using for weeks now. you've seen this transcript. is there anything that raises a red flag to you? >> abby, there's a couple of things that i noticed. first off, when you read the transcript, and again you have to remember that these are just words. there's no emotion tied to it, so you don't know inflections in the voice and that kind of stuff. if you read the ground portion, whoever was responding from the aircraft was identifying it as mas or mas-370. once the airplane got airborne, whoever was on the radio in the aircraft then responded and identified the airplane asthma lays janua-- as malaysian 370. typically if you say mas-370, you would normally stick by that and wouldn't change it and say malaysian 370. also they had a standard instrument departure that was originally issued to them. they were then told to forget that, basically cancel it, and

go direct to a wavepointi. that would require changing the management system. now the question is where would they fall in the timeline and who was making those two radio calls. >> one thing we heard bill neely mention is the fact that malaysia air is changing their cockpit security procedures to ensure that a pilot is never by himself or herself in the cabin. is this just being done out of an abundance of caution here or do you think that the malaysian authorities know something that we don't know? >> well, that one is hard to tell, abby, because they have kept things so close to the vest. they wouldn't have made this change without having, you know, the basis for it. now, in order to at least minimize the scrutiny that they have been under lately, they probably implemented this because we don't know if somebody from the outside, that is from the cabin, entered into the cockpit.

it is presumed that that didn't happen, but i think to appease not only families and the flying public, they're going to basically put another pilot in that cockpit so that in the event that something does occur, especially somebody trying to breach the cockpit, there will always be another barrier. we do that with flight attendants and the service cart now where we always have a flight attendant in there, we have the service cart in front of the door and things like that. this is their form of trying to provide another barrier if somebody were to breach the cockpit. >> former ntsb investigator greg feith, thank you so much for being on the show. up next, the book flying off shelves, sold out online and sending folks into washington -- in washington into a tizzy. toure went to six bookstores in brooklyn to try to find this book, it was sold out everywhere. i think he even had to go to queens to find it. and a reminder, the president speaks live at 4:15 eastern on his health care law.

stay tuned now with alex wagner right here on msnbc. 

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there's a lot happening in the tuesday news cycle. we continue to keep ou er eyes the big house hearing about the general motors recalls. the company ceo is facing a grilling from the energy subcommittee even though she wasn't on board when the automaker ignored to reports about ignition switches. the analysis showed replacing the defective part would have cost less than $1. the death toll from that mudslide at washington state now stands at 27 people. another 22 are still presumed missing. workers are trying to improve the flow of the river through the landslide area to reduce flood levels. the white house says obamacare enrollment topped seven million as the deadline approached to sign up. the president will be in the rose garden next hour to talk

about that milestone and we, of course, will carry it for you live on "now with alex wagner" at about 4:15 eastern time. the president has a lot to smile about. earlier today he was on the south lawn with the world series champion boston red sox. >> you love saying that. >> he congratulated the team on a big win in a year when beantown needed one bad, just months after the marathon bombing, which happened nearly a year ago. >> something about this particular squad that was special and will go down in history. not just because they went from worst to first, but because they symbolized the grit and the resilience of america's -- one of america's iconic cities during one of its most difficult moments. nearly one year ago. >> david ortiz tweeted this selfie with the president. it's already been retweeted nearly 26,000 times. and one more sports note.

tiger, towariger woods announce his website this afternoon he will not be playing in this year's masters. he had surgery on monday for a pinched nerve. the ratings down. it's been called perhaps the most important book of the decade by economist paul krugman. the economist magazine is live blogging their reading of it. the national review freaked out, calling it the left's dearest fantasies confirmed, begging in another review for someone, anyone to counter it by defending economic freedom. and msnbc's krystal ball said i'm obsessed. we have to talk about it on that show. >> how did you get that quote? >> so what is this book that has everyone riled up? it is this. it is called "capital in the 21st century." here it is right here. in it piketty compiles data for the last 200 years and comes to

a stark conclusion that without dramatic political action, income inequality is here to stay. joining us now is susan ox, a senior fellow at the aspen institute, to help us understand the craze around this book and what i've been saying is it really fundamentally changes the way that we view our economy and the way that income inequality is growing and what it will look like in the future. >> that's exactly right. and this book is like the harry potter of economic policy. >> whoa! >> you cannot get your hands on a copy of this thing anywhere. it's sold out on amazon. >> that's a big statement. >> it is huge. in a sense it is presenting kind of an alternate reality. what we're used to in terms of economic policy, the prevailing thought has always been growth will over the long term trend towards greater equality. as you get to mature economies in a capitalist system, that's the direction that we go. a lot certainly on the right, milton friedman has said the

fruits of capitalism will be shared broadly. what this book is saying is that's wrong. that's actually not the case. in fact a capitalist system very often will drive towards greater inequality and increasing levels of inequality even worse than what we have today if we don't have stronger interventions to prevent that. >> i saw on saturday because krystal talked about this so much i had to go get one and i saw hot cakes would like to be selling as well as this book. i went to four bookstores, it was sold out. they called three more, sold out. finally i found one, amazon said sold out but i think it gets to something that a lot of people care about. robert reisch talked about the wealthiest 400 people in america have as much wealth as the poorest 150 million americans. piketty talks about the inequality is probably higher than any other society at any time in the past anywhere in the world. but what's the matter with that, susan? >> well, that is one of the

interesting parts that's coming into this debate is that you see people certainly on the right who are saying, why is this a problem? i think reasonable minds can differ about what is an appropriate level of inequality but there is a point behind which the social fabric of a society starts to fray and it becomes unsustainable. >> there has been push back to that. there's a point economic growth will just say relatively, though, that's partly due to weak productivity but also slowing population. and for many fiscal conservatives, it is economic growth that they would say is what keeps a thriving economy going. the national review has a piece out that krystal mentioned and they make the point faster economic growth is an antidote. it matters less that wealth concentrates increasingly at the high end if faster growth results in rising incomes for everybody else. so instead of accepting the assumption that economic growth

is going to remain low, why not try to help it grow? isn't that better for everybody? >> it is. but the challenge here is that you have to have the right kinds of growth and in the right kinds of ways. what we've been seeing over the past decade or the past three decades is that they have been stagnant so they're not actually participating in the growth. so we're seeing corporate profits rise considerably, but that's not coming down to workers because wages are stuck. until we get the wages unstuck and people can participate more in the growth, then we get to the place where we want to be where we're having growth and everybody is happy. >> susan, i want to talk about something where if you're out in the world and you talk to workers and folks who have been laid off, you actually see something that truly exists. it happened after the economic downturn. a lot of people were let go. businesses held on to their capital and they haven't put it back in. i want to read something from reuters. companies around the world held $7 trillion of cash equivalents on their balance sheets at the end of 2013, more than twice the level of ten years ago. capital expenditure rels

afternoon to sales is at a 22-year low and some say the typical age of assets and equipment has been stretched to as much as 14 years from precrisis norms of about nine years. why are businesses not taking this capital they have amassed, put it into hiring, trying to bring the economy back, not just with how much wealth they have in their banks but with how many people they employ, how many benefits they dole out, trying to relate to spark consumerism within america? s chicken and egg phenomena. a you don't want to make large investments until you know the demand is going to be there. if businesses hired a lot of people who then got more income and they could go out and buy the stuff, that would solve the problem but it who's going to step first. henry ford used to say the reason he paid his workers so much was he wanted them to go buy cars. so how can we incent businesses to get off the sidelines, starting hiring and creating jobs, kind of with the faith the

demand will be there. if you build it, they will come. there is some truth to that in the economy but there's been a lot of uncertainty around economic dprogrowth. we've been in a tepid state for about five years so that doesn't give employers confidence. >> is that not the payback after the bailout to some degree? >> i think they see it if they're able to make that level of profits without hiring more people, they'll go ahead and do it. susan, thank you so much for helping make this successful. i'll have more on this later. i think one of the things to watch is the way that our policy conversation is altered by the changed assumptions and the changed world. >> i think that's going to be one of the biggest conclusions frngs bo from this book, how it changes. and a reason to actually read "playboy" for the articles. no, really. (mom) when our little girl was born,

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♪ no two people have the same financial goals. pnc works with you to understand yours and help plan for your retirement. visit a branch or call now for your personal retirement review. cut! [bell rings] this...is jane. her long day on set starts with shoulder pain... ...and a choice take 6 tylenol in a day which is 2 aleve for... ...all day relief. hmm. [bell ring] "roll sound!" "action!" five youths were arrested at 96th street all between 14 and 15 years of age. >> they got them. >> you can only imagine the pressure to have this crime

solved and solved quickly. >> when you get stuck in some false narrative as the cops and the prosecutors did and the truth is a train leaving the station and your train is going in a different direction and the media is demanding this and the media is buying it and not questioning it, you realize that five human beings were expendable. >> that was filmmaker ken burns here on "the cycle" back when we were in our old home talking about his great film about the central park five. the five jailed for years for rape before their convictions were ultimately vacated. the end of that film left me wanting to know more. the men's convictions were vacated, but what happened to them after that? did they deserve compensation for what happened to them? and why was their lawsuit over nine years old? i called the men of the central park five and their lawyers and then the city's lawyers and i dug into the situation. the result is an article i spent over a year writing that was published in this month's "playboy" magazine, one of the key figures in the story is jane fisher brilson, a lawyer who's

been working on this case for years representing cory wise who served the longest bid and served it in an adult prison. welcome, jane. now, after the convictions were vacated, the five initiated a lawsuit against the city demanding $250 million and the key question in the lawsuit, one of the things i learned in trying to explore the story, the question is not were they wrongfully convicted but were they wrongfully convicted because of deliberate misconduct, right? now how do you go about trying to prove that? >> well, i think when you watch the confessions and the videos that clips were shown in ken burns' movie, it's obvious from the way that they told the story that they weren't there, right? so how were they able to put themselves where it happened in the park, in the area. how did they come to do that if it wasn't because the cops were

feeding them information and were telling them, look, you want to go home, you tell us what we want to hear. >> let me just read a statement from michael cardoza, who was then the city's top lawyer when the suit was filed. while we recognize this case has generated strong reactions, our role as attorneys representing the city is to consider the specific core question raised by these claims, whether there was deliberate wrongdoing by police and prosecutors. the answer to the question as shown by all the evidence, including evidence that is confidential and not available to people outside the case, is no. that's what he is saying or was saying when he was in charge of this case and part of why this case has gone on so long. >> and life ever since has obviously not been the same. we talked to raymond santana who is now 39 years old and he talked about adjusting to real life after serving six years in prison. and talked about getting a job. all right, so you got a rape charge, what happened. i say well, you know, i'm the central park jogger case. and they go see ya later, buddy.

i reached the point where i was like there's nothing i can do. there's nobody that's going to hire me. i thought i gotta just take the situation into my own hands so he began selling drugs, and that ultimately led him back to prison. he was one of the five, the only one that actually went back to prison, but i imagine for all five it has been very, very difficult adjusting. >> there's been a lot of talk about this d.c.$250 million law. but think about this, there's five plaintiffs and i represent one of them, korey wise. in the southern district you're required to put a figure in your lawsuit when you file. is that number set in stone? no. was it given a lot of thought before we picked that number or the lawyers that originally wrote the complaint? yes. korey was 16 years old when he went to an adult prison. he was in solitary confinement for two years. he was stabbed while in prison and was afraid to come forward and tell the guards what happened. his father died while he was in prison. his brother died while he was in

prison. he wasn't permitted to leave to go to the funerals. like all those things compound that number. and so do i think it's a large number? yes. do i think it's a fair number? yes, i do. >> so, jane, it's been nine years since the convictions were vacated and we understand you are working on a settlement now. >> yes. >> why the delay, and what are things looking like for the future? >> well, my opinion is the delay was due to politics and toure and i have spoken about this in the past but it's sort of obvious from the setting of what's happened that we get a new mayor and now we go from having extremely contentious litigation and fighting to for the first time ever sitting down with the corporation counsel at meetings where we're discussing settlement and we're actually permitted to even utter that word, which before it was, quote unquote, a no-pay case in the city's point of view. >> jane, there have been a number of wrongful convictions

that the city -- has been charged against the city or the city admitted to. in 2010 the new d.a. had the conviction integrity unit which was set up to keep this from ever happening. as a defense attorney, how would you judge the performance of that unit since its creation in 2010. >> i haven't had much involvement with it but i've heard other lawyers speak of it. i think it's a very good idea, i just don't know how in practice, how well it's working. i think that the problem is that you have to have lawyers outside of the d.a.'s office bring those types of cases to light. i can say our office receives, you know, numerous letters from inmates in prison saying that they need help. it's very hard to sift through that and find the ones that you really could bring to the d.a.'s office. >> it seems certain that this could somehow happen again. jane fisher-bryialson, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> we'll be right back. live in the same communities that we serve. people here know that our operations

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than i'm equipped for, because i'm raising two girls on my own. i'll worry about the economy more than a few times before they're grown. but it's for them, so i've found a way. who matters most to you says the most about you. at massmutual we're owned by our policyowners, and they matter most to us. ready to plan for your future? we'll help you get there. the world's eyes have been fixated on russia sips the olympics and putin's invasion of crimea but there is another fight for freedom against his policies that lies within his own country. ever since putin signed a bill last summer banning pro gay rights propaganda, hate crimes and violence toward russian gays have spiked across the country. the freedom to love who you love has turned into a daily fight for survival.

in a new book, it tells incredible stories of the daily lives of russians who are persecuted in their own country just for being gay. with us is the co-editor of the book and tatiana, whose story is highlighted in the book. >> thanks for having us. >> thank you. >> you eventually had to leave russia to be with anna. you say it was hard leaving russia behind. i had a career in russia, a nice apartment, family, i sacrificed all of that to be with anna. i didn't have a choice, though. even if ana could come live with me in russia, we would never be able to be open there. life in the u.s. might not be always easy but at least here i never had to be hugh mum yatd and punished for being a lesbian. what do you think life would be like in russia. >> i don't think we would have much of a life. we would have to pretend to be roommates or friends or just

strangers. the only way to be together is to go to a country that respects human rights or respects the rights of all the people. we chose new york because i think this is the best place on earth. >> joseph, one of the things you're doing with this book is getting the story out. one thing that i found quite fascinating is that in russia, if you're part of the media and you're a neutral arbiter, you don't take sides in this debate, but if you in fact report on it you're at risk for being fined and possibly threatened and violence could come against you. how could this even be talked about in russia when those in the media can get in trouble for even reporting it? >> right. i mean i think that's the essence of the story is that anybody who writes about lgbt life, who covers it, who blogs about it is considered a propagandaist and you're violating this ban so this was a tongue in cheek attempt to deliberately violate the ban, put these stories out there. they're universal stories and i think a lot of people can relate

to. >> tatiana, your story here is so moving and i think really courageous and will speak to a lot of people. you talk about how hard it was growing up in russia and realizing that you were gay. what is actually more difficult right now in russia, the social stigma around being gay or the actual government discrimination? >> i think both are pretty bad. but you have to deal with social stigma every day, and this is the hardest part for me, at least. also the threat of violence that can go after you every day. you are afraid that if i say something wrong, if i do something wrong, there might be consequences for me just for being gay. >> joseph, in the forward written by the great gary kasperoff, he says putin considers gays enemies of the straight. he said the brain drain and the disappearance of the educated creative class are not seen as a

problem for the pipeline economy putin has created. why is it -- what is the value to putin in demonizing gay people? >> well, i think it's a convenient foil. it's a group of people that don't have a lot of representation in the media already so, you know, lacking any other stories about them when putin or members of the state media in russia, you know, says gays are part of an evil western conspiracy to sap our national strength and diminish our reproductive capacity, people believe it. there's not a lot of alternatives out there. so as part of a larger political project, you know, tamp down on free expression and on associates it's jusociety, it's been a successful strategy. >> i think it makes us realize how lucky we are in the united states to love whoever we love. we obviously have a ways to go. joseph, you talked to so many people, i'm sure all stories are very similar but what the one

that you talked away with that you were shocked by? >> i think the one that maybe i wasn't as shocked by but it surprised me to the level to how much the government is actually in a very targeted way using these laws to, you know, not only sort of drive the community back in the closet but actually for political purposes. one of the gentlemen that i interviewed, he's now in washington, d.c. with his husband, they are applying for asylum. the russian secret police attacked them, basically threatened that they were going to reveal their marriage and potentially throw them in jail unless one of them didn't agree to essentially spy for the government in an embassy, which i am not going to say which embassy, but i think that's a degree to which the government is using this law as a real tool in its arsenal so that was the most shocking. >> tatiana, you talk in your story about the struggle you had getting your parents and your family to accept you for who you

are and for loving the woman that you love but gradually your family has come around and your parents are very accepting and involved in your life now. are you hopeful that through stories like yours, through people in russia realizing that they have friends, neighbors, loved ones who are gay, that we will gradually see greater acceptance within russian culture? >> i think it's going to take a really long time in russia for people to be accepting and not homophobic. we have to do something little by little. maybe at least gay people in russia will hear my story and the stories of others that are in the book and that will give them hope and that will give them the message that they can still go on and they can find love with their lives and they can be happy if they just change their life around. there is always hope. >> tatiana, thank you so much for telling your story. joseph, thank you so much. up next, the book that changes everything. everything. well, for some of us, anyway. wh!

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after this, the story ends, take the blue pill, you wake up wherever you want. take the red pill and i'll see you how far the rabbit hole goes. >> in the mi trix, he learns to see beyond the life he thinks he's leading into the computer program simulating what he thought was reality. once he learns this truth, he can go back to seeing the word

the order way. this book right here. "capital in the 20 2 1st century" is almost as mind bedding as aache wakening as "the matrix." after you read it you can't see the world the same way. we've been operating on assumptions about wealth that dictated our conversation. it through careful analysis of 20 countries over hundreds of years, systematically destroys those assumptions. we assumed the period after world war ii which the middle class fourished and prosperity broadly shared was the norm and times now of rising inequality are the anomaly. not so. rising inequality is feature of capital izing not a bug. massive dispatient is not going to work itself out over time. without an aggressive policy

response. it will not lift all boats as it's not lifted all boat in the past through years. we figure people get rich through their own initiative and spirit. the days of which you're stationed at birth determines your station at death are in the past. technology, we thought, created ameritocracity. look at the ten richest americans, six of the ten inherited their wealth. and money earned from inherited wealth go much quicker to those earned getting a job it flows to those from birth. this is already happening. the idea that income of' quality is of no great person in the capitalist system, if you're not succeeding, you're not trying hard enough. this book is down right

dangerous. surprise, they look much like the same tired attempts to see what is threatening the right. our friends off to a national viewer are off. where he's called a left-wing frenchman spreading soft marxism. if left unchallenged his work will reshape the political economic landscape on which all future policy battles will be waged. many of us witnessed rising disparity and worry without a dramatic adjust many. inequality will continue to soar, tearing at the fb rick of our democracy. now we have the data to prove it. there's a funny thing about data. sheldon adamson can't buy it off for $100 million. it's not intimidated by neomarksist slurs. it's the ventral challenge of our time and true enemy of democracy. he's the red pill and for the

sake of our democracy, there's no turning back. all right that does it for this "cycle" now, with alex carriage the president today, starts right now. >> paul ryan said he's for the poor by slashing all of the programs that help them. this is "now." >> paul ryan today will be in the spotlight. he's releasing a budget. >> will his new plan support the same old policies? >> it's the one attempt in washington, d.c. to deal with the deficit. >> he calls for repeal of the president's health care law. >> at some point are the republicans going to stop saying repeal obamacare? h why stop? >> for moral document. it's a statement of values. >> the food stamp program. >> our biggest priority is taking away food