and so again that statement not meeting standards and practices, this turned ny into a legal issue. it wasn t an issue around journalistic it wasn t an issue to whether they believed me or had enough information to move forward. they opted not to move forward after dragging me through six months of corroboration for nothing. martha: you believe there were people at the very top of announcer: involved in that decision. why do you believe that and who do you think they were. i was told it was the head of nbc universal. the head lawyer. so the head lawyer was talking directly with simmons attorney.
0.0018, about 240 transgender people in the military is the estimate about of 1.3 million. so it hasn t been a big issue for the military. pete williams, thanks so much for being here. good to see you in person. nice having you here. joining me now, retired staff sergeant shane ortega, the first openly trans soldier in the military. thank you for joining us. what s your reaction to the court s decision? obviously i m extremely disappointed. but you know, my first reaction is that i wasn t surprised by this. our supreme court had been stacked by the trump administration. besides that, this is a reflection of the entirety of our society. this incapacity to communicate with other people and not actually know our own historic history, those fundamental tenants of our constitution, who is unequivocally considered human, who is not. i encourage americans to go out,
each other is doing that. we re just hoping this ends and they come to some kind of resolution. you ve said that american express and some of your local utilities have been understanding and are allowing you to pay your bills a little later, but you re not seeing the same for the usaa. you re saying it s giving you false information. explain that. yeah, well, the big issue with them is they did just donate a lot of money to coast guard mutual assistance, which is excellent. that was very helpful. the problem was that they were offering us a very low interest loan, which is wonderful, except it takes a hard hit to your credit. so unfortunately, other banks were offering, you know, a loan because they know the money is coming. it s just a matter of when. they weren t taking a hit to your credit. so that was the issue that we were running into with usaa. you re saying that some people have been harassing you and claiming your husband is not really in the military.
unfortunately, with the coast guard, a lot of people don t realize that they are a military branch. so this issue and us not being the only military branch not being covered by the dod or being funded by the dod basically has fueled that problem. so yeah, i have gotten messages. i have gotten comments. you know, to tell me husband to sign up for other services, that he s not a real branch, that he s not military. so you know, on top of dealing with all of this, we re dealing with that. as if not being in the military would somehow make it better. that doesn t really make any sense. right. you guys are stationed in kentucky. that s mitch mcconnell territory. yes. do you have a message to mitch mcconnell or anybody else from the president to anybody in congress? with me being a coast guard suppose, i cannot really take a
homeland security. but you did that. nothing happened. why were you one of the few who was willing to break with the party in order to get people paid? i can t speak for everybody else in terms of their decisions for making for taking whatever vote they take on that issue. i will say this, to the extent we can release hostages out of the negotiation, we ought to do that. but i also think, you know, because coast guard now falls under homeland, used to fall under dod, then i think we need to get this thing done. not just for coast guardsmen and women but for anybody that s working under that. this is wrong for them to work they ll be paid, they ll be made whole, but most americans live one paycheck away from default or disaster. it s wrong for us not to be able to have a discussion. i thought donald trump putting forward a proposal was a good start. i want to see if the democrats don t like it, that s fine. that s their prerogative. but put forward a counterproposal. but that co