in the military. it depends. if you re in a combat zone, literally nothing changes and it s not christmas day. it s groundhogs day. if you get a great meal which is a focus by a lot of people to ensure people who are deployed get a great meal that day and they do have a chance to come together and reflect, it s a good thing. i guarantee you that soldiers or sailors have made christmas trees and either they received it from home in a package or they ve made it out of something they ve found around their environment, and i ve seen a lot of strange christmas trees made in weird places and that s part of the focus and they give each other gifts. if it s your favorite mre potentially or even something that you have had shipped from home and you give it to your fellow soldiers and it becomes a brightening of the day and there is the moment of sadness and you re hoping for some kind of contact either through a skype call or maybe a telephone call depending on where you are.
for a moment at least, not for a long time, for a moment you are sharing the dangers, sharing the tensions, the difficulties. you are also sending a message back to the families who are tremendously supporting these young and women that you understand their suffering also. and it s nice. he mailed it in yesterday. he was sitting in an estate on florida for a few minutes like, hey, guys, you do a great job. to go there, to be there with the troops, to stand in a mess line, to have an mre with them, that s something that sends a message that i m trying my best. i m trying for youchlt it is about you. yesterday s phone call was all about donald trump. the troops were just pawns. they were being used to exploit his ideas. this is a time when he should have been honestly and deeply
allowed to go home or go back to their bases so they can be with their families because they are not needed at the border. this was a creation of the president to make people believe that there is this horrible threat at our southwest border. not the case, and by no means do i condone illegal immigration. by no means should this caravan be allowed to just march into our country. but the point is, we already have the resources that we need at the border to keep us safe. the troops may be tough, as the president said, as you reiterated. there s no way around it. it stinks to have an mre instead of a thanksgiving dinner with your family. i wonder, when you look at the president as he thinks about what these troops are doing, the idea of protecting against, say, a real threat, maybe a sacrifice to make, but maybe not protecting against or for a
weapons. engineers have designed the barbed wire. the normal protection, wherever they go. reporter: these 7,000 u.s. troops sent to the border will be missing thanksgiving with their families. the pentagon has been unwilling to answer questions about how much this deployment will cost. the pentagon will be paying tpoeurt. early estimates point to a $200 million bill, which some worry will mean less money to fix planes and maintain equipment. we will update you on costs as they become known. obviously, capturing the cost. reporter: unlike a deployment overseas these troops are not getting combat pay. their living conditions are spartan. most are living in tents and eating prepackaged mre s even though grocery stores are nearby. at first the name of the mission
with aloom number. so tariffs are the answer. they re not aimed at any individual country, whether it is a strategic rival like china or an ally and frien l canada. they re a defensive mre in order to aut stand. and we have that, chris. it is important to note since those tariffs were announced, we ve had $150 billion announcement by century aluminum. we ve had new plants open by u.s. steel on friday. we had a $1.5 billion rolling mill, aluminum rolling mill, in appalachian. just a great achievement by this administration. let s test it a little bit. the idea of, we ll make our own and that will make up for the imbalance. you know that s a minority theory. imbalance. whatever short coming there is, whatever supply we lose, we ll make up for it with more