army soldier, while on active duty with tours in iraq and afghanistan, staff sergeant shane ortega cameut as transgender. sergeant ortega left active duty a year ago in july 2016 which happened to be one month after president obama lifted the ban on transgender people serving openly in the military. secretary he joins us as the new president has just sowed chaos. the old policy that says you can serve openly in the military, that's still up on the department of defense website right now. the president announced on twitter there will be no more transgender service members, even as thousands of them currently serve in the armed forces. this is chaos for all of us trying to make sense of it tonight. from having been in the middle of it, i can't imagine how it feels. sergeant ortega, thank you for being with us tonight. appreciate your time. >> thank you, rachel for inviting me. i appreciate you caring about this very important issue. >> i do care about it. and i'm absolutely flummoxed as to what is going to happen here, what the president expects is going to happen here. let me just get yo

. >> let's get serious, shane ortega, retired u.s. army staff sergeant and transgender rights activist and patrick maloney from the great state of new york. shane, what's your take here? >> my immediate reaction was this is completely ego tistickal move to detract from the principles of goodwill of what it is to be an american service member and use them as pawns right now in order to evoke an emotional reaction from the public to circumvent his own investigations going right now towards his impeachment. >> congressman maloney, this seems to be coming out of nowhere but it seemed like a week or two ago, there was a legislative win supporting the transgender community in the military. i remember seeing you tweet about it. >> right, that's what makes this so bizarre. the republican controlled house of representatives including 24 republican members of congress just a few days ago voted to preserve transgender equality in the military. so the president has now departed even from the standard that the republican controlled house had, which

shane ortega, who is transgender, served more than 11 years in the military. >> for myself personally as a service member who was deployed five times who has literally had to bury, you know, more than ten of my friends, i find this ludicrous. >> reporter: the move came as house republicans were trying to pass a spending bill filled with president trump's campaign promises, including more money for his border wall. but an internal fight over funds to pay for medical care of transgender troops including sexual reassignment surgeries threatened to kill the deal. congressional sources tell nbc news house leaders directly asked the administration to intervene to help squash that funding, but the president went much further. tonight, even some conservatives alarmed. >> people who are transgender, they don't choose to be transgender. they're born that way. and why should we hold that against them? >> reporter: the white house says the president's main motivation was military readiness and stressed mr. trump alerted defense secretary james mattis yesterday. but some in the pentagon were caugh

. >>> also, we're going to have on shane ortega.der soldier in the u.s. military. he will be on to share his feelings and thoughts when he saw the president's tweets about banning transgender soldiers from the military. it's a big show. we will see you in 12 minutes. >> happy american heroes week. >> you, too. thank you very much. >>> stocks have never been higher. all three major indices hitting records. we'll tell you why on cnn "money stream" next. happening now? softly-shaped bold brows. new brow drama shaping powder from maybelline new york. our 1st brow powder! color and shape for softly-defined, bold brows. maybelline's brow drama shaping powder. make it happen. maybelline new york. "how to win at business." step one: point decisively with the arm of your glasses. abracadabra. the stage is yours. step two: choose la quinta. the only hotel where you can redeem loyalty points for a free night-instantly and win at business. who knew that phones would starentertaining us,ng? getting us back on track and finding us dates. phones r

what we know is men like shane ortega, another transgender service member, who conducted hundreds ofin afghanistan and iraq, multiple combat tours, has 100% -- yes, as a matter of fact, in their art right now people like riley dosh, a cadet who graduated from the military -- >> tucker: i'm asking you a broader question. is it an actual concern that the pentagon would have to pay for sex change operations, do you think that's a valid military expense? do you think these real questions about how to integrate people in close quarters living who haven't fully transitioned must make to this office like -- >> to be fair, we've spent years starting this. we did a commissioned report, and the obama administration did exactly that. the rand corporation study looked at this in detail before they change the policy. we have a year of expense. by the way, under your argument, you can also say that women may get pregnant, and they may incur additional medical cost, so we shouldn't allow women to serve in the military. i think i would -- >> tucker: i'm arguing something very specific trips i don't