Extending the deployment of the National Guard in Washington, D.C. until January 2029 will cost approximately $1.4 billion, according to the Department of Defense.
The department on Aug. 4 estimated the deployment cost in Fiscal Years 2027 through 2029. It came due to a request by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), asking Jules Hurst III, assistant secretary of the Army for manpower and reserve affairs, about the matter during his confirmation hearing to become the Pentagon’s comptroller. Warren then provided the estimate to The Washington Post.
“While American families are getting flattened by skyrocketing costs, Donald Trump is spending $1.4 billion to keep troops on the streets in Washington for years on end,” Warren said in a statement to the Associated Press. “The National Guard are not pawns and taxpayer dollars are not a piggy bank for Trump’s political stunts.”
President Donald Trump first authorized the use of National Guardsman in the nation’s capital in August 2025 to combat what he described as a crime problem in the District of Columbia. The decision was deemed controversial.
While the administration has said crime has rapidly fallen since then, local officials and various studies have argued that crime was already going down before Trump ordered troops into the city.
This past July, the Pentagon announced the deployment had been extended and will continue until the end of Trump’s term, unless he terminates it sooner. There are now some 4,600 troops in the area.
Rising Costs of Troop Deployment
The cost of Guard members in D.C. has proved contentious, given taxpayers shoulder this burden.
A Guard deployment of roughly 2,000 personnel across the initial five-month period from August through December 2025 cost approximately $185 million.
According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the average daily cost per Guard member deployed to Washington was $607— the highest of any deployment city. Democrats have called the costs a waste of resources, while Republicans have maintained the troops are necessary to fight crime.
A recent study by the nonpartisan think tank Niskanen Center found that troops’ deployment contributed to a 24% decrease in property crimes in D.C., saying such crime was “concentrated almost entirely in opportunistic property crimes” while adding that the Guard was not a substitute for Metropolitan Police (MPD) due to having the inability to arrest or operate independently.
Niskanen argued that most categories of crime, not just in D.C. but nationwide, have fallen sharply—notably homicide and auto-related crimes. Homicides fell 21% between 2024 and 2025, approaching the lowest rate in 125 years, according to the Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ). Gun assaults dropped 22% and carjackings plummeted 43%.
In January, the CBO released a report estimating that upwards of $589 million had been spent by the Trump administration’s deployment of Guard soldiers into cities including Portland, Los Angeles, Chicago, Memphis, as well as Washington, D.C.
Aside from in D.C., Trump has authorized the use of federal troops in other U.S. cities, including Georgia, Arkansas and Louisiana.
Deployments to other cities have ended or been paused by courts in California and Illinois,
While in D.C., Guard members have responded to medical emergencies, assisted with arrests, helped local police enforce the city’s juvenile curfew, and carried out beautification projects. The D.C. Guard helped with snow removal during a major storm in January, for example.
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