The Promise of Jobs, A Taste of Freedom, ‘Muthaland’

Coming up on today’s show:

• As part of his budget plan, President Trump is seeking a $54 billion increase in defense spending, with cuts of equal proportion to domestic spending. Dakota Wood, who served in U.S. Marine Corps for two decades and is now a senior research fellow for defense programs at The Heritage Foundation, explores how this boost in spending could affect the military and how we wage war.

• The Trump Administration pledges to bring 25 million jobs to America over the next decade, but can the president deliver? For answers, we turn to Robert Reich, secretary of labor under President Clinton from 1993 to 1997. He also served in the administrations of Presidents Ford and Carter, and is currently a professor of public policy at the University of California.

• Daycare centers on military bases are already understaffed and have long waiting lists, and President Trump’s hiring freeze is making families scramble to find childcare. Amy Bushatz, a reporter for Military.com and a military spouse, explains. 

• Hundreds of former employees of Sterling Jewelers — which operates Jared and Kay Jewelers — claim they were sexually harassed (groped, pressured into sex acts, and more), lost jobs for refusing advances, and were subjected to widespread gender discrimination, according to a new report in The Washington Post. Drew Harwell, the reporter behind this new piece, weighs in. 

• In part II of our new series, “Commuted: Life After Prison,” The Takeaway travels with the family of Aaron Glasscock to Manchester Federal Correctional Institution in Kentucky — the place that Aaron’s family will meet him for the first time as a free man. We hear from Aaron’s mom, Pigeon Deep, his sister Jeanie Yokum, and Eddie Lanham, a close family friend.

• Indian-American actor and performer Minita Gandhi joins The Takeaway to discuss her one-woman show, “Muthaland,” which tells the story of a young woman whose life is forever changed on a trip to India after she unearths family secrets, encounters a prophet, and ultimately discovers her voice within a culture of silence.