The military forces<\/span> deploying in Washington, D.C. \u2014 whose mission includes not only \u201ccommunity safety patrols\u201d but assisting in \u201ctraffic control\u201d and \u201carea beautification\u201d \u2014 could cost upward of $1 million per day, with the possible price tag climbing into the hundreds of millions for the open-ended occupation, according to expert analysis.<\/p>\n Washington is now ground zero in President Donald Trump\u2019s push to turn America<\/a> into a full-fledged police state<\/a>.<\/p>\n The power grab<\/a> in the District of Columbia \u2014 which thus far has involved seizing control of D.C.\u2019s police force, deploying National Guard troops, and flooding the streets with federal officers \u2014 follows deployments of federal troops from coast to coast, surges of\u00a0masked federal agents<\/a>\u00a0around the United States, and consistent tyrannical use<\/a> of executive authority<\/a> in ways with little precedent in modern U.S. history.<\/p>\n Trump has brushed off being called a \u201cdictator<\/a>\u201d since his capital city putsch, which he touted as a law enforcement operation and urban beautification campaign.<\/p>\n The Republican governors of West Virginia, South Carolina, Ohio, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Tennessee announced, in the last several days, that they will send National Guard troops to assist Trump\u2019s efforts to\u00a0\u201cfederalize<\/a>\u201d D.C.\u00a0Those forces will join the nearly 900 D.C. National Guard troops already activated by Trump and deployed in the capital.\u00a0<\/p>\n Approximately 500 National Guard members from West Virginia had arrived in the capital by Monday afternoon, according to a defense official who spoke to The Intercept on background. Around 300 troops from South Carolina were en route, the official said. (South Carolina\u2019s Gov. Henry McMaster only publicly authorized<\/a> the deployment of 200 Guard members.) All told, around 2,100 troops<\/a> will soon be deployed.<\/p>\n The Intercept asked Hanna Homestead of the National Priorities Project, a nonpartisan research group, to estimate the possible expense of this operation. Her analysis finds that the cost of Trump\u2019s troop deployment in Washington could exceed more than $1 million per day, based on the deployment of around 2,100 Guard members to D.C.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s unconscionable that the Trump administration would hand the military a blank check of over a million dollars a day to occupy D.C. while stripping access to health care and food aid from millions of families across the country,\u201d Homestead told The Intercept. \u201cThe daily cost of the D.C. troop deployment is more than four times what it would cost to operate affordable housing for D.C.\u2019s entire unhoused population. The government\u2019s priorities could not be more clear.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe daily cost of the D.C. troop deployment is more than six times what it would cost to operate affordable housing for D.C.\u2019s entire unhoused population.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Homestead based her calculations on recent National Guard deployments where the total number of troops, cost, and deployment length are publicly available but cautioned that government secrecy makes it impossible to account for all variables including lodging, transportation, equipment usage, and other expenses.<\/p>\n Homestead noted that since Trump began his federal power grab, more than 450 people have been\u00a0arrested<\/a>. \u201cDescribing the National Guard deployment as a glorified\u00a0gardening mission is an attempt to whitewash the danger of the expanding\u00a0police state,\u201d she told The Intercept.\u00a0\u201cIt directly contradicts reports of what is actually happening on the ground: Troops aren\u2019t picking up trash or planting flowers, they are operating checkpoints and helping make hundreds of arrests of mostly Black and brown residents.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Pentagon claims it does not know the costs of these National Guard deployments, leaving taxpayers on the hook for inestimable costs. \u201cWe won\u2019t know the cost until the mission concludes,\u201d another defense official told The Intercept, speaking on the condition of anonymity. The first defense official expressed skepticism of this claim of total unknowability, intimating that the Pentagon does, or at least could, have an idea of the cost: \u201cThe concern is they don\u2019t want anyone pinning them down, saying, \u2018Oh, you said it\u2019s going to cost this much, but actually it cost a lot more.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The ultimate length of the deployment is unspecified, leaving open the possibility that it could last for months or longer, driving costs into the tens or hundreds of millions by Homestead\u2019s estimate. Trump suggested that funding for his D.C. takeover \u2014 including rousting homeless camps, removing \u201call\u201d the city\u2019s graffiti, and tending to \u201cgrasses\u201d in the parks \u2014 would cost a \u201crelatively small amount of money<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSpending tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars to deploy the National Guard to the nation\u2019s capital, whether to address an imagined increase in violent crime or in support of immigration enforcement missions, is a massive distraction from the military\u2019s mission,\u201d said Gabe Murphy, a policy analyst at Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan budget watchdog advocating for an end to wasteful spending. \u201cIt undermines readiness, pulls resources and personnel from other missions, and dangerously blurs the lines between military and civilian jurisdictions.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite Justice Department figures showing that violent crime in the D.C. was already at a\u00a030-year low<\/a>, Trump declared a crime emergency in Washington on August 11. \u201cOur capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals,\u201d Trump said at a White House news conference that day, painting the city as a hellscape filled with \u201cdrugged out maniacs\u201d and \u201ccaravans of mass youth\u201d who \u201crampage through city streets\u201d day and night. \u201cI\u2019m deploying the National Guard to help reestablish law, order and public safety in Washington, D.C.,\u201d he declared.<\/p>\n The National Guard deployment is one facet of Trump\u2019s efforts to put the District of Columbia under federal authority. He also declared that he is temporarily taking control of the city\u2019s police department. Hundreds of officers and agents from more than a dozen federal agencies \u2014 including the FBI; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; Drug Enforcement Administration; Immigration and Customs Enforcement; and the U.S. Marshals Service \u2014 have also fanned out across Washington. Masked federal agents have made arrests<\/a> in neighborhoods across the city, set up traffic checkpoints<\/a> to enforce laws against seatbelt violations or broken taillights, and torn down a protest banner<\/a>, among other efforts.<\/p>\n On Friday, Washington\u2019s attorney general sued the administration for appointing the head of the DEA as the city\u2019s \u201cemergency police commissioner.\u201d The administration walked back the move but then issued a follow-up order that directed local police to \u201ccooperate fully and completely with federal immigration authorities.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \n By signing up, I agree to receive emails from The Intercept and to the Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Use<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n In his first<\/span> seven months in office, Trump has commanded the military to increasingly insert itself into civil and law enforcement functions within the United States. He has deployed around 20,000<\/a> federal troops on American soil, including personnel from the National Guard, the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, and the Marines, according to the Pentagon. But the true number of personnel deployed\u00a0may be markedly higher<\/a>. U.S. Northern Command has no running tally of how many troops have been deployed around the country.<\/p>\n These federal forces<\/a> have been operating under Title 10 authority<\/a>, or federal control, in at least five states \u2014 Arizona, California<\/a>, Florida, New Mexico, and Texas \u2014 in service of the Trump administration\u2019s anti-immigrant agenda.<\/p>\n Many more troops, like the National Guard forces deploying to the capital, are operating under so-called Title 32 status, meaning they are under state, rather than federal, control, unlike deployments in\u00a0Los Angeles<\/a>\u00a0and across the\u00a0southern border<\/a>. With no governor to report to, the D.C. National Guard\u2019s chain of command runs from its commanding general, to the secretary of the Army, to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, to the president.\u00a0<\/p>\n Late last month, the Trump administration\u00a0authorized the deployment of National Guard troops to\u00a0immigration facilities in 20 states<\/a>. The National Guard will be deployed in Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Virginia, among other states.<\/p>\n When he announced the D.C. deployment, Trump also threatened to carry out similar power grabs in numerous cities led by Democratic mayors in states with Democratic governors. \u201cIf we need to, we\u2019re going to do the same thing in Chicago, which is a disaster,\u201d Trump said. \u201cYou look at Los Angeles, how bad it is. We have other cities that are very bad. New York has a problem. And then you have, of course, Baltimore and Oakland. We don\u2019t even mention that anymore. They\u2019re so far gone,\u201d he continued. \u201cWe\u2019re not going to let it happen. We\u2019re not going to lose our cities over this. And this will go further.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Homestead noted that governors from red states were now actively collaborating in Trump\u2019s authoritarian overreach. \u201cRepublican governors are now voluntarily using federal tax dollars to militarize D.C. instead of addressing the needs of their constituents, who are some of the poorest in the country,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Experts say that the increasing use of military forces in the interior of the U.S. represents an extraordinary violation of Posse Comitatus, a bedrock 19th-century law seen as fundamental to the democratic tradition in America. Critics warn that this might put the troops being deployed and their commanders at legal risk of prosecution down the line.<\/p>\n \u201cThrough his manufactured emergency, President Trump is engaging in dangerous political theater to expand his power and sow fear in our communities. Sending heavily armed federal agents and National Guard troops from hundreds of miles away into our nation\u2019s capital is unnecessary, inflammatory, and puts people\u2019s rights at high risk of being violated,\u201d said Hina Shamsi, the director of the ACLU\u2019s National Security Project. \u201cGovernors need to understand that with each order, the Trump administration increases legal and ethical jeopardy for state troops being deployed. No matter what uniform they wear, federal agents and military troops are bound by the Constitution, including our rights to peaceful assembly, freedom of speech, due process, and safeguards against unlawful searches and seizures. If troops or federal agents violate our rights, they must be held accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n On Monday, Trump seemed close to declaring victory in D.C., although his triumphant tale involved unnamed persons calling him \u201csir\u201d<\/a> \u2014 which has been identified<\/a> as a key tell<\/a> that Trump is lying<\/a>. \u201cWe went from the most unsafe place anywhere to a place that now people, friends are calling me up, Democrats are calling me up, and they\u2019re saying, \u2018Sir, I want to thank you,\u2019\u201d Trump claimed. \u201c\u2018My wife and I went out to dinner last night for the first time in four years. And Washington, D.C., is safe. And you did that in four days.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Trump said the military would help to \u201cliberate this City, scrape away the filth, and make it safe, clean, habitable and beautiful once more!\u201d in a Truth Social post<\/a>.\u00a0State governors and National Guard officials have used similar but more moderate language.<\/p>\n \u201cWe stand ready to support our partners in the National Capital Region and contribute to the collective effort of making our nation\u2019s capital a clean and safe environment,\u201d said West Virginia Adjutant General Maj. Gen. Jim Seward in a statement<\/a>. \u201cThe National Guard\u2019s unique capabilities and preparedness make it an invaluable partner in this important undertaking.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson repeatedly emphasized that Guard members would be involved in \u201carea beautification\u201d during a press briefing<\/a> last week. The defense official expressed exasperation at the comments. \u201cI wish someone would have asked Kingsley when she said it,\u201d said the official, noting that many people took it to mean that soldiers would be picking up trash. The Intercept then asked if it meant gardening. \u201cI don\u2019t imagine you\u2019ll see them necessarily planting flowers, but it could be,\u201d said the official, who offered that troops might also \u201cdo debris removal or something like that.\u201d<\/p>\n Correction: August 20, 2025, 4:05 p.m. ET<\/strong>\n
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This story has been updated to accurately reflect the daily cost of the D.C. troop deployment compared to the cost of operating affordable housing for D.C.\u2019s entire unhoused population. It originally stated that the cost was more than six times higher, when it is in fact more than four times higher.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n