Acting Pentagon comptroller Bryn MacDonnell told House lawmakers Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s deployment of 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines to respond to the protests against federal immigration raids in Los Angeles is expected to cost $134 million. The costs cover a 60-day deployment.
Taxpayer money could have been spent more sensibly at a time when Trump is purportedly scouring government spending for ways to save money.
That’s no small sum of money, and it underscores how terribly wasteful Trump’s needless deployment of the military is. As I explained Monday, there was no evidence that local law enforcement was unable to contain protests on its own before Trump’s intervention. The protests — which involved a mix of peaceful and violent protesters — were modest in size and concentrated and contained in a handful of locations. Contrary to Trump’s attempts to paint a city in ruins, Los Angeles was, in fact, largely functioning normally. Trump federalized National Guard troops over the objections of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and California Gov. Gavin Newsom; California is suing Trump for infringing on state sovereignty.
Now the 9-digit price tag for the deployment is only driving home how gratuitous the whole maneuver is — and how taxpayer money could have been spent more sensibly at a time when Trump is purportedly scouring government spending for ways to save money. Of course what Trump is after in this scenario is not fiscal responsibility, but an expansion of executive power.
There are also questions about whether the National Guard deployment is being executed smoothly. At Tuesday’s House hearing, Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., asked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth about reports that troops have been seen sleeping on floors and lack adequate food. Hegseth called the criticism “disingenuous” and claimed the troops were “well prepared.”
“There are moments when you make do as best you can temporarily,” Hegseth said, and added that he was ensuring they were housed and had food and water “because I care that much about the California Guard and the Marines.”
Things could grow more expensive still. If clashes between protesters and authorities — which have intensified since the deployment of National Guard troops — continue, then Trump could federalize more National Guard troops or may try to invoke the Insurrection Act to send a broader range of armed forces into the city. It’s important to remember, however, that the bigger concern underlying all this isn’t the financial price tag, but the cost to democracy.
